What is The Maple Barrel?
We were two college friends, from one small state, and shared a similar dream. Seth forced his way to sit down with Michael at lunch freshman year, and honestly, it kind of went from there. We connected over food and games, and now here we are. We have started to build our shared dream; a game studio.
Vermont is a small state. A tiny state. Growing up in a rural area felt isolating. It's hard to meet people, hard to make plans, hard to get connected when the nearest anything is a 30-minute drive away. We felt that as kids. So we used games to close the gap. Games were how we hung out with friends, when hanging out wasn't easy. Games were how we strengthened the friendships we already had and formed new communities around something we loved. The memories we made playing games together, those aren't going anywhere. And because of that, neither are those connections. That's what this is about. It's about how two kids from Vermont turned that feeling into a mission and built a game studio around it.
We started The Maple Barrel because we are both suffering from the biggest folly of youth: we think we can do anything. We were both set to graduate Champlain College in 2025. Like a lot of recent years, it was a brutal time to break into the games’ industry as a fresh graduate. Mass layoffs, new technology shaking everything up, and a hiring market not exactly rolling out the welcome mat for people without ten years of experience. It was hard to picture landing somewhere we'd actually be happy. So we decided to try walking our own path.
Michael graduated with a degree in Game Programming. Seth graduated with a degree in Game Production. But beyond school, we had something else going for us, we'd already worked together. Both of us in food service, Seth running Front of House, and Michael in the Back. It was a tight-knit, stressful, thin-margin, time-sensitive, creative industry. Sound familiar? We got to see how each other worked under pressure. We learned our strengths and our weaknesses. By the time we started The Maple Barrel, we already knew how to split the kitchen.
We divided the studio the same way. Seth leads Front of House: community, marketing, legal, financial. Michael leads Back of House: game production, DevOps, pipelines. It's a clean split, and it works because we've already done it before. But not everything got divided. We both wanted the same thing from the start: to make fun multiplayer games that we could actually play with our friends. Games that bring people together and leave a lasting impression. That part never was up for debate.
Vermont shaped much of how we think. The winters up here are long and dark. The sun is gone by 3pm and you're stuck inside with your thoughts and whatever weird hobby you've decided to pick up that year. But then spring comes, and everyone stumbles out blinking into the sunlight, dragging their sourdough starter or their hand-carved furniture or their homemade hot sauce. The whole state blooms at once. People in Vermont do stuff. Interesting stuff. Because what else are you going to do? That exposure to scrappy, curious, low-resource creativity gave us the confidence to try something as difficult and uncertain as starting a studio. If Vermont winters teach you anything, it's that you can figure something out with what you've got. Mother necessity is a brutal and honest teacher.
The games we make exist because we love video games. We want to give people tools for making memorable, meaningful moments. That's the simplest way to put it. When The Maple Barrel designs a game, we design it around the team making it. The process of building something together leaves a mark, not just a product. The memories aren't only for the players, they're for the people in the trenches with us too.
We also understand something uncomfortable about the games’ industry: it's incredibly hard for junior developers to break in right now. Large studios aren't rushing to hire fresh graduates when there's an abundance of experienced talent to choose from. The ladder is pulled up. So we built something different. The Maple Barrel has roles and positions for people who want to do the work they love, on a schedule that works for them. Our systems are built to support asynchronous, mostly part-time contributors. People who maybe don't want a career in indie games, but who want to build something real, sharpen their skills, and have something to show for it. We're a place to grow, not just a place to ship.
Everything we do flows back to five things we actually believe.
Asynchronous. We're all remote. We're all working full-time elsewhere. So our tools: Goldberg, our agile framework, our workflows. They are built from the ground up to support people doing work on their own time, in their own time zone, without the whole thing falling apart if someone goes dark for a week.
Agile. Our team size changes. Our hours change. Life throws blockers. Our production system has to bend without breaking. Small steps, honest feedback, and the willingness to adjust when something isn't working.
Authentic. We want to show our work. Our production system, our games, our tools. We're proud of it and we want to share it. Transparency isn't a PR strategy for us, it's just how we operate.
Community-first. We build with players, not just for them. Our games only get better because testers and community members tell us the truth. Their opinions aren't nice-to-have. They're load-bearing.
Moment-driven. Co-op games with friends will always produce something worth remembering. A great mechanic is cool. A moment that makes your friend fall out of their chair laughing is what people talk about ten years later. We design for the second one.
We started The Maple Barrel the same way Vermont taught us to start anything. With limited resources, a lot of confidence, and the stubborn belief that something worth doing is worth figuring out. Two friends. One small state. A studio built around the idea that games are one of the best tools humans have ever made for connecting and staying connected to each other. We're not trying to be the biggest studio. We're trying to make games worth remembering. And a place where the people who make them remember it too. Vermont winters are long. Might as well build something.