As part of Pocket Gamer Connects London 2017, Alex Fleetwood, CEO of Sensible Object Games, gave a talk on the future of toys-to-life games.

He started by saying that "toys to life is on the way out", yet "smart toys are just getting started", as there I now a growing market for toys that work with games, not just putting characters into them.

This approach to making games may not appear viable for indies, but Fleetwood suggests that thanks to Kickstarter and other tools, it's entirely possible to make a smart toys game without selling the idea to a major publisher.

He outlined Sensible Object's approach to development, starting with a relatively cheap prototyping phase working out of a shared space, and using Unity to work on the game.

As for producing the toys, Fleetwood pointed to Hardware Club, a collection of indies that openly discuss manufacturing opportunities available, and that help each other out with understanding what steps to take.

"Our customer acquisition costs at this stage are quite low," he said, thanks to the novelty of the title and the studio's use of PR and influencers to help push the game.