Questions and Answers
Last week I was interviewed by valeofhearts about my video game development experience. It was really cool that he reached out to me, and I was glad to answer his questions. You can check out the interview on his blog, but I’ve also included it here with some additional pictures. I expected my answers would be edited, so please forgive me if I ramble a bit and my grammar doesn’t line up!
What inspired the retro graphics in The Night That Speaks?
The Night That Speaks was sort of invented by accident. Game Boy Jam was going on during the time, and someone created this unity package that rendered 3D-scenes in a low-res, gameboy-esque style. I saw it on Twitter (http://roguenoodle.itch.io/gbcamera-for-unity …) and thought it would be cool to experiment with. I was feeling sort of exhausted that day, so I took a break from my main project to play around with the package. I recently had taken up an interest in horror games, and I thought that the low-res style would make it easier to create a spooky atmosphere without a ton of detailed 3d-models. I started building a basic room in Unity and set up some old-fashioned first person controls. I experimented with different lighting styles, shadows, edge-detection post-processing techniques, particles, color-ramps, and textures to see what looked good through this low-res filter. I kept playing with these until I found something that looked really cool. Then, I grabbed a free model of Shrek, and dumped a NavAgent on it so it stalks the player, then sent a build to my friends for a quick laugh. They thought it looked pretty cool, so I decided I’d devote the weekend to making this as complete a game as I could with the time I had. A friend helped me make a spookier monster than Shrek for the game, and then, that’s how The Night That Speaks was born!
The initial prototype featured Shrek. Smash Mouth played in reverse as it got close to you.
What first interested you in game design, and how did you get to where you are now?
I’ve actually wanted to make games ever since I was a kid. I loved playing games that let you design your own levels, and I eventually started using a free RPG maker tool (called OHRRPGCE) to make a much of small adventure games as a kid. As I went into highschool, I started using Game Maker to make more complex games, and then I went to university for Computer Science, which really helped flesh out my programming ability (I then used XNA to make most of my games). While I was in school, I made a lot of small games in my spare time. I think a great way to improve at game development is to just make whatever you can and as much as you can. It’s really rewarding and you’ll start learning a lot.
I made this game in Grade 5 with OHRRPGCE. I still have this backed up!
What do you find helps inspire or spark creativity for you?
Coming up with ideas can often be the hardest part of game development, and I don’t know if there’s any easy formula for creativity. Sometimes, I’ll see something in another game, and want to create it myself, but in the process, I put twists on it to make it unique or more interesting. Sometimes I’ll go through a list of games that I like, and then mash them together in my mind, and imagine what the result would be. Sometimes I’ll thinking of an everyday activity and imagine how I could build a game around it. Sometimes ideas just come out of nowhere! Often, I like developing prototypes by just throwing random things together and seeing what comes out of it. If it’s bad then I’ll scrap it, but if it looks promising I’ll keep going.
Our game jam game, GOATA, was the result of imagining what Terraria and DOTA would be like mashed together.
How do you and your team come up with graphical styles for your games?
How do we come up with graphical styles? Like the creative process, there’s no clear answer. We take inspiration from other games and media all the time. When working as a group, we’ll often say, “Oh I’m imagining this game to be a similar style to so-and-so game.” Sometimes we’ll do a quick sketch of what we want the game to look like and share it. Like most parts of game development, we iterate on the style as we go on. When considering styles, it’s important to consider the cost of using a particular style. Sometimes design choices need to be made based on what can be made to look as good as possible in the least amount of time possible, since we are always strapped for time. I personally like clean consistent styles in games.
The simple geometric art style of Pitfall Planet was both practical and interesting.
What is the history of Pitfall Planet’s design?
Pitfall Planet started as a school project. We had a single semester to design and create a game. At the end of the semester our game would be judged in a province-wide competition (we ended up winning first place ^_^). The class had us partnering with students from a nearby art school, and at our first meeting we threw around a bunch of ideas. One idea that took off well, was a silly-physics game about two astronauts coming home from a bar in space. One astronaut would be drunk, while the other would be trying to get them home safely. We have some initial prototypes of this game floating around, but it wasn’t working out. Eventually we kept the co-op but refined the gameplay, and we ended up creating Pitfall Planet! After winning the competition, we kept working on it over the summer to turn it into a full game. I’d like to finish it this coming month, but, we’ll see! Toad Treasure Tracker, Load Runner, Monument Valley, and Portal 2 Co-op were all inspirations for Pitfall Planet.
This is the initial prototype for the drunken astronauts game. The two guys would be attached by a tether, and hilarity would (theoretically) ensure!
What’s the most difficult part about game design to you?
Creativity has got to be the hardest part. Also, if you’re trying to sell a game, making it stand out from all the games being released is pretty tough. Oh, and also finishing a game- that’s really hard. It requires a fair amount of determination. I’d recommend trying competitions and game jams to get better at that.
How do you overcome it?
All those things are overcome in different ways, and there’s no clear answer. I guess just keep trying! Get feedback as soon as possible and know how to take feedback properly. Iterate all the time!
What do you really enjoy about making games?
I love watching people play my games. It’s kind of addicting to watch Let’s Plays of your game on YouTube. I also love that I get to merge my technical abilities with my creative abilities. Game development allows you to solve tough technical problems, create interesting visual experiences, and make things that people actually use and are passionate about. It’s the joy of creation mixed with satisfying problem solving.
Baby’s First House Fire was the first game I worked on to be Let’s Played by a number of people. It was really exciting!
What are your plans for the future?
For now, I plan to finish Pitfall Planet, then take a break working on some other small projects (small projects are more fun than big ones!). I have a bunch of old ideas I’ve never really brought to life, so I’d like to give them some attention. Running a team and handling the business aspects of game development is a lot of work. In the future I think I’d like to collaborate in a team where I can share more of that responsibility. I am also considering more traditional employment, since I put aside some decent job offers to pursue the indie route for a bit. Gotta pay those bills! For some general advice, if you’re interested in game development, I’d suggest that you should consider a computer programming / science / engineering degree rather than a game development degree, since there are other jobs to fall back on.
I’ve been working on other (secret!) side projects, which I’d to spend time on when I get the chance!
If you made it down here, thanks for reading! Sorry some of my later answers were brief, I was running out of time! Feel free to shoot me any more questions, I’d love to answer them :)
