It’s Saturday, springtime in Portland, and while most of us are standing in line for brunch, thumbing through vintage records, grooming our mustaches, and getting spring-themed tattoos, Justin Rice is knitting sweaters for strippers.

Like most of us, when we hear the name Justin Rice, we think shit-hot video game animator. How could we not? He’s the reason many of us got into games in the first place. When asked by my grandmother at the tender age of eight what I wanted to be when I grew up, I just looked up at her with my windex-blue eyes, spit on the ground and said, “Justin Rice, mam.” I didn’t even have to think about it. Never mind that he is ten years younger than me. Dreams don’t follow all your little rules of time and space. Dreams have their own rules. It’s why they’re called Dreams.

Now when I hear the name Justin Rice, I think of two things; animation, sweaters, and strippers. I guess that’s three things then.

Justin runs a local nonprofit here in Portland, called Sweaters for Strippers. According to the SFS website, their mission is to ensure the safety and warmth of Portland’s adult dancing community. “Strippers are forced to wear very little clothing,” says Justin, “which is fine when they’re on stage. But once outside they face the brutal weather of the Pacific Northwest. It’s unsafe. They could catch cold, or worse.”

Justin has every right to be concerned. Last year more strippers died of exposure than any other cause of death. At least according to Justin. His resolution to hand knit a sweater for every stripper in the Portland Metropolitan Area is nothing short of heroic. I must admit, going into this interview I had never given strippers a second thought, but after listening to this charismatic, modern day prophet-saint and his impassioned call to arms, I was moved to do something about it. Last week I donated $300 and a crate of yarn to SFS. I feel pretty good about it.

We close up the shop for the night and head over to the Acropolis for steak and drinks. Here Justin is in his element, chatting it up with his many fans and admiring the stitching on the girl’s sweaters. We finally make it to a quiet table in the corner and begin our interview.

PC: When did you realize your passion for sweaters? Did you always know, or was it one of those things that hit you one day, and suddenly you’re all, damn, I need to make them sweaters?

You Know, it’s one of those things that I didn’t know that I liked until I did it.  Turns out I’ve  got some pretty mad skills with a hot glue gun and some felt.  One thing lead to another and the next thing you know, I’ve got a pretty rad stripper Christmas sweater.  I didn’t win the contest I made it for though, I was beat by a massive mustache on his second year running.  I did however get stripper props for the sweater.  I can settle for that.

PC: If you had to list the following in order of priority, how would it go?

• Sweaters
• Strippers
• Beer
• Animation

Oh that’s a though one.  Lets see, I made the sweater for the strippers, but the sweater was sexier than a few of them… beer makes everything better, especially the two aforementioned things… and what was the last one?  …Next Question.

PC: People often mention they were born into their career. Like Angelina Jolie and Drew Barrymore were born into Hollywood.  Did you grow up in a similar situation? Were there animators or game developers in your family?

No, not in or around the old Rice household.  My mom fancied herself an interior designer at one point and my dad was a musician for a spell before I was born.  I think they probably played pong back in their day once or twice.  I just grew up hooked on the Disney Channel and watching Saturday morning cartoons.  I had a pretty close relationship with my bag of action figures, and they in turn had close relationships with my sister’s Barbies.  I rocked the Super Nintendo like a hurricane but have never been much of a hard core gamer type.  Blasphemy I know.  I think every time you say that a gamer somewhere loses a life.  “Quick, somebody clap your controllers together.”

PC: Who inspired you the most in your career? Are there people who drove you to be a better animator? What did they do?

I’m inspired by all kinds of folks.  Spike and Mike was a huge inspiration to me when I first started out.  I thought that show was the most rock and roll thing next to a rock and roll show.  Dustin Hoffman as Captain James Hook, that performance is still a treat to watch.  My wife and kids of course are a constant inspiration.  My Granny.  One of the most inspirational animation specific people I have had the privilege of knowing is the lovely Mrs. Marilyn Zornado.  Her passion for the art form is infectious and her knowledge of the industry limitless.  I think the most important thing these people did for me, minus Spike, Mike and Mr. Hoffman, is believe in me.

PC: You are the Animation Director for Marvel Super Hero Squad. You have been for a while now.

That’s not a question, don’t answer yet.

Fine I won’t.

What is it about that project that has kept your attention so long? Is there room to stretch as an animator in a game like that?

This game fits my style perfectly.  I love the exaggeration, grand poses, squash and stretch, and silly attitude of it.  We get to do awesome action oriented attack animations as well as cheesy acting in the gag ones.  There is such an array of stuff to work on and so much of it that I don’t think you can help but get better as an animator.  What more could a geeky little Marvel boy at heart want?

PC: What do you do to keep a team of animators passionate and in sync? Are they naturally into what they are doing, or do you need to prod them in the morning?

“Dun dun dunna duh, crack that wip!”  No, we discourage violence here at Supergenius… right?  We just keep them caffeinated, the rest is all them.  I’ve got a pretty rad team that loves what they do.  I just tell them what and when and they’re all over it.  We do enjoy sassing each other now and then which I think keeps things fresh.

PC: If you could choose your projects in the future, what would you work on?

Something with sweaters, strippers and beer.  Nah, I’m up for what ‘evs.  I could do without another fishing game though.

PC: What would you say to a young, flowering animator who wants to do what you do for a living? Should they go to school? Should they get a job in the mail room of a big company? Should they stalk someone like you on the way to your car after work?

Oooooo, I always wanted a stalker, non-violent of course.  How flattering would that be?  Probably wouldn’t get you the job though, best you could hope for is a quick gut kick from around the corner and then the sight of my sweet ass running away at top speed.  I’d say school is probably the best bet, or an apprenticeship; remember those from the dark ages? That could be cool.  Being around others that are passionate about the same thing helps tremendously, and of course practice, practice, practice.  If you fancy mail rooms I suppose you could give that a try.

PC: If my mom was alive today, what would she say about you?

I’ve been hit on by a friend’s mom before so perhaps she would say something nice about my hind quarters.  She into skinny white boys?  Sorry, was she?

PC: My mom is actually still alive. How dare you sully her good name! What’s next for Justin Rice?

I don’t know Boss Man, that kind of depends on you.  I think we should do a game that’s more relevant to current society.  Something like “Real Housewives of Compton: Shit Gets Real”,  or “Congress: The Game” where you turn it on and then just walk away, checking in now and again to make sure nothing has happened.

Justin Rice is an esteemed Animation Director for SuperGenius where he leads multiple teams on games like Marvel Super Hero Squad Online, Comic Combat, and Family Guy.

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Adam Danger Cook, 2D Art Director and habitual fantasy illustrator, greets me on the pebbly shoreline beneath the St John’s Bridge in North Portland. It’s a brisk forty-three degrees outside but you would never guess it watching him exit the river, exposed to the elements wearing nothing but a lime green Speedo, swim fins, and toting a thirty-six inch Mares Sten pneumatic spear gun.

He flashes a toothy grin at me and holds up a line with three rather impressive-looking steelhead attached. It appears I should probably cancel our table at Le Pigeon tonight, I think to myself.

The Art Director cuts an impressive figure at six feet two inches, with short blonde hair and snow-blue eyes, and his overly firm handshake nearly reduces my knuckles to beach pebbles. He introduces himself, despite the fact that we have been working together for several years, and asks if I’m hungry. I attempt to speak but he raises a finger as and says we shall speak after we dine as our ancestors did before us. Before I know it, he has built a tidy fire and is roasting all three fish on a makeshift spit. I ask him if he wants a jacket or something and he laughs and shakes his head. He explains to me that he runs hot on account of his Nordic blood, and proceeds to spin an unbelievable tale of rescuing a pod of Narwhal trapped in the sea ice off the north coast of Greenland wearing the same Speedos he sports for this interview. He claims to have survived three nights in the mouth of a sympathetic right whale, staving off hypothermia with the mammal’s regurgitated stomach acids and sustaining himself on the remnants of krill trapped in the baleen. The only damage being the loss of his left pinky toe after kicking a harpoon from the hands of a Japanese commercial fisherman who happened upon the pod, hoping for an easy kill. He eventually won the crew’s respect after a long night of Peach Schnapps and dice games and hitched a ride back to the states in their ninety-foot whaling vessel. He shows me the blackened stump where his pinky toe should be and I nod respectfully. This is a man in a league of his own.

After a satisfying meal (needed salt) we share a fifth of Wild Turkey around the fire and begin the interview.

PC: Just to get this out of the way, your middle name really is Danger. Did your parents have dreams that you would someday become a paraplegic after crashing a motorcycle into a flaming semi truck full of venomous snakes? Or a well-mustachioed porn star? What’s the story?

AC: My middle name really is “Danger.”  My parents will probably be the first to tell you that this wasn’t their idea.  They gave me one name when I was born, and my adopted family in the “Clan of Deadly Shadows” gave me a second after I passed initiation.  I think my parents are still holding out for the mustachioed porn star they always wanted in the family, but they accept me for who I am.  I think that’s what really matters.

PC: You got your start as an illustrator for Wizards of the Coast, correct? That is kind of the goal for anyone who grew up worshiping Frazetta and drawing scantily-clad warrior chicks on penis dragons. How did you manage that one?

AC: When I graduated from art school I realized that, to paint penis dragons properly, I needed to become a much better painter.  I got a day job to pay the bills and I got busy involving myself in the local art community.  Through meeting the locals,  I connected with my mentor, Lee Moyer.  He was kind enough to teach me the ins and outs of Photoshop and digital painting.

I began working for Lee, subcontracting on a few of his jobs – including a couple for Wizards of the Coast.  Eventually, I was able to impress an art director there and she gave me my first solo gig for the company.  Later that year, I was able to quit my day job and focus full time on freelance work.  It was just iron bikinis and dragons every day after that.

PC: There is a whole subculture in the Pacific Northwest of fantasy illustrators and card artists, I’ve discovered. Is Wizards the common element in this group? Do you all have a secret club you go to play D&D and drink absinthe? What is this secret club like? Who is involved? How much can you talk about without betraying your Dragon Brothers and Sisters?

AC: There may be a D&D brotherhood, but the only brotherhood I fear betraying is the aforementioned “Clan of Deadly Shadows.”

We definitely have a large population of artists here in the Pacific Northwest.  Wizards is just one client of many that local fantasy artists tend to contract for.  Comics, tattoos, fantasy art, video games – the artists that work on all of these tend to mingle in Stumptown.  When we get together, we drink and talk irreverently about anatomy.  I’ll have to try bringing absinthe sometime – that might add an element of mystery to future proceedings.

PC: What about video games? Was that a goal? Happenstance? Do you see yourself in games ten years from now?

AC: Working in video games wasn’t my goal out of college, but then again neither was illustration.  I initially came to Portland to become an animator.  I discovered that I didn’t enjoy 2D animation, but I did enjoy the problem-solving involved in telling a story with a single image.  So, I became an illustrator.

Illustration led me to card games and table-top gaming.  Being a digital painter that worked on those sorts of games led me to studio game work.  So far, working in video games is definitely my favorite field.  There’s more variety to the work and a large amount of new artistic territory to explore.  Plus, having co-workers beats working solely from home.   I can definitely see myself staying in games.

PC: Your wife, Traci, who is an extremely talented artist herself, works on your team with you. Is that weird? I would think that would be weird. You guys seem to work great together, which boggles my mind. Do you talk about work when you go home? Does it get in the way? I think I would spend a lot of nights sleeping on the couch because my wife didn’t like my critiques.

AC: Traci and I had a lot of practice working together before we came to SuperGenius.  We were both freelance artists, before I joined the staff here.  When you both work from home, it means spending a lot of time in the studio together.

I think working as a team in marriage draws many parallels to working as a team professionally.  You have to communicate, you have to be respectful and earn respect in return, and you need to continue actively working on maintaining and improving  your relationship (personal or professional) with the other person.  Plus, bonus carpool.

Before we started, we talked the situation over pretty extensively.  We both decided that we could make working together succeed, so that we could both work for a really great company.  At the end of the day, we’re both employed in the profession that we love.  I know it’s definitely not for everyone, but it seems to work for us.

PC: Since working at SuperGenius you have contributed to some pretty interesting projects. You’ve done a lot of work on the Marvel Super Hero Squad license. You worked with indie comics legend Graham Annable on both his Puzzle Agent games. You led the art direction on Forge. Do you have a favorite experience from any of those projects?

AC: Working on Super Hero Squad has been been a blast, and getting a chance to collaborate with Graham was truly a unique and gratifying experience.  I have to say, however, that leading the art direction charge on Forge has been my favorite gig at the studio so far.

Directing the first wave of concept art last year was incredibly fun.  I got to stretch my directing legs and the team turned out a lot of really inspired work.  Huge shout out to Traci, Chuck, Egil, Shaun, David and Eric.

PC: Do you have any underlining, or over-arching philosophy that informs your creative decisions? Anything that you can pass on to aspiring concept artists reading this?

AC: Commit to your craft.  If you don’t take your work  seriously, no one else will either.  The only one in charge of making you a better artist, is you.  As soon as you start helping yourself, people are going to take notice and extend a hand too.  I’ve seen this time and time again.

It’s important to develop good instincts and to be honest with yourself.  Sticking to your guns, when you truly believe you’re right, can be an admirable trait.  However, being able to listen to feedback, and accepting change when you realize someone else is right, will make you a better artist and collaborator in the long run.

Communicate, communicate, communicate.  If you’re running into difficulties on a project, say something.  If you’re having difficulty finding work, say something.  If you need resources, say something.  You can’t get what you need until you tell people what those needs are.  This will help you in all aspects of the industry.

PC: What’s next, Mister Danger Man?

AC: It’s all about SuperGenius.  Until I’m re-activated by the “Shadows,” I’m here.

Adam has contributed work to a variety of games and licenses, including Magic the Gathering, Dungeons and Dragons, Marvel Super Hero Squad, Elf Quest, GI Joe, Zynga games, Geowars, Forge, and Dire Wolf. His work can be seen at http://www.adamdangercook.com.

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We had more to celebrate than just a new space. 2012 was a megaballs year for SuperGenius:  We shipped a ton of new characters and environments for Marvel Super Hero Squad Online. Our hard work on the emotionally powerful Walking Dead games with Telltale Games helped propel it into one of the best-selling and highest-rated games of the year.We had the amazing opportunity to work with Activision and Fuzzy Door on the Family Guy game producing 30 minutes of original cutscenes that made us shoot beer out of our noses. Merge Games came to us in late 2011 to help them with Field and Stream Fishing for Windows 8, which we wrapped in 2012. Production was actually very relaxing on that title. Kind of like a fishing trip. We also just wrapped up development on our first truly co-developed title, Forge, alongside Dark Vale Games and Digital Confectioners which ships on Steam come December 5^th. Be sure and check out the open beta available at www.playforgewar.com.

On top of all these amazing projects, we spun off from our parent company, Funnelbox, and became an independent studio. SuperGenius Industries LLC. 2012 is definitely a year worth celebrating. So we did. And hard.

At one point it seemed like anyone who was anyone in the local media community was reveling under our roof. We had the press, podcasters, student and professional artists and animators from all areas, schools, state representatives, babies, dogs, you name it. It was quite a mix of people. It was magical and festive and brought so many interesting, creative,  beautiful and strange people together. I had a moment where I felt truly blessed to be in that particular place in time. Something that could never be replicated. I think I am finally becoming fully aware of the awesomeness and magic we have built here. It is a culture unto itself.

This was more than an Open House. It was also an art opening. Our walls were, and are still, covered from floor to ceiling in gorgeous art courtesy of the team and our friends and colleagues. We had traditional paintings, digital prints, and sculptures – including a few robots constructed out of old Firebird parts and dead animals – thanks to local legend Chris Truax. He thankfully agreed to letting us hang on to his original pieces.

The team put aside the first few hours of the party to review portfolios of prospective team members and we were able to recruit quite a few future SuperGenii. It is always a pleasure and a surprise to find more local talent, just when we think we have met everyone.

We had several kegs of local beer and cider, cases of local wine, food by New Seasons, and the coolest cake you have ever seen by local sugar artisans, Wrightberry’s.

Overall we had so much fun, we might just do an open house every year. For those of you who couldn’t make it, we missed you and strongly suggest you make it to Oregon next year. There are amazing things happening here and we are honored to be a part of it.

Ish in the background turns into the Hulk.

Naomi tries to blend in but impulsively gives away her location.

Chris is being lectured by Adam and a stranger. He knows what he did!

Justin is about to do something he knows he probably shouldn’t.

Hector attempts to explain Gangnam Style to a German exchange student

SuperGenius disguises itself as a gallery. And gets away with it.

Baby Propaganda by Dan Hecht

Dan’s daughter is ready

Kids are owning on Forge

The one getting owned

Paul and State Representative Bill Kennemer

Which one is the cake?

Turns out it’s this one.

Hardest thing we ever did was cut into this.

But we did anyway

She looks good in the lobby

An original Truax

Thankfully no one spilled beer on the machines

We thank all of you who came out to celebrate with us. You are are beautiful people.

The post SuperGenius Open House 2012 appeared first on Supergenius.

For those of you who don’t know what we’ve been doing the last six months we have been hard at work on our first co-developed title, Forge. www.playforgewar.com.

We are developing it alongside San Diego developer, Dark Vale Games, and New Zealand programming house, Digital Confectioners. SuperGenius is doing all the art, from concept to ship. We love this game. We have put everything we have into it and after playtesting it two weeks in a row, I believe this was a good call. It’s amazing. It’s addictive, fun, gorgeous, unique – everything we could ever ask for in a multiplayer PvP PC game.

However, we need help finishing it. We are developing this independently from a publisher and have been lucky enough to get privately funded up to this point. We are turning to the gaming public now to show their interest and help us polish it, add a few more features and ship it.

You can check out the Kickstarter page here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/166522941/1815022210?token=98b5cde0

As you can see we have a fancy fancy video, thanks to the team at Funnelbox and a collection of gameplay footage, screenshots, and concepts. The KS page says it all but I will not be completely lazy and wait for you to read it there. It is too important, so I’ll describe the game best I can in as few words as possible so I can only be accused of going half lazy.

Forge is a multiplayer, Player versus Player PC game set for digital distribution on the top online gaming stores. It is a 3^rd person game that plays like a 1^st person shooter. It is class based, so you play as one of 5 unique character classes: The Assassin, Warden, Pathfinder, Shaman, and Pyromancer. You also have the added benefit of animal and supernatural companions that assist you in battle. There are no guns, but as certain characters you can shoot projectiles like arrows, spells, and fireballs. It is fast paced, tightly designed, and totally addictive.

The goal was to build the perfect PvP game that allows you to jump in and play for 30 minutes and jump out. There is no grinding for better upgrades or even buying upgrades. Everyone is on a level playingfield from the day the start to the day they die. Forge is based on skill and how well you get to know your character’s abilities.

Have I mentioned that it is gorgeous? Of course SuperGenius did all the art, so I’m a little biased, but man, it is awesome looking. We went into it with the goal of eradicating clichés in the fantasy genre. This isn’t your typical knights and sorcery world. We mashed up Norse and Native American culture, took some liberties and embellished it, creating a unique world that we have never seen the likes of. We are very proud of it and want it to see the light of day.

We did not have a lot of funding to get to this point, but we got here anyway. SuperGenius is an incredibly frugal studio and we have produced over a million bucks worth of art production for a fraction of that. We knew that in order for Forge to be the game it aspires to be, it needed Triple A love all the way. And we gave it all of our love. Every inch of it. That’s a whole lotta love.

And that’s just us. This is Dark Vale’s design and they have proven themselves to be a developer to be reckoned with. And Digital Confectioners knows how to code a multiplayer game like nobody’s business. Combined we have formed a Tri Force. A holy Trinity. A Three’s Company even. If everything goes well, we will be making a lot of Forge for many years to come.

So that’s our story and we’re sticking to it. At the time of this writing we are at 131 backers and it just launched a few hours ago. I think this is a good sign. We have been cultivating a community ahead of time on the forums at www.playforgewar.com and we have over 10,000 dedicated members of the community. Everything tells us that this game will be a raging success if it makes it to launch. If you agree, and would like to play Forge yourself, I recommend you come and back the project. We have all kinds of crazy awesome rewards for different levels of contribution and beyond that, you will relish in the joys of killing your friends in creative, savage ways. Virtually of course.

We are hopefully about to make SuperGenius history again, thanks to fans like you.

Much Love,

The SuperGenius Team

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Back in those days, when Johnny Cash was still singing and airplane hijacking was something that happened in the eighties under Reagan, the aforementioned colleague and I left our tumultuous jobs at a failing game developer and set out to change the way game art was produced. The company we left was consistently plagued with high overhead and it made an impression on us. We believed we had come up with a solution to the overhead problem and we set out to build a business on it. We would help developers keep overhead costs down and do the same for ourselves in the process. We called ourselves an Art Resource Studio. Outsourcing, at the time, was another word for overseas call centers and it didn’t occur to us to label ourselves as such. It is still a term that gets under my skin.

We generally knew the obstacles that come with subcontracting a large team of offsite artists, but we got a full taste of it on our first project and it put us on a path to conquering every one. We were obsessed with making it work, and we did okay.

Using a variety of off-the-shelf web applications we constructed a system that worked as a virtual studio for our offsite subcontracting team. We designed, constructed, tweaked and polished till it did everything we needed it to. We approached it as if it were a franchise that we would eventually sell. This wasn’t so much because we wanted to sell it – although we did – as much as we wanted it to function as a product, with all the polish of a slick software application. If we were building it for someone else to run, a complete stranger, we would make its functionality and user-friendliness a priority. The system itself would be the business. If used correctly, anyone would be able to run it. This is the kind of wild-eyed optimism that only the founders of a startup can have. Growing up in the Silicon Valley I saw it all the time. Virtual reality would replace malls. The Segway would replace walking – that sort of thing. You drink your own Kool-Aid. Hell, in our case, we mainlined our Kool-Aid it into our eyeballs.

We were defining the science of art. We were science revolutionaries. We would take the human element out of art, entirely. That sentence alone still makes my skin crawl. But we were high on our Kool-Aid. We weren’t responsible for our actions. People were fallible, anyway. People made mistakes. People left too much open for interpretation. Systems, on the other hand, can be perfected. If mistakes were made, you tweak a process here, tweak another one there. Eventually you have perfection. People are a bit more complicated.

Our biggest target was art direction. It was too touchy feely. This was clearly a job for our new science of art. We systematized art direction. In our defense, our goal was to eradicate typical art director comments like “make it 50% more gray.” Or “Just make it more urban looking.” These are actual quotes I had documented in my notebook. Could you blame us for wanting to fix that?

It worked though. It actually worked and we built a fairly successful business on it. We produced a huge quantity of art for a lot of games. We were winning. There was just one nagging problem that wouldn’t go away. The passion problem.

For one, we didn’t know there was a passion problem. We didn’t know what the problem was and passion just wasn’t on our radar. Passion was unscientific. It had no place in our world. When we were faced with the nebulous – the problems that just couldn’t be pinned down – we just worked harder on the system, figuring it was a kink in the pipeline, not something flaky like passion. Passion could not be systematized, therefore it had no business in our business.

The passion problem was most notable during a visit to one of our high end clients in Southern California. We were working with them on a big movie tie in and their art team was world class. They were happy with the work we did for them, which we did a lot of. The quality was good. But not great. Their work, on the other hand, was beautiful. It had a certain quality and cohesiveness ours did not. There was no scientific explanation for it. We were using the same base textures. We even cannibalized some of their mesh. We could not nail it down to a number of features or techniques. We could not duplicate it. They saw it. We saw it. No one could fix it. There was a bright spotlight being shown on the hole in our system and we couldn’t do anything about it. We never did.

It wasn’t until years later, when I had walked away from the studio due to what I would call irreconcilable differences and started work at a traditional game developer that I was able to look back with a clear head and see what the problem was. Being back in a team setting gave me a new perspective on what we were trying to do, which was wrong on many levels. I was frustrated with this new team’s lack of process but really impressed with the quality of work they produced and the camaraderie of everyone on the team. There was a good energy there that wasn’t possible with an offsite team. The in-house team setting was naturally conducive to producing good work, even without a process. On the flip side of that, a scattered team of contractors was naturally conducive to chaos, requiring a process to rein it in to something coherent. We had approached the whole thing from the wrong angle.

Without any process or direction, a group of scattered subcontractors will produce disparate, incoherent work, naturally. They have nothing holding them together. So you have to work to bind them into a single cause. A team of artists sitting next to each other, however, will assemble of their own will and produce something coherent, without any intervention. You can see which direction would be better to start from.

Not helping things is the culture of subcontracting. Subcontractors are usually supplementing their income or working between salaried jobs. Not everyone, but most. It’s a tough life, the subcontractor has. It usually involves starving. As a subcontractor your biggest priority is getting your work done as quickly as possible so you can get paid. Of course, you have a reputation to maintain and you want to do good work, but reputation will always take a backseat to feeding yourself and your family and paying rent. You’re incentivized to move quickly and not take the extra time for love. I’ve been there. It’s hard to prioritize quality when your power is about to be shut off. It’s also hard to concentrate on the task at hand when you are constantly thinking about said power being shut off.

As an artist in a studio setting, you aren’t doing so bad. Even if you are having trouble making ends meet, there is a huge portion of the day you are focused on work, not bills. Not only that, but you are surrounded by others like you, working to make something great, and who need your help. You are part of a larger team, where there are people counting on you. You can’t avoid that. Work is a great distraction. It’s an even bigger distraction when you love what you are working on.

I know it’s very unscientific, but there is also the energy factor. An in-house art team works side by side, all day long for months on end. They pick up something extra, being there in the room with each other. It’s something invisible, but with tangible results. It is more than just the sharing of resources. It is more than a well written art bible. It is more than style reference. It is some kind of energy they collectively channel, making them more than the sum of their parts.

Maybe there is a scientific explanation for it. Maybe it’s an evolutionary advantage we have when hunting in groups.  Maybe the collective has a way of suppressing your personal concerns while you are in its company, allowing you to focus one hundred percent on the hunt. Maybe the solo hunter, by contrast is plagued with internal dialogue which makes concentration more difficult. Or it’s a supernatural phenomenon. It depends on the world you want to live in. Either way, the collective is more conducive to passion, and passion is necessary for making things great.

At my old studio, our team of subcontractors was scattered all over the United States. We did not work alongside them and they didn’t work alongside each other. I think that was a big problem. Many of them we never even met face to face. Our artists were experienced, highly talented and working within our very specific and thorough guidelines, but the work they produced seemed fractured and inconsistent when put side by side with some of our higher-profile client’s work. We produced good work and we were able to build a “successful” business with it. But that depends on how you define success. For most of the people I know, myself included, financial success with a mediocre product is a big fat failure.

So we started over. We hit it from the other side. We formed SuperGenius with a team in place. A good team. A team that without any outside intervention could produce high quality, cohesive work. From there we created our processes, but they existed to serve the team, not the other way around.

We then set out to define a culture of creativity, cooperation, and self-betterment. The kind of place where people push themselves and each other to do better work. Not by process, but by culture. The team’s motivation for doing the best work possible needs to come from within, not from an outside source like a list of rules. In order the team to be self-motivated, they have to be engaged and passionate about their work. Their position on the team has to be a destination, not a stepping stone or a supplement to their income. They have to want to be there for it to work. Instead of putting all our energy into some Frankenstein technical solution, our goal is to focus on making our studio a place people want to be. This has to involve good projects and a comfortable place to be eight to twelve hours a day, but it also means having the right people. It’s the people that bond and develop loyalty to each other. It’s the people that develop a dynamic of pushing each other to do the best work. It’s the people who want to do their part in the collective to produce something amazing. This is a culture thing and it comes from the bottom up, not the top down. This is not something that can be dictated by a CEO or followed like a process. The more of this kind of culture you have, the less management is needed.

This does not mean a flat company. A flat company may work for a company like Valve, but it doesn’t work in a business like ours. We will always need an org chart involving management. We just want as little of it as possible. We don’t want management to have to enforce something like quality. Our ultimate goal is to have a studio that self organizes and works under a collective constitution like a University. An institution where varying, even opposing opinions can be voiced and debated regarding quality, technique, and how to build the better mouse trap. These kinds of conversations are how a business, and even a whole industry evolves, especially a creative industry like games. After all, we do work in an industry that is very new and has the power to change the world at a fundamental level. It’s a pretty interesting playground and one that we have still only scratched the surface of.

The ideal may be just that, ideal. But it’s a cosmic goal, not a three year one. As long as we’re working towards it, we’re working in the right direction. And anyway, the reason we started this, and our first priority as a studio, is doing the best work possible for our client’s games. I don’t know if the work  defines the culture or if the culture defines the work. I imagine it’s more of a closed loop, each side powering each other. Neither of which would exist without the team.

On the ground level, an in-house team means more time for the Leads, without the need to write so many critiques and do paint-overs, then wait for the next asset delivery or update. This means bandwidth for focusing on doing better work. This means more cohesive art direction since everyone on the project is in sync. It also means we can do the kind of work we weren’t equipped to do before. More in-engine, technical work. Level design. VFX. And most importantly, animation, which until recently, was one of the hardest things to send out of house. Being robust has led some very interesting projects that have pushed us to the limit. We are currently codeveloping a game from the ground up, doing much deeper work than what we have traditionally done as an art studio. This could not be achieved if we didn’t have an in-house team.

Ten years from now I don’t believe I’ll remember SuperGenius as that studio we built after Johnny Cash died. I think the pattern will finally be broken. I believe it will be the origin story of a new kind of game development institution. A place that always recognizes the power of people working together towards a common goal. A place that is dedicated to the evolution of our craft. Whether it’s making the best looking game or pushing the boundaries of what games can do, it will always involve at least two or more people working together in the same room.

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After many months of observation researchers have discovered traits unique to this particular pack. They stare into cameras and prattle on and on about their jobs and how much they love their work. They also have an uncanny ability to finish each other’s sentences. Researchers believe this is due to years and years of isolation from the outside world with no one to talk to but each other. Eventually these creatures get trapped in a thought loop, obsessing over their work, which they are, incidentally, quite adept at. Fascinating creatures, the SuperGenii.

Video courtesy of BizFlix, a new service from Funnelbox, specializing in company profile videos. They hand crafted this little number for SuperGenius. Hats off to them for figuring out how to film us. We aren’t the most cooperative when it comes to being in front of a camera. www.bizflix.com.

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The Joy of Art Directing

Friday, June 15^th, we finally announced the original project we are in the middle of development on, Forge. Forge is a pure multiplayer game that takes the best design sensibilities from First Person Shooters, but without the guns or grind. It is set in a high fantasy universe but strays away from conventions normally associated with fantasy.

We are co-developing Forge with two other studios; Southern California startup, Dark Vale Games and New Zealand programming house, Digital Confectioners. Having multiple studios partner on a game is a great way to develop and something I believe we’ll be seeing more of in the years to come. It allows specialization studios to focus on what they do best. In our case, art and animation.

At SuperGenius, there are few things we love more than pure art direction.  We are at our best and happiest when we are brought in early on to help define the look of a game.  With Forge, we have had the pleasure of art directing the whole title, and we are loving every minute of it.

Adam Danger Cook, our 2D Art Director led the charge during the art direction phase and it was his team’s work that ultimately defined the look of the game.  We agreed with Dark Vale early on that we would have at least one month devoted purely to concepts and art direction.  This would be a dedicated time for broad strokes and laying down the foundation for not only art style, but environment and character design. Whatever Adam’s team ended up with at the end of those four weeks would be our style guide.  I think everyone agrees it was one of the best decisions we made.  That four weeks gave us the world of Forge and its characters.

We definitely give credit to the team at Dark Vale for giving us such rich fodder to draw from and they have been one of the best teams we have ever worked with, hands down.  We were sold on the game design early on by Tim Alvis, Dark Vale’s CTO and Lead Designer, and knew right away that it was something we wanted to be a part of.  Tim had a very complete vision of the game play which is what powered every one of our choices moving forward.  He also knew that we needed to stand apart from the usual medieval, Western European look that most high fantasy titles fall back on.  We couldn’t agree more. We set out to develop an art style that would accomplish this while still upholding the spirit of the genre.

I know many titles begin with this in mind, but end up slipping back into the same old patterns.  It’s too easy to do once you are neck deep in production. When you have 30 or 40 artists working on a game, it can wear an art director out, trying to keep everything consistent. Well written guidelines can be an art director’s best friend. We don’t begin any work without written guidelines, even small projects, and Forge called for very specific guidelines. In our experience, the best art direction begins with a set of rules so artists’ at least have the opportunity to break them.  As any game developer will attest to, nothing brings out creativity like a good ole fashioned set of constraints, so we moved forward with our first rule: begin with battle.

Beginning with Battle

Forge is about conflict, first and foremost. It is the heart of the game design.  We decided from the very beginning, everything we built was going to have its purpose in battle.  This would help us define everything man-made in the game, from costuming to architecture.  Any decorative architecture would be driven by either the need to frighten enemies, protect the occupants, or bolster the occupants with ferocity. The rest is functional. Structures need to look built to withstand the ultimate stress test; war. Walls, pillars, and statues would be huge and reinforced with metal.  Stone blocks would appear as if they were laid by giants. Wooden gates and doors would be built out of the entire tree for extra girth and protection.  If it didn’t hurt, frighten, or protect, it had no place in the game world.

Norse meets Inuit

We originally intended to draw most of our influence from Norse culture, which embodies a lot of the same battle-centric values we wanted to convey.  We were, however, dead set on standing apart from anything else out there.  Going for something fully Nordic would have meant rehashing many of the same elements used in games such as DragonAge or Skyrim.  Beautiful games, both of them, but they already exist. Some of our team members also worked on the original Mythica MMO from Microsoft, which was canceled in the early 2000’s and there might have been some pain left over from that.  Not a lot, mind you, but as an artist you get emotionally attached to the games you work on, and it can be especially devastating to lose a game you spent a year or more of your life on. We knew we need to mix things up a bit and take some roads less traveled.

We took an atlas and drew a line across the northern hemisphere.  We then made a list of all the cultures we could think of above that line – Russian, Mongolian, Celtic, Inuit, and Norse.  These were the ingredients for our first stab at the art direction.  We let that stew a while, but the same two cultures came up to the surface every time – Ancient Norse and Ancient Inuit.  There was something very intriguing about the mixing of these two cultures.  The Viking side had the heavy steel and stone and leather that we’ve all called on at some point, but the Inuit side always broke through, peppering the heaviness of the Viking clothing and architecture with tribal accoutrements – feathers, war paint, totems, and fur.  Not all of these were necessarily Inuit, but the tribal accents boosted the art with a kind of shamanistic savageness that compliments the war sensibilities of Forge.  Everything looked more ferocious when accented with war paint and feathers.  Pretty soon everything had a tribal accent to it that screamed warrior, blood and battle.  The two fit together incredibly well.

As a disclaimer, we would like to add that we took massive liberties with these cultures and when we refer to Inuit, or Norse, we are really referring partly to ancient Inuit and Norse, which is half-historical and half-imagination, on our part. The last thing we want is to offend any existing tribal nations with our poorly researched, fantastical reimagining of their cultures. As far as I know, no native tribes rode panthers into battle. That might have changed the outcome of the taking of the New World. Take that guns, germs and steel! I ride a F***ing panther!

Characters

Silhouette. Silhouette.  Silhouette.  It would be our battle cry if it didn’t sound so effeminate. The nature of Forge requires each character to have a unique silhouette, so that they can be recognized quickly from a distance.  Battlefields breed confusion and one of the quickest ways to discern who-is-who is by the shape of the character coming towards you.  As artists, we were hoping to negate the need for name plates, but I don’t know if that’s possible in a multiplayer game. Every character began with an exploration of silhouette and progressed from there.

Adam and his team produced several rounds of silhouettes for each character.  After each round, the best four or so would be picked to be taken to the next level – the tonal rough.  We then moved on to costume and armor details.  Having characters divided by class helped with their creation.  Each of the classes are distinct and lend themselves to certain predetermined specifics, such as their size and shape.  The Warden, for instance, is a defensive “tank” character and needed to be big and intimidating.  The Assassin, being well, “Assassiny,” relies on stealth, and therefore needs to be smaller and built for sneaking around in the shadows, scaling buildings and stalking prey from the rooftops and the thick of the forest.  Once we had these attributes solidified, we moved onto costume design, or what my wife calls “outfits.” This is always a lot of fun. “Her outfit is cute, but I think her shoes need matching bear teeth.” It’s like being a costume designer only we get to work with seasoned killers instead of Tyra Banks.

The Strength of Female Characters

One of the calls the team made early on was to shake loose from two clichés many modern games have fallen into.  Strong characters are almost always many men, and female characters almost always wear ridiculous armor that is built more to flaunt fleshy bits than to protect from a swinging weapon.  It was strongly felt amongst the team that we could make a kick-ass female Warden and Assassin that were both fun to play and functionally clothed.  Well, not so much functional, but not something you would see on the cover of a geek Maxim, either. Coincidentally, Viking culture includes the Shield Maiden – a historical embodiment of a strong female character – which we drew on for inspiration.  Once character design got underway, it became apparent that this was the right call. We knew we risked alienating some fans who are very interested in seeing fleshy babes in fantasy lingerie, but we felt the majority of gamers, both male and female, would appreciate strong female characters that kicked ass instead of flaunting it.

That said there are no thigh high boots and no revealing cleavage.  No short shorts and fishnet mail. The Warden is a big, scary female warrior and anyone will think twice before slapping her ass. In a perfect world, Forge would be that one PVP game that appeals to all genders. We can hope.

Every Good Character Needs a Story

The creative team at SuperGenius approaches everything by addressing its back-story first.  It does not necessarily matter that the story makes it into the game, so long as it has been considered.  A thing’s history is what gives it weight and a reason to exist.  Every pillar, every wall, every gravestone has a story – a “Where?” “Why?” and “How?”  The result is a tangible element, with purpose, that lends credibility to the world it exists in.

A notable demonstration of this point is the Assassin’s design.  While this is not something emphasized in the game at all, we pictured the Assassin from the far north, where civilization is more tribal-based and they live off of the land. The Assassin comes from a place where whaling knives are a common weapon and animal skins are the base material for most clothing and domiciles. The Assassin is decked out in animal furs and appears a bit more tribal than her fellow warriors. Adam applied face paint to her in the shape of a skull and it cemented her aesthetic in the tribal realm.  She looks fierce, as if she just came out of an Arctic winter and she is completely believable – like something out of a National Geographic.  I love that about her.  Back-story elevates our characters from two dimensional avatars into living, breathing people who you can relate to and root for.

Architecture, Animals and Totems

Creating the look of Forge’s architecture was a bit more challenging than designing its characters.  Dark Vale liked the idea of having lots of giant stone structures, but ancient Inuit did not build with stone, and while the Vikings did in many cases, their buildings were nowhere near as grand and monolithic as we wanted. There was no historical imagery to draw from for reference, really. At least nothing that fit the aesthetic of the game world we were intent on making.  We knew the architecture had to be monolithic and larger than life, but to achieve this we had to make it up completely from scratch.  The end result crosses many cultures but doesn’t settle on any particular one. We are hoping this will reduce complaints from historically minded gamers.

One of the early breakthroughs we had was that this culture worshiped animals, or more specifically, animal familiars, which is appropriate considering the nature of the game.  Whenever a building started looking a little too European, we decorated it with fierce animal statues and animal motifs. It always brought it back to that savage, battle-centric place where we wanted to be.

Motifs

After working on quite a few high fantasy titles, not to mention playing them, there is one particular element I come across and over the years it has started to get to me – decorative motifs. It seems the same arches and pillars show up in every fantasy game. You know the ones I’m talking about. They look like any European or Greek pillars and arches, and they all have a very similar decorative swirly motif. I noticed this while working on Ultima Online years back.   As an artist, you are stuck wanting to decorate a pillar, so you search Google images and find decorative borders, either for books or free vector images.  They work perfectly for embossing stone work.  They are ready-to-go medieval motifs.  It works, but it’s lazy.  Being guilty of this myself, I am always quick to spot it in games I am playing and I think, “hah, you too huh?”  This is something we wanted to avoid with Forge.

One of our concept artists, Chuck Lukacs, on top of being an incredible artist and author, is a teacher of traditional art at a nearby art college.  He spends his spare time doing wood carvings and engravings instead of playing games like the rest of us. He’s not only an amazing digital artist, but one of the most accomplished traditional artists I know.  We put him to work for several weeks on nothing but motifs.  Horizontal motifs, arch motifs, vertical motifs, square motifs – you name it. He is our Motif King.

We focused on sets revolving around Wolf, Bear and Crow, which was one of our early stabs at mythology.  The three animals were perfect subjects, and by the time we finished we had several sets of motifs for each animal. These motifs went into our image library and were made available for use by the environment artists.  Having custom motifs not only helped unify the art direction in the game, it also saved a lot of time in the end.  No artist had to search Google images for motifs even once.  Instead, they had only to go through our custom image library and grab a motif best suited their asset. Being in the middle of asset production at this point, I can confidently say it is working exactly how we intended. This is a technique we will definitely utilize again.

We are now moving full-speed-ahead in production and are watching the worlds and characters come to life.  Every day something new comes off the line that gets everyone excited. There are no words that can accurately describe the pride I have in the team here at SuperGenius. Their dedication to making Forge the best looking game possible is inspiring. The characters look like the concepts come to life and we owe so much of it to the time we spent art directing. Even though it was short, we made the best of that time and defined something truly compelling and unique. Between Dark Vale, Digital Confectioners, and SuperGenius, we have some of the best, brightest, and most talented veterans in the industry on this, along with a whole new generation of incredibly talented, young artists who are proving themselves worthy of a seat in game development Valhalla. We are consistently inspired, humbled and proud to be working with such incredible talent.

And of course there is the concept team, who laid the groundwork that would become Forge. Not only are they an absolute pleasure to work with, but simply amazing to watch in action. Traci, Egil, David, Chuck, Shawn, Eric and of course, Adam, who has led them all with impeccable care and creativity.

Concepts and other art will be published as they are announced on the following websites:

http://www.playforgewar.com/

http://www.facebook.com/playforgewar

The post FORGE Developer Diary: Art Direction appeared first on Supergenius.

I should probably rephrase that, lest we insult the legendary adventure games from years past. Day of the Tentacle, Monkey Island, Grim Fandango – these are some of the world’s most beloved adventure games of all time. It’s hard to imagine any game reviewed more lovingly than these icons. But while these games will forever go down in history for their charm, inventiveness, story, and beautiful art their sales have never matched their legendary status, or their influence.

Not true with The Walking Dead. Not only has it received epic reviews by every major publication, blog and fansite out there, but it has sold like a mother****.

We could not be more proud to help produce such a well-crafted piece of entertainment. Telltale really knocked it out of the park with this one. The Walking Dead is a perfect example of the kind of work we built the studio for. We aimed from the very beginning to work on games that transcend formula and the status quo and help propel the medium into a higher art form. We believe we have done this with The Walking Dead.

I would like to thank the team at Telltale for once again rising above the crowd and making something unique to our industry; a game with soul.

I would also like to thank the amazing animators at SuperGenius for working so hard to breathe life, personality, and emotion into the characters they possess. Bryan, Justin, Brice, Ish, Alex, Ryan, Naomi, Jeffrey, and Greg – you all perfectly embody the spirit of our studio, which is an unbending, uncompromising, commitment to producing the best work in the industry, and SuperGenius a place that could never be replicated in any other time or space.

http://www.ign.com/games/the-walking-dead-the-game/ps3-100887

The post The Walking Dead Game is Amazing appeared first on Supergenius.

So here it is. The game that we have given our 2012 to. Forge. On the SuperGenius side alone, we have over 40 of the best artists and animators in Portland working day and night on it.

Forge is the object of our affection. The eternal crush. We care deeply about it, as more than just a friend. We like like it. You know?

Forge is a joint effort between SuperGenius, Dark Vale Games, and New Zealand game house, Digital Confectioners. Dark Vale came to us with the idea for the project in early 2012 and we have been in love ever since. They had the design and some funding and needed a creative partner to develop the art from concept to release with them. It was an opportunity for us to show what we can do when given the art direction reigns and put to work, rigorously, every discipline our studio has to offer. From concepts to VFX to characters, environments, world building, design – everything we do focused on one epic, multiplayer fantasy title (yet so much more than just that). I think we have done pretty damn well if I do say so myself. I have never been prouder of the team here at SuperGenius than I am now, watching this game take shape out of the ether.

Forge is a multiplayer fantasy game developed in Unreal 3 for PC with Steam as our preferred method of distribution. It is class-based, like Team Fortress with unique characters that possess their own compelling mechanics. Only there are no guns, grenades, or soldiers. Forge is distinctly fantasy-based with interesting weapons, magic, and animal and supernatural allies that fight alongside you. It plays like an FPS but with a third person camera so you can see your characters moving like deadly, graceful animals as you stalk your next kill.

Fantasy is a tough genre to squeeze it in. I don’t believe that label does it a great service. Forge is not your average knights and dragons type of game. We set out to build a completely unique world with culture and influences mashed together in ways we hadn’t seen before. For instance, the first faction we are introducing is from the north and marries ancient Norse and Inuit cultures in clothing, weapons and architectural design. It’s shamanistic, savage, beautiful and menacing. We used a lot of animals in the making of this game. They were harmed, but it was for a cause bigger than us, or them. I’m sure they understand.

The first phase of the game is shipping with five classes and four arenas. Each character class comes with their own animal or supernatural companion. The Assassin has the Panther. The Pathfinder, the Wolf. I had others listed here but they are secret characters at the moment so I have to keep my mouth shut.

We also mixed it up when it comes to gender roles. You’ll see some of this when they are finally released from secrecy. We have worked very hard to steer from clichés and typical sexy female character is no exception. Or characters are mean and savage. You would need to have some very specific interests to get worked up over them. Totally cool if you do though. I don’t judge.

I have never been more proud of SuperGenius than I am now. They have demonstrated their Triple A stock every step of the way making Forge and they deserve a standing ovation. Our partners, Dark Vale have been creative powerhouses, detailing every inch of this game and making sure it delivers the kind of cracked out, addictive, Player versus Player experience that belongs in the Valhalla of interactive entertainment. I only hope enough people hear about it and get the chance to play it so they can experience it for themselves and spread the word.

You see, Forge is an indy game, and like most indy games it doesn’t have the marketing power that a mega publisher wields. It is up to us and the people we can reach to get it out there and into the hands of gamers everywhere. This is where we rely on the theory that if you make something truly beautiful, that stands out from the crowd, it will be successful. I know this theory isn’t always solid so we have some plans for getting this thing noticed, but when it comes down to it, we will rely on the savvy gamers who pick this thing up early to tell their friends and spread the word.

In the meantime here are some press releases and various media. This is what we can show at this point. The game is pre alpha, which means the art isn’t final and doesn’t yet have the polish it needs. We’ll be sending out some updates in the next few weeks as things progress.

http://www.mpogd.com/news/?ID=10558

http://www.incgamers.com/2012/06/forge-promises-pure-pvp/

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/forge/1225097p1.html

3

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The story takes place many years ago at a small game development shop in San Francisco. I was a newly appointed Art Director on a Playstation port of a very popular arcade title. I use the term “port” very loosely, as this project was a port in label and budget only. A true port should not suck the life out of its developers, leaving a crusty dry corpse in their stead. That kind of sickness should be limited to original titles, resurrected classics, and movie tie ins. Not this time. Because of the limitations of our engine and the console, we had to build the entire game from scratch, art and all. The project warranted a team three times the size of what we had and a budget to support it. I also warrant a single malt scotch every night after work, but it doesn’t mean I’m getting one.

There are many people at fault for the situation we were in, but it is my own that concerns me. The experience was so painful it almost cost me my job and my marriage. Almost, but it didn’t. I even got a life lesson for my troubles, the value of which I would not fully appreciate for years to come.

I blame myself, because I should have known better. I should have realized our mission was doomed from the start. As an Art Director, I should have been able to see it from a mile away and made my case. But in truth, I was no Art Director, and I didn’t know the value of visibility.

I was not an Art Director. I had the title, but none of the experience or knowledge that should come with it. Instead of experience and knowledge I had an ego and an attitude and an impressive title that granted me a lot of authority. I went into the port project believing I could do no wrong. We had recently performed a small miracle and shipped a game no one thought would ship. I had turned the art around in a short amount of time and was rewarded with an Art Director title. There is nothing more dangerous or destructive as an arrogant youth with authority and a big title. Especially when money and jobs are on the line.

In my defense, I had a modicum of talent and I was a wickedly hard worker. I practically lived at the office. Sixteen hours was a normal workday for me. I even designed game screens from my sketchbook during my morning commute to maximize my productivity. You could say hard work was my tool of choice. I was raised to believe hard work was the key to success and was always rewarded appropriately. Thanks Dad! While this is a fine family value to carry with you, it doesn’t explain the billions of impoverished workers who put in eighteen hours a day and could never hope to own a home or even go to the doctor. Hard work means jack if it’s aimed in the wrong direction. Hard work is nothing without visibility.

Six months into the project we were as behind as a game could be without starting over. My team most likely wanted me dead. I tried everything I could think of to pull us out of it – all of which included working harder. This is the tactical equivalent of my dog digging at the hardwood floor trying to get to the ball in the basement. Digging is all my dog knows. It has never occurred to him to take the stairs.

Eventually our publisher caught on to our shenanigans and called in the arcade team to pay us a little visit, which is how I met The Dinosaur. This brought on a plague of righteous indignation the likes the world has never seen. We were the Vanguard of game development! We were the new Technocrats leading the charge in the world of console development! The arcade team was a bunch of bitter old dinosaurs who didn’t know their time was at hand. Looking back I wish I valued experience and wisdom as much as I do now. There are so many people I could have learned from if I only had the intelligence to set my ego aside for a minute to learn from those smarter and more experienced than I. Here I was given the opportunity to meet with the original pioneers of video gaming, true life legends in our industry, and all I could think about was how degrading it was to be told how to do my job by a bunch of old guys.

Old or not, they showed up very much alive and well, but none too happy, I’m sure, to be there. I was glued to my monitor, wrestling with the engine as usual, trying to export terrain tiles. I had my art team in the room with me. I’m sure we made a sorry sight, all pale and sleep deprived. The Dinosaur lumbered into my office. I say lumbered because he was a big man. Very big. About 6’4 with a full bushy beard. He was an Art Director from a different generation. He might have been mistaken for a longshoreman. In another time he would have worn chainmail and carried a bloodied war hammer. He made for an intimidating figure, especially considering the mood he was in. I’m sure he felt he had better things to be doing with his time than babysit a bunch of punk kids working on a console game. While we thought them facing extinction, working in a dying medium, they believed we were nothing more than fad toy makers who would be replaced in a year by the next big thing. It turns out we were right. In two years arcades would be dead and consoles would reign for many years to come. Not because we were better, smarter, or more talented in any way. We were just in the right place at the right time. Now that I am older and a little bit wiser, I have nothing but the most profound respect for our arcade pioneers. I wouldn’t have a career of it weren’t for them. We wouldn’t have any of this.

Back in that old Victorian-turned game studio that day I did not have the gratitude I have now. I had nothing but contempt. The Dinosaur cut right to the chase and began asking questions. He recorded my answers on a Palm Pilot. I had to admit that was kind of impressive. He was years ahead of me in his use of tools. I wasn’t going to let that throw me though. I leaned back in my chair with my arms crossed, all smug like. Bring it on, I thought. I think I planned on staring him down, but when he looked at me, he didn’t really look at me. He looked through me. As if I wasn’t worth his eye contact. That was the beginning of the end. He asked how many levels we had left to do. I told him. He asked how long it took to complete a level. I told him I didn’t know. I hadn’t yet completed one. He continued asking questions and all I had in return were pathetic, vague, non-answers. Each question painted a clearer picture of who I was as an Art Director. I wasn’t one!

An Art Director – a real Art Director – would have had answers to every one of these questions. I could take that a step further and say an adult wouldn’t have gone into that meeting with the attitude I had. Not only was I not an Art Director, but I wasn’t even an adult! The questions were obvious and should have been expected. They were crucial questions. They all contained a central theme. What was my visibility? The answer was I didn’t have any. I had no visibility and I was no Art Director. The Dinosaur standing in front of me had more visibility in ten minutes than I had in six months of working on the game. The Dinosaur was a real Art Director. He was a professional. I was not a professional. I was just someone who worked in games. Incidently this is a distinction that would stick with me for the rest of my career. Over the years I have met more people who work in games than I have met professionals. There is a huge difference. Before I met a real Art Director I simply worked in games. It was afterwards I became a professional. In truth, it was probably even a few years after that. I had learned the value of visibility that day. It took me a lot longer to learn how to achieve it. Even longer to be good at it. I can tell you now that I’m not as good at it as I should be. No one can be good enough at visibility.

Twenty minutes after meeting The Dinosaur I had been stripped of my ego, my rank, and my self importance. It was painful. Necessary, but very painful. He finished entering some numbers into his Pilot and said, “Days like this I wish I stayed in the restaurant business.” I tried to think of something clever to say in return. Something that would shorten the gap between us. Maybe bond on our past lives in food service. The gap was too far and wide though, and it would be years before I would shorten it. Not that it would have done me any good. I never saw him again.

“I used to be a bartender,” I said. He looked at me. His look was not of contempt, annoyance, or any of the sort I would have expected. It was so much worse. It was pity. It was him saying I should have stayed a bartender. He put his device away and walked out.

I turned around to my team, knowing full well they had just witnessed my death – the career kind. They were staring at their monitors. I hoped maybe they were so involved in their work they missed the whole exchange. Their animated screensavers said otherwise.

A short time later – a few days, a week – our publishers showed up and shut down the project. They collected their dev kits and went home. We convened at the bar downstairs and threw ourselves a “canceled” party. We got very drunk and fed our egos best we could. We talked about the original titles we were planning on shipping. We talked about making the next Crash Bandicoot, or Resident Evil. We complimented each other more that night than we had in five years. Joe was the best Producer in the industry. Kurt could make a Playstation sing. Mike was the next Myamoto. We felt better about ourselves. The company even lasted another year before it closed down for good, but that’s another story for another time.

These days visibility is the most important tool I have in my quiver. It trumps everything. I can never have enough of it. Visibility is about gathering information and creating a road map for where you are heading. Visibility is the reason we annoy our clients with so many questions at the beginning of a project, though most understand why. Many of our clients share our appreciation for visibility.

In risk of sounding like Donald Rumsfeld, visibility is about separating the knowns from the unknowns. There are plenty of knowns to work with. Every project has a start and an end date. Certain tasks take a specific amount of man hours. Certain materials are needed before you can move forward. There are also the knowns of experience. Having been derailed in the past by so many random events, you can keep contingency plans in your back pocket for the ones that are most likely to repeat. These are all the knowns you collect at the beginning of a project and use to build visibility. Then there are the unknowns.

The unknowns are the phantoms, the ghosts in the machine – unforeseeable incidents that you don’t have contingency plans for, because there are no precedents. These are usually technical but the worst kind are self-inflicted. These are unknowns that should be knowns, but you don’t face them. The arcade port, for instance – I should have known we hadn’t the time or resources to ship the game. The reason I didn’t have the visibility I needed was purely out of fear of discovering the truth – that it couldn’t be done. Instead of planning, I went straight to work, distracting myself with that feeling of getting something done. This is a grave mistake and I see it all the time in games. That feeling of productivity is like a warm, fuzzy blanket of ignorance that lulls you into a false sense of security – until it’s too late. I’ve seen so many teams work themselves to death trying to ship inside an impossible schedule. We all know the specter of crunch so well that it’s become as integrated into our culture as the games themselves. There are so many legendary stories of teams working all-nighters for months on end, to barely make it to the finish line. The best stories are the ones that lead to a hit title. Naturally, we love our victory stories. They’re the mythology of our industry. The stories that aren’t told so much are the failures. For every success, there are twenty or thirty failures. Most teams end with a whimper and no game to show for their troubles. Every one of these failures, and successes, have their roots in visibility.

I now have multiple teams to run. Each team is managed by a Lead, which is basically an Art Director. They are all amazing, talented people and I am honored to work with them. Some have had much longer careers than others and have gone through similar catastrophes as me. Many, however, have had more victories than failures here at SG, which I am grateful for. It makes for a positive culture. I want our culture to embrace visibility as much as it does positivity. I just don’t want anyone to have to endure the pain and humiliation I did to learn its value. I know experience is the best teacher but it has a tendency to lay it on a bit thick with the pain and suffering and all. I’m hoping I suffered enough for everyone here and no one will need to be slapped upside the head by a dinosaur.

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