Development of their game, Devil’s Tuning Fork

Kevin and Tony talk about Devil’s Tuning Fork

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/depaul-students-igf-gdc-2010-interview.mp3

Or listen to it here…

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Show Notes:
Interviewer: I’m here at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and with me today are two special guests for a game that’s in the IGF. How about you introduce yourself?

Kevin: Hi, my name is Kevin Geisler and I was the graphics and audio programmer.

Tony: My name’s Tony Perkins. I was the level design lead.

Interviewer: What game did you guys work on?

Tony: Devil’s Tuning Fork.

Interviewer: What’s that game about?

Tony: Devil’s Tuning Fork is basically a game about ecolocation and seeing the world through ecolocation. A brief summary of the story is that you’re a child. You fall into a coma and you wake up in this dream world where other children who have fallen in a coma are trapped. You have to progress through the world and release each of these children while solving puzzles along the way.

Interviewer: How did this idea come about? What inspired it and how did you submit to IGF?

Tony: Well, our concept started–when our team was first formed, we had a one month long period that was called Concept Boot Camp where we didn’t know what game we wanted to make at all to start. We had just met each other. We were on this team, and we started throwing and pitching games. Everybody pitched games: programmers, artists, designers. It doesn’t matter who, even producer pitches games. It doesn’t matter at this point. It was always back and forth and we had multitiered ways. At first, it would just be a pitch just off your head and what you wanted to do. If everybody liked it, you’d go to one pitch and we did Power Points. From there we did a physical prototype of two of the best ideas we came up with.

Interviewer: So, there was just a whole bunch of different ideas and then at the end of the month there was just two prototypes of the best ideas.

Tony: Yes, yes.

Interviewer: I guess, what did you take from that whole experience of spending a whole month coming up with ideas and prototyping and stuff like that?

Kevin: Well, one of the really helpful things was that we got to work with everybody on the team. And so, we would take these ideas and we would take other people’s ideas and repitch them in different ways to really get to know who was on our team and how they worked and to also get the best possible ideas out of it.

Interviewer: Do you feel that it was still waiting too long until the end to prototype the ideas? Did you try to prototype while you were kind of developing even in the first week of playing with the ideas?

Kevin: Well, I think we ended up prototyping for an additional week past what we were planning on doing. We maybe could have canceled that earlier, but both of the prototypes weren’t really at the stage where we wanted to push through. So, I think it was helpful just have that extra week to be sure of our decision moving forward.

Interviewer: So, you do these two prototypes. What’s the next stage? What happens? Do you just test out the prototypes?

Tony: Well, basically we get our prototypes up and then we look at them and decide what we like about them. We had to pick one of them, so it seemed like a lot of the team tended towards the echolocation game. So, we went ahead with it. The next idea was what ways do we want to push this out, and this was a very, extremely dirty process. We had ideas all over the place. We had our first concepts of a story idea which was wildly different than what we ended up with but it was a start.

So, we started pitching ideas, like, what did we want sound to do? How did we want to manipulate sound? What are cool ways we could use sounds like? We really got into another design session where we started having a bunch of games to work on. We just had our one game and we kind of had a path we were starting down but we don’t know. There’s so many branching ways that we would go. We wanted to know which one we had to pick. So, the next couple of weeks was just really picking the path we wanted to start down.

Interviewer: While you were exploring those paths, where you prototyping it then or was it more conception?

Kevin: Yeah, the technology was being worked on at the same time, testing on different shaders to see which actual visual designs worked in the engine and which didn’t. For instance, we were originally going to go with a Wolverton art style but ended up choosing Asher because the actual architecture that showed up on the game was a lot more clearly defined.

Interviewer: You know, you had 15 people on the team. How were you balancing just getting everyone feeling involved while you were doing all this?

Tony: At first, it was really difficult because we had a very democratic setup because we are all students. We’re not getting paid. We wanted everybody’s input, but the problem was we realized this, it wasn’t until about halfway through that we had a lot of difficult times coming to conclusions because we had to get 15 people to agree on one thing.

So, we eventually, halfway through the process, appointed Jay Pecho as project lead, and he would have the final say on everything. So, like, anything that came in, Jay would have the last word no matter how much disagreements there were. We put the responsibility on him, but we still kept our democratic–we had meetings where everybody on the team would have input, but we had a way to resolve things in the end so just breaking after a four hour meeting about the name of the game and not being able to come up with anything.

Interviewer: How did that work out and did you have other distinct roles, like someone who decides on the programming; someone who decides on the art work and stuff like that?

Tony: We definitely had very distinct break offs in the team. We had six people on programming, six people on art, two designers and one producer. So, everybody had their roles, but a lot of times in these creative meetings–a lot of people would just think it was just the designers coming up with the ideas but really the designers job was really to take all these ideas, organize them and make into workable mechanics for the game rather than only coming up with ideas that were out.

Interviewer: So, it’s pretty much like a leader of each section of the game, and everyone else just provides feedback for that leader to decide what’s going on.

Tony: Theoretically, that would be the best idea. It didn’t always work out that way for our team, but we’ve learned along the way that we did have appointed leads but we had a couple too many leads. Aside from just each discipline, we happened to have a story lead and a visual direction lead which it was important to have people that were in charge of things but naming them lead, they were also in on the lead meetings which lead means we actually got to the point where they were more than half the team and we were having the same problem as team meetings. But in the end it really came down to the team lead saying he was able to make decisions for all of us.

Interviewer: You were developing this during the summer. Then what happened when school started up again? How did that change everything, and how did you keep the momentum going?

Kevin: Well, it’s interesting because a lot of us were kind of worried because when we got to September and school starting, we weren’t necessarily happy with where the game had gotten to at that point yet. Miraculously through the fall quarter, everybody was extremely motivated and working really hard and we were really able to accomplish a lot of the goals we had set out. So, I think in a way we may have worked even harder during the fall quarter than we actually did during the summer.

Interviewer: Why do you think that is? Is that because then you had the support–like this was part of a class then at that point or because you had the designer in residence or what?

Kevin: Well, I think it was definitely helpful having Alex Seropian at the start of the project.

Interviewer: Who is the designer in residence at DePaul.

Kevin: Correct. It was definitely helpful having him at the start of the project and throughout the project just keeping us on track and giving us advice on how to continue the project.

Tony: I think another point–during the summer we had a lot of hours working on the game, but we didn’t really have a direction, like, we did a lot of brainstorming. So, we’d pitch and then people would start branching on what they were working on and we weren’t really focused. But towards the end, the last about two months of development, we knew the game we were making. We knew player abilities. We knew what they wanted to do. We were just, especially in the last month we made so much content for the game. We just had this clear direction, and everybody was just heads down and work. And we turned around and said, “This is what we made.”

Interviewer: Do you think the IGF deadline inspired you guys?

Tony: Oh most definitely. It gave us a very definite point that we needed to get done. I believe that if we didn’t have that clear deadline that we needed a hit, that we would have kind of worked a little less hard and messed around a bit, but a couple days before it was due we had an all night session where DePaul was open all night, and we just really–I literally worked from 9 a.m. Friday morning until 10 or 11 a.m. on Saturday, just sitting there straight.

Kevin: They even had the option to continue working on the game to fix bugs for resubmission. It wasn’t guaranteed that the judges would actually see it, but I think this really also pushed us to continue working on the game non-stop, really, for the next two weeks just trying to polish it as much as we could and get the most out of that extra time.

Interviewer: Can you talk about the play testing you were doing while you were developing this game? Who did you test it on, and did you notice any differences, either in response by different genders or age groups and stuff like that?

Tony: Oh yeah. So, our play testing was interesting because we wanted to run to IGF a game that was challenging to the player but was also accessible to a large audience. So, a lot of our play testing came from within DePaul and specifically in the CDN building, but we polled students and people that were experienced gamers. We also polled faculty and desk workers and staff and people that just had maybe a couple of extra hours or an hour or two for break or something. We just sat them down and let them play the game.

It was really interesting the feedback we got from that. It was a very mixed group. We had things from as far as “It’s hard to move the control. It’s hard to hit keys on the keyboard and move the mouse at the same time” to people saying, like “It’s too easy. I’ve been playing Counterstrike for six years. I can run through your game like nothing.”

It was hard to try and make it challenging enough for the first person player, like the very experienced gamer and also accessible for the new player. I think it was also something that helped that was really pushing our visual direction and thus a new style of play where everybody–like new players who will play games are kind of coming in and they’re like, “OK, I’m figuring this out. This is making sense. It’s intuitive.” But also the advanced players, they’re like, “Well, this is different than my shooting game. I need to slow down and learn this rather than just plow through it.”

Interviewer: Were there any surprises as you were doing the play testing other than those things?

Tony: Well, there’s always surprises when you’re going through a design because you get so close to something and then somebody else might say something and forces you to take that step back and look at it. I mean, a lot of things, and myself being a first person player, I’d make some puzzles or something and I would think were not too difficult. And somebody else saying, “This is impossible. I’m like, “Well, you just have to step sideways about five degrees and shoot it at this angle.” I’m like, “Oh wait. I guess that is a little hard.” It’s really just helpful. I’m always play testing because it forces you to take that step back and get out of your own little corner.

Interviewer: How frequently did you do that play testing?

Kevin: We really did it on a regular basis, at least, once a week. But we did it off and on throughout different ways. Sometimes, we’d e-mail different people or set up specific sessions for specific test levels or just for other certain deadlines and milestones.

Interviewer: So, you submit this game and then you have that two week crunch session afterwards. What did you do after that? Did you just focus on other games?

Kevin: You’re talking about after the IGF submission, right?

Interviewer: After the IGF submission, you had that two week crunch time.

Tony: The first thing we did was party. That was the very first thing. We celebrated because we had been working on this for six months, and it was finally ending. Right after the IGF submission, as Kevin said, we did have a little time to polish and possibly have the judges relook at it. I think all the judges got to look at our newer version because they had looked at the main competition submitted by students, but after that there was just the holidays came up right after that. And we just kind of broke apart and there was four or five weeks where nothing was done on the game because everybody was enjoying their holiday.

We came back after that, and we were like, “Well, we still want to do something with it. It may not work, but we kind of had a problem where we didn’t know which direction. So, it was kind of a slow start off. We’re actually still working on it now. We meet on Fridays and work on the game. It was kind of a stop, lull and then slow startup and then we started working again.

Kevin: There was actually a lot of preparation at the beginning of 2010 working with continuing the project. For the technology we had to refactor a lot of the code because hacking in the middle together just for the final submission was something that really needed to be cleaned up for continued production. On top of that, we were looking at forming our own company off of this so getting all of the preparation for that was also something we had to consider and work on.

Interviewer: Yeah, when did you guys find out that you guys were nominated, and how did that change everything? You talk about forming a company, so what’s next in store?

Tony: I remember we found out sometime in January. I just remember coming home one night and we had our own Skype chat talking about the game, an open Skype chat. There were hundreds of new messages. People would just go, “On my God. We’re excited.” We were, what’s going on here? It’s like–I remember the surprise of just opening up the Skype chat and just being flooded with the celebration. It was really unreal. It was great.

Interviewer: And you talk about forming a corporation. So, are you guys going to try to make a studio out of this? What’s the plan?

Kevin: Well, our goal right now is to actually complete a version of the game for June or July which is when most of us will be graduating. At the very least, we want to self-publish it through Steam for PC and Mac. We’re definitely looking through other publishers to see how far we can actually take this game.

Tony: It’s definitely opened the air what we’re doing. We want to keep working on it and make a viable product, whether that does lead to actual publication or not. We have talked about a lot of different possibilities and Steam being one of them. We’ve also looked at, maybe, trying a chance of going to XPLA or PSN. It’s all up in the air. There’s nothing anywhere certain, but we’re definitely going to be working on the game until June no matter what happens.

Interviewer: Based on this experience, do you guys want to start your own studio, or are you looking to join another studio?

Tony: Well, it’s different for everybody on the team. Personally, I would like to work more at other game studios and trade in on my experience before jumping in and trying t make my own company. I think making my own studio at some point would be interesting if I ever had the chance, but it would definitely be something I would need strong connections with everybody in the field. And I think working at other jobs and making other networking would definitely help with that. I don’t think I could jump straight out of college and do it.

Kevin: OK. I probably have about the same feelings as Tony. I do really enjoy this project and really haven’t stopped enjoying working on this particular game. So, continuing it until, at least, July if not further wouldn’t be so bad after all, but I am looking at different possibilities as well.

Interviewer: I guess, what are the biggest learning lessons you’ve had throughout this whole experience, things that you’re going to take with you as you work at other studios and work on future games?

Tony: Well, personally I think I’ve learned a lot about design and how input needs to be filtered and stuff that goes on. With this game, especially when we pushed out on our website to download, we have gotten a lot of feedback, and I had my e-mail tied directly to the feedback that was coming in, just the amount of feedback that’s coming in. You have to really look for trends and different things that people understand.

You have to be able to look at it and find out what’s just personal taste and what, maybe, people just don’t enjoy personally about the game rather than actually a game mechanic problem or something. I’ve had a lot of experience in design handling, feedback and also that includes within the team and outside the team and being able to just work with it.

Kevin: I think I really learned a lot about working with, at least, a decent sized team and actually learning how they work, learning how they operate and learning how to really collaborate with all the different people on the team. And how to make sure that my work is able to work well to improve the work of others on the team.

Interviewer: I guess that is different than most classes. What are the take-aways that you’ve had from working in a team and working with other personalities and stuff?

Kevin: Well, since we had a clear goal of what we wanted to do with this project which was to enter into the Independent Games Festival it was really important to work towards and complete that goal. So, nobody on the team wanted to be the person that was really holding anyone back. It really motivated them to work with other people and really improve everybody’s work on the team.

Interviewer: Where can people find out more information about the game, or is there a website for it?

Tony: Yeah. Information is available at devilstuningfork.com, and you can download the game there. There’s actually a bunch of information about it and articles and reviews about the game if you want to read other people’s opinions about what they experienced. Yeah. You can go there for any information that you want.

Interviewer: Thank you very much.