Donald Harris

Here it is with out further delay the interview with the team of Paperchild Studios:

Monji’s responses:

How many team members make up PCS?

Three full-time members (Enrico Crevecouer, Michael Lubker, and myself Monjoni “Monji” Osso) and around a dozen contractors and assistants

What is your role in the studio?

I’m the Lead Designer and QA Lead for Paper Child Studio. I also handle the creation of blog posts, tweets, manage some hires, and generally do whatever I can that needs to be done.

What was the main inspiration for Purify Puzzle?

Purify Puzzle is Enrico’s creation, modified a bit by myself. It’s inspired by our love of classic arcade games; the challenge, difficulty, and opportunity for growth that games like Puzzle Bobble and Puzzle Fighter had were major influences. Visually, the game’s anime-inspired look was developed by artists Christina Beard and Andrew Soman. We’re all big fans of anime and, given that the source of gameplay inspiration was Japanese as well, it was a pretty great fit.

What tech was used to build Purify Puzzle?

Purify Puzzle is built on the Scarlet Engine, an internal engine developed by Enrico over the last four years.

Enrico’s responses:

Explain the name Paper Child Studios?

As we were brainstorming a name for the company, my team members became intrigued by the image looming on my desktop ( http://www.paperchild.com/PaperCraftWall.jpg ). I explained that it was a “paper child.” We loved the cleverness of the art and felt it represented us well and immediately added it as a potential studio name. When we trimmed down the list to the last few candidates it was the only name that was easy recognizable, sounded good, and had the domain name available.

How many team members make up PCS?

We have three primary members: I’m Lead Programmer and the studio founder, our Producer and Business Developer Michael Lubker, and Lead Designer Monjoni Osso. We also have a number of contractors who are currently working with us.

What was the main inspiration for Purify Puzzle?

Old school arcade puzzle games which I used to play as a kid. It seemed like a good project to start out with.

What tech was used to build Purify Puzzle?

Our tech was built by me. We call it the Scarlet Engine internally.

It looks like Paper Child Studios also does traditional application development. What made your team turn to games?

We are a game studio first. It just took longer to make the game than the app! We make apps as way to bring in additional revenue so that we can make better games. This isn’t to say we don’t like making apps, or that we make them just for cash. We are passionate about our apps as well, but game development was our goal from the beginning.

From my audience participation portion, I also had a reader make negative comments about your site. The current design is one that looks at first to be a strictly business site and not one of gaming. Do you have any plans in the future to make changes to your site?

I ended up making that website myself, and I’m a programmer, so of course it looks like it’s all business! However, we now have artists and designers taking care of things so we do have plans to change it up. Stay tuned.

How did you make the choice to go from standard application development to gaming?

We are a game studio first. Like I stated before, we started out making both at once. It just took longer to make the game than the app.

When you made the change from app development to gaming did you find any differences in the design, build and testing processes?

We started both at once so there really wasn’t any transition. Testing for apps is not as rigorous as game testing, but I think this is because the app we made was simpler than our game. When it comes to design of course its different when you design an application versus a game. For games we were primarily designing the gameplay/fun factor, and the world in which that gameplay resides. Apps are more about the user interface and usability. UI and usability design is needed for games as well but apps feel more way more rigorous and involved in this regard. Our build and testing process pretty much stayed the same between the two.

Michael’s Responses:

What is your role in the studio?

I am the Producer and Business Development Manager. Though I often do more than what those entail (scheduling, budgeting, project management, talking to other companies). I also do some design work, management of the audio contractors, some QA, and some marketing and community management. I also do some work on the business paperwork side.

As you guys know I am located in (near) Austin,Tx which is a hotspot for game development. That fact has given me the opportunity to be able to sit down with some very cool people in the industry. I was able to get some time with Twisted Pixel‘s Alex Jones and ask him some questions about game development. I also included some questions for the readers of this blog. Thanks again to all those who contributed!

Now on with the show!

Please describe your game company and its history?

Twisted Pixel

Twisted Pixel was formed in 2006 by Frank Wilson, Michael Wilford and Josh Bear. Our first game was The Mawwhich was followed by Splosion Man and Comic Jumper. We have also done contract work for other game companies but have been focusing on our own work more recently.

What is your role in the company?

I am designer on one of our projects. Most of my time is spent on level design but I also do research, design documentation and testing.

Is humor always going to play a part in your games?

I believe so. I find it hard to imagine us making a game without humor in it.

What was your development process like for Comic Jumper and did it differ much from the last two titles?

Comic Jumper had a slightly bigger budget and longer development cycle than Splosion Man. There was more of a focus on art and presentation and we contracted many more people such as writers and voice actors.

What software/tools did you use to create the game?

We have our own engine and world builder called Beard and Razor that we improve upon while working on each new title. Our artists use Granny and 3ds Max.

What were 3 technical hurtles you had to over come during the development of Comic Jumper?

There’s a ton of animation blending going on for Captain smiley to make sure he still looks good and animated even while aiming, and he and star are also able to talk while doing all of their actions. The sheer amount of content was way more than anything we’d dealt with before because of the different art styles. Our lead engineer also developed a streaming system for our levels.

Questions from the Audience

Can you tell us more about the Pitch Movie Process?

Every developer pitches games differently.  Some make playable demos, some just have documentation, but we like to make a fairly well polished video that shows what the game will look like, not just to pitch with, but to help get the whole team on the same page about what we’re making.

Why no PC titles after The Maw?

Due to our partnerships, there are certain exclusive rights we need to abide by, and we’ve generally been keeping busy with new projects instead of older ones.

Is contract work more hectic or frustrating than in-house projects?

From what I have seen, the contracts involved working with external game teams who stuck to 9:00 to 5:00 pretty routinely.  But our in-house projects tend to have longer hours.

Thanks again to Alex for taking the time answer the questions. Also wanted to send a big thank you to those who contributed questions for me to ask! And thank you for reading! Let me know if you want more of these!!