Ed Oscuro wrote:Squire, if you ever have a moment, if you could jot down some of your memories from that discussion, that'd be cool. I should look the guy up sometime. Was he responsible for that air vent level? The DS was in many ways a drawback, but that particular level design was a standout, with the enemies coming from the vents and the necessity of watching above and below for territory to grapple or drop to.
Sure. Also as for the vents, I don't know, but I believe he said he was responsible for all enemy placement and level layouts for the game. Other then the aforementioned anecdote about platforming focus and balance, we didn't talk too much about the nitty gritty of either games level design.
Basically we were in the Nintendo Motel: a large room in a hotel right next to the convention center where Nintendo has most of their new games set up. He was there along with some playable wii u and 3ds demos of the game, along with the game's sprite artist, and a girl who was responsible for concept art. His main role was programmer and designer.
A few tidbits I remember:
-He said he left Wayforward to found Yacht Club due to frustration with Wayforwards advertising methods. I believe he said something along the lines of "I was tired of making good games that would never get played/advertised."
-The above probably goes into the next point, but spreading the word on Shovel Knight was hard work and a huge effort by the entire staff. Basically every waking hour outside of development was spent spreading the word, contacting magazines, telling people to spread the word on forums, putting out promo material, etc. It wasn't an accidental or easy thing to do, and was apparently very exhausting to get the game as viral as it became.
-I believe I asked him something along the lines of how much of a single person's vision influences a game, and he said that when working with a team, a lot of ideas get thrown around and evolve and change as a group effort. Unless you're doing everything yourself, you can't be too zealous about making sure your own personal ideas see fruition.
-I told him about my interests in analyzing level and game design, risk vs reward, patterns vs randomness, telegraphing, multitasking, etc. etc. as well as my interest in programming and becoming a computer science major. He said I was on the right track to becoming a game developer
.
-One of his biggest insights for breaking into the game dev business, was to build something on your own that you can show to employers. If you create some little platformers or shmups or whatever on your free time, and then bring them in as part of your portfolio, then that's a major foot in the door. Especially f you can explain the reasoning behind the design choices in your little games. Developers like to know that you have some experience with making and finishing games, even as a hobby.
I'll edit this if anything else worth mentioning comes to mind.
.
