September 18, 2008

Going Independent: The Challenges of Solo Game Design with Empty Clip Studios’ Francois Bertrand
By Louis Bedigian

“I wouldn't say there were many surprises as far as getting the game done. The biggest difference was with the additional stress in the game being 100% yours.”

Every developer has a dream, one specific project they've envisioned for years and can't wait to work on. But what many developers find out is that, in a world ruled by competition and publishers afraid to take chances, "dreams" are not the best course of action. You've got to stick with what is most likely to turn a profit. Until they are realized and successful (note that there is an "if" in there), dreams have no connection to profit. Thus, 99% of the time, what publishers really want is a brand.

Like it or not, the only way to get what you want is to do it yourself. Your own time. Your own money. Your own risk. Can you handle it? Francois Bertrand and Matt Shores were willing to take the chance and co-founded Empty Clip Studios. Their first title, Groovin' Blocks, is now available on Nintendo's WiiWare service.

"The game was put together by the two of us over the last year, with part-time help from three of our friends," Shores told us recently. "We are two old-school, hardcore gamers, who decided after working six years as a part of large teams on big-name projects like Lord of The Rings and Star Wars, to leave our jobs and live the dream of making our own games. Little did we know that we were embarking on what turned out to be a very challenging journey in independent game development. Developing and publishing our own game from scratch, handling everything from design to art direction to font licensing, has been a very interesting and hard experience."

GameZone spoke with Francois Bertrand to get the full story.

Groovin' Blocks

Where did your and Matt's careers begin in gaming, and how did you and Matt Shores end up co-founding Empty Clip Studios together?

Francois Bertrand: I have been making my own games since I was six years old, on my dad's Commodore 64. I got my "big break" in 1997 when I sent one of the games I was making to a developer. They loved it, and within two months I was dropping out of college and moving to California to work on games. That was a dream come true.

On a side note: to this day, it is still my biggest recommendation to people who want to get in the gaming industry. Create some thing very cool in your spare time, and send it to a developer. It doesn't matter if it's small; in fact, it is MUCH better to send one small thing that is very cool than five "okay" projects. A very talented artist friend of mine, Jed Melnik, coined the term "Golden Iceberg." Basically it means that in a portfolio or demo, only show the best of what you can do; by extrapolation, people will establish the quality level of your work at that bar. If they see the tip of the iceberg and it's made out of gold, they will know the rest of the iceberg is all gold. The opposite, if you show one good piece and one average piece, the average piece will bring down the perception of your very best work.

But I digress; Matt's story is very interesting and starts on the Atari 800 then with a degree in music, but I wouldn't do it justice so I will just say we both started around the same time. We've been independent for three years and founded Empty Clip Studios last year. We had been working as part of a large teams on big projects for years, and wanted to capture that magic of working on our own games.

You and/or Matt previously worked on Star Wars and Lord of the Rings titles. Which games were those?

FB: Matt worked on Star Wars: Episode III (Xbox), Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (PS/2 and Xbox), Gladius (PS/2, Xbox and Gamecube), Blood Wake (Xbox) and America's Army: Rise of a Soldier (PS/2 and Xbox). I had a more sporty background, working on NASCAR 99/2000 (N64), Wakeboarding Unleashed (Mac) and recently NBA 05, 06 (PSP).

At what point did you realize it was time to leave the corporate world and make game development a solo affair?

FB: Although it was a great experience working on large, high-profile projects, we had both always been passionate about making our own games. With the rise of downloadable platforms enabling small developers like us to realize our dreams, the time was right to start Empty Clip Studios.

Empty Clip Studios…is that a gun reference?

FB: It is! Life becomes more interesting when you have an empty clip!

As your own publisher and developer, Groovin' Blocks proved to be a serious challenge. Tell us about that.

FB: Especially on a two-man team, time becomes your main challenge. Developing a game is a challenge in itself, with its own hard crunch times. Adding the management of our partners, including art, music, licensing, legal, ESRB, testing, play testing, quality control, PR, as well as the regular day-to-day company stuff is quite formidable! In addition, there are a lot of interdependencies and bottlenecks to plan for.

What does it take to publish a game as an indie developer? Walk us through the process.

FB: There are many paths independent developers can take. In fact, it's one of the most exciting aspects of today's market. An independent developer can create a hit Flash game on the web, and watch it grow into a huge console franchise. The iPhone is becoming a force and that's another avenue independent developers can take. Another way is to go directly to the downloadable console platforms (WiiWare, etc.), but that takes a bit more resources. I think it's about being passionate and having a plan.

What were the most difficult parts of developing a game on your own?

FB: Having been doing development for over seven years, I wouldn't say there were many surprises as far as getting the game done. The biggest difference was with the additional stress in the game being 100% yours. You're much more attached to it, so you're much more attentive to people's comments. Also, even though we knew we had a good core mechanic, our gameplay mechanic is different from anything out there, so there was no guarantee that playing a game to the beat of the music was going to add enough of a fun dimension. It was a huge relief to see the overall positive comments from our final play testing sessions and people's comments online after they've played the game.

Were there any areas of design that were easier – say, the creative aspect, now that you no longer had to answer to anyone but yourself?

FB: Yes! I guess that is the flip side of all that responsibility. Having a clear, focused vision and concentrating on executing it is a great experience. Often in games, one person will have the vision and have to constantly "sell" that vision to the rest of the team or the publisher, which may not be seeing it as clearly.

Empty Clip Studios received part-time help from three friends. What were there roles? Did you telecommute or work in the same office together?

FB: The guys who created the original music for the game, Mercer Friendly, are friends of Matt's. Mercer Friendly is James Wolcott and Jason Merritt, and they did an exceptional job, beyond our best expectations. We've gotten a lot of comments online of people saying how they liked the music. Soliton didn't work on the game, but he licensed us some great tracks, including the serendipitously named "I love my C-64"!

Jean-Francois Hains did all of our user interface, as well as our website. The UI also turned out great, Jeff really nailed the clean, nice look we were going for.

It is noteworthy that none of them had worked in games before. Groovin' Blocks was a labor of love from all of us. It couldn't have happened without the dedication and passion of these guys.

Matt mentioned that you guys had to deal with "font licensing" yourselves. What does this mean? Did you have to purchase a license to use specific fonts in the game, or are you referring to something else?

FB: Haha! Font licensing is one of those issues that kind of crept up on us. You could add that to the thrill of publishing your own game, something you don't regularly think of when you are focusing on development. We also learned how ridiculously expensive some fonts are, and how "videogame use" is not usually found in font licensing contracts, adding to the confusion. It is a story in and of itself, but let's just say that after a lot of running around we ended up licensing two great fonts from Yann Le Coroller and Ivan Philipov.

Do you plan (hope?) to release the game for Xbox Live Arcade or PlayStation Network?

FB: As a developer, we would love to get our game out on many platforms. Our in-house engine, the RapidFire Engine, would allow us to do so, but for the moment we are focusing on WiiWare (the European version is in the works!) and we will assess things in the coming weeks.

As indie developers, how are you promoting Groovin' Blocks?

FB: That is another aspect that is new to us, coming from development. Although we did expect it to take some time, it takes a fair amount of effort! We created a video, a bunch of screenshots, then contacted the press with the announcement of the game, and followed that with contacting the media for reviews and... interviews! Once the game launches, things happen very quick and it's very "seat-of-the-pants."

Now that your first game is behind you, what's the plan: move forward with a new solo project or go back to working for someone else?

FB: We are definitely moving forward with other projects of our own, but it's a bit early to say which project. We have a couple of ideas at different stages of prototyping, but we're not sure which one we are going to take all the way yet.

What do you plan to do differently the next time around?

FB: Not quite sure, right now we are still in the flurry of the launch of the game. We are planning to have a postmortem in the next week or so to look back at what went right and what went wrong. Off the top of my head, one thing we would do is to announce the game earlier. I think we took a lot of people by surprise!

Now let's talk specifically about your game, Groovin' Blocks. Matt described it as a "music-based game that adds an addictive beat-matching mechanic to a solid puzzle game foundation." Could you elaborate on that?

FB: Groovin' Blocks is the first game where you are truly rewarded for playing a game with the rhythm of the music. There is a metronome that shows the incoming beats in the music. You are trying to connect three blocks of the same color on the playfield. If you drop your blocks with the beat in the music, you get more points, increase your multiplier and activate bonus blocks.

One really fun element is that as the player, YOU choose which beats to hit. That means you can get into a groove on the beat or the counter-beat, play it safe or try to risk it to get a higher multiplier. It's freeform beat- matching.

It's a unique feeling. Because everything is driven by the beat of music, you really get immersed in the song like in no other game.

What are the controls like?

FB: They are pretty simple and easy to pick up: move the pieces left and right, hit down to place blocks and hit the 2 button to shuffle colors on the piece. It is similar to controls in the game "Columns", but Groovin' Blocks adds many twists to make things more dynamic: block destruction spreads in a chain reaction, each block is moving/blowing up independently and in more advanced levels you also receive square pieces (not just columns), so there is a lot more going on than in most traditional block games.

Are either you or Matt musicians? If so, what do you play and what sounds did you bring to the game? If not, who helped with this aspect of the game?

FB: Matt has a degree in music and plays the cello. He also has a lot of experience with audio in games, more than anyone I've ever worked with. He not only directed the music and sound effects, but did some of the audio work as well.

How many stages are there? What modes are included, and are there any multiplayer options?

FB: There are 27 stages in the game, spread across three difficulty levels. We went through great lengths to provide a fun pickup-and-play experience and progression, but being hard-core gamers ourselves, we wanted to provide a rewarding challenge for hard-core players as well. You collect stars of three different types (casual, experience and hard) as you progress through the game, and these unlock various bonuses and stages. It actually works pretty well, so no matter which kind of player you are you always feel you're moving forward and being challenged.

We include both cooperative and head-to-head play for multiplayer. This is one of the features people liked most about the game and we're very happy with it!

We are also adding to the mix 15 levels of power-ups to unlock, what we call "superbeats" (climactic points in the song that double your multiplier if you hit the beat right) and a "colorblind mode" that turns blocks into various shapes.

Why a puzzle game? Having worked on Star Wars and Lord of the Rings titles, your genre choice is a bit surprising. (Even more so given that your studio's name is a gun reference.)

FB: Ha ha! That is true. Well, the reason is that this integration of music and puzzle gameplay is the first mechanic that really jumped out at us, so we made it our debut title. But I would say that some of our most promising prospects for our next games are definitely not puzzle games. One of them actually has a lot of guns in it!

Did you do any concept testing/prototyping before diving in full-force? Or was that one of the challenges of making this game – you just assumed it would work and went for it?

FB: It's kind of interesting how it happened. We put together a demo in about two weeks with the intent of polishing it up to show publishers how we would integrate two different mechanics. But before we got to that stage, Matt was home for Christmas and showed the demo to his sister. He went on a few errands and when he came back she was still playing it and told him: "This is fun! You guys have to make this game!" At this point we thought we might be onto something! WiiWare was announced and we decided to go for it.

That isn't to say it was all smooth sailing from that point from a design perspective. We knew we had a good core mechanic, but it took a lot of play testing with friends, family and even strangers to create and balance things like scoring, the multiplier system, power-ups, etc.

That's a lot of questions, but is there anything else you'd like to share about your game, your studio, indie development, or any other topic?

FB: If there were two things I would like your readers to get out of this interview it would be the following.

First, because I get asked this a lot, for anyone wanting to get in the gaming industry, I would reiterate my answer to your first question. A portfolio or a demo is truly worth a thousand words. It not only shows your skill, but your passion and dedication. And it's better to show one great thing, than five okay or average ones.

Then, of course, check out Groovin' Blocks! It's fun, and a much more unique experience than screenshots and video can convey. But don't take my word for it, check out the comments of people who have been playing. We're really excited at the reaction it's been getting and we think you'll enjoy it!

Thank you for your time.

FB: It's been a pleasure, thank you for having me!

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