Interviews

The "biggie" game companies are well know and often written about. We hear their names over and over. The small or independent developers struggle to make it on their own. But everyone begins at the beginning and the development team at Synthetix is no exception. Their game concept is humorous, pleasantly brash and upbeat. Hopefully, Project Joe will give them a market opportunity to swim with the big boys of gaming and creative expression. Project Joe might be the bell ringer for their future success. While that remains to be seen, I know one thing about them right now - Jeroen de Cloe and Mikel Fick are great to work with and interview and I appreciate their time and effort. I also want to give a special "thank you" to Tim King, the music man of the group. He 's the guy who told me about the game in the first place.

Tell me about your development team. How long have you been together? How did you get together? Has your group designed or developed other games? Can you share some background information on members of your team?

Jeroen: We are Synthetix Interactive, a small game development team, primarily working on Project Joe. Mikel and I have been working on Project Joe for a year now (not full-time). We both study Interaction Design at the Utrecht School of Arts (the Netherlands). We also met there. Mikel and I have individual experience with the creation of some smaller games. One day we were talking about Lucas Arts games and the adventure genre in general. We both love the genre. At that time I didn't know Mikel well and vice versa. As a joke we decided to develop an adventure. I really didn't expect much out of it, but one evening I got a mail message from Mikel. A screenshot. Clearly his specialty. I was astonished and I got really motivated to work on this.

We started working on the game (we focused on the story and the characters completely) and the website as well. I started developing a database-driven online manager to edit the game assets online (characters, locations, etc). Later on we felt the urge to expand the team. We needed a musician and a voice-actor. After a post on our website in which we asked for a musician we had 10 responses. It was easy to choose Tim King because his musical talents are broad, especially when it comes to musical genres. Jazz, Funk, Chinese, Rock. Tim was the man :-).

Later we got in contact with Eric Stembridge and John Holowach, both talented voice-actors. Now we are working with five people, and looking for a third voice actor for the Afro-American voices. All of us are doing this for fun and for free. However, we all agreed that we had to do some legal mumbo-jumbo (contracts and copyrights). I think this makes the team and product stronger.

Why did you decide to design/develop an adventure game?

Jeroen: Fun. To actually see a complete game in the end. To say "we did this!". The satisfaction of entertaining people.

Mikel: It's our favorite genre and so many people like it. It's a shame that there aren’t many new games being developed in this genre.

What is your opinion regarding the future of adventure games? Are they really "dead" or are they on a quiet developmental curve?

Mikel: They aren't dead yet. There are still a few adventure games being released (The Longest Journey, Runaway). I think they have moved to another level. The traditional ones slowly become extinct in this market, but then again, we see many elements of adventure games being used in action games. I think it's future lies in a combination of the genres that exists nowadays.

Jeroen: Yes, he’s right. However, I still think it’s a pity that the quality of "real third person adventure games" is so low.

What is your personal favorite adventure game? Favorite other game?

Jeroen: Full Throttle, Monkey Island 3, Grim Fandanago. It’s hard to name just one :-). Oh yeah, I think "Blade Runner" from Westwood is a really good game. A bit too short, but its an amazing game. I play a lot of Quake III Arena online.

Mikel: Favorite adventure game: Monkey 3, Monkey 2, Full Throttle and Blade Runner.
Favorite other game: RPG's!! and lots of them. Old ones like: Chrono Trigger and Secret of Mana (Super Nintendo). New ones like: Silver and Septerra Core.

What is your biggest gaming disappointment - any genre (meaning a game that you really wanted to play and did not like)?

Jeroen: In the adventure scene I think Monkey Island 4 was a big disappointment. The humor is often not funny, the 3D did not fit Guybrush and the music is sometimes reused from the third game. The background graphics are beautiful but without the atmosphere that I am accustomed to. In the first-person-kill-the-baddies-scene I disliked Max Payne. Boring game.

Mikel: My biggest disappointment ever was a game called Expect No Mercy - a fighting game a la Mortal Combat (that was quite cool back then). I bought it because it looked great and several magazines gave nice reviews about it. Damn it was bad! The biggest shit I ever saw.

Your game engine is called Glumol. Tell me more about it. Why have you chosen it over other engines? Why does it "fit" your game better than other engines that are currently available.

Jeroen: The problem with the engines out there is that they are incomplete or buggy. Although good alternatives have recently been developed, Glumol will offer us what other engines don't have - the right balance between visually creating objects and the Python programming language. The interface looks superb and the way developing progresses it will spare us a lot of time. I think it is worth all the waiting.

What do you see as your target audience? Male or female? Age? USA or other?

Jeroen: Suitable for females and males, 12 years and up, playable all over the world.

Have you thought about the response in the European market? Will they understand the "humor" of the game?

Jeroen: I think the European market will really understand the humor. I guess the humor is more Europeanish (is that a real word?) than usual in adventure games. In the end, everyone will understand the humor. It is less… innocent than normal, but without being "cheap". Irony plays a big part.

Mikel: The European market receives television shows like Southpark and The Simpsons with open arms so I don't think they will have any trouble with Joe. :)

Tell me more about the story line.

Jeroen: Mmmm, I don’t want to tell too much. We like to keep the story a secret. Basically the game is divided in four chapters. In the first chapters Joe will have to get rid of his current problems (no license, no money, no car, etc…). He will also meet The Jaguar, an assassin who works for Otto Bay. In these chapters the pressure towards Joe increases and increases (Otto Bay will use all his force to get rid of Joe). Besides this, he will have to stay friends with the Mafia. Actually, a big part of the game doesn’t have anything to do with the "Joe versus Otto" conflict but deals with the Mafia.

Where did you get the idea(s) for the story?

Mikel: We started with Joe and his bar – this is the "core" of the adventure game.
Although we discussed good and bad aspects from games we played in the past, we don't really have a source from where our ideas come from. Just by brainstorming in class or sometimes in a bar (a very appropriate place). When making a puzzle we start with the result of the puzzle and then we start on the actual puzzles, so it's pretty much the other way around. Many ideas ended up in the trash can - if one of us comes up with an idea and the other one has doubts - it's simply not good enough.

Jeroen: We work top-down. We make up the global script, storyline, etc and then work out the details.

Tell me about Joe. Other characters?

Jeroen: Joe is different. I mean, really different. He isn't very smart, and he can be rude, but in his heart he is certainly not evil. We try to give our character a "past" without telling the past. That Project Joeis a humorous cartoon game, doesn’t mean we won’t work out the characters in detail. This is an important issue for us.

Mikel: Joe can have his smart moments but don't expect brilliant dialogues like in Discworld coming out of his mouth. He simply is not that smart. Good manners are hard to find on him and that gives us the opportunity to create many humorous situations. In one part of the game Joe actually laughs about the situation he created. Our game is as any game - good against evil. It's quite ironic that our "good" comes in the form as a low-life like Joe.

Mr. Otto Bay is the biggest bad guy in the game (the ultimate evil which we'll never get rid off). He not only wants to get rid of Joe and his bar he manipulates everyone around him with his somewhat evil powers. Unfortunately for him, none of his associates are a match for Joe. They all crawl back horribly humiliated and defeated. So he eventually has to do it all by himself.

Mr. Barf (owner of the Barfburger label) is without any doubt the most dumb and filthy guy in the whole game. Those qualities are reflected in his burgers.

How about the game title? Is that just the working title or will you carry it forward with the game (I sort of like it - it is off beat and it catches my attention)?

Jeroen: Hehehe, interesting question. We're still debating this. It indeed might even be the final title. The title represents the humor of the game. :)

Mikel: At first we thought we could take this temporary title and change it later on. But people are getting used to it, and so are we.

Will Joe be linear or nonlinear?

Jeroen: Linear, with some nice nonlinear flavors. In this game, we more choose to implement random events instead of nonlinear behaviors. (a drunken guy passes by, a different poster on the wall....

Mikel: Some things are nonlinear but the global storyline is linear. Nevertheless, people can finish the game without seeing everything in the game.

Is the game going to be 2D or 3D?

Jeroen: 2D in its pure form, extending the art of 3D-faking :-) This game asks for 2D. Nevertheless, Deathmatch and CTF are supported.

Mikel: Although I sometimes use 3D to enhance the background coloring, the final result will be 2D.

Will you release an online demo for the game?

Jeroen: We haven't decided this yet. We think so, but probably just a small demo to show the atmosphere of the game. We'll have lots of animations in backgrounds, and add random events to make Joe's world a more...breathing one.

Mikel: Performances of weird artists in Joe's bar are a nice example. :)

Do you have a target date for game completion?

Jeroen: No, we haven't....

Have you lined up a publisher/distributor for your game or do you plan to market on your own?

Jeroen: We will probably line up with a publisher. We have been contacted by some publishers already which is quite a motivation for us.

Mikel: A publisher would be a great chance for us to distribute the game more widely. We couldn't do that all by ourselves.

Is there anything else that you would like the Just Adventure readers to know about this game?

Mikel: Our work is noncommercial so everything we like is in it. I think you'll notice that in various aspects of the game so expect something different from what you've played before.

Jeroen: It’s hard to describe, but the humor will be really different which will be a risk (when thinking about the target audience).

Can you tell us a little about other games that your group has in progress?

Mikel: Decay is a future project and has not started because Project Joe has priority. Decay is pretty much a project where we will try to create a new form of adventure game, with new ideas and atmosphere we can't use in Project Joe. Our idea is to combine adventure and action elements in this game and by doing this, expand the genre. The concept of Outrage is much older than Project Joe or Synthetix. It's a hobby project from a friend and me. It will never be released commercially, only online in episodes. It will be free for download.