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.