Whose Fault Is That

A few months ago, we had the esteemed privilege of playing Gregory Weir’s game, (I Fell In Love) With the Majesty of Colors, for the first time. In a scene of flash games that often seem targeted to twelve year-old Megadeth fans, it was a breath of fresh, sophisticated air. Majesty puts the player in the shoes of a Cthulhu-esque monster who suddenly becomes aware of the world around him. Do you drown the jetski riders or leave them be? Do you save the drowning kid? The world, or at least the offshore depths where the monster is parked, is your oyster. It’s since become clear that Weir has a knack for designing these strange, short browser-based games and, via his blog and podcast, that he has the theory to back it up. We talked to him about colossi, what it means to be sponsored in a scene full of “indie” developers, and his mission to create one game a month in 2009.

Whose Fault Is That: In case there’s anyone reading who might not have lent much thought towards something like game design, could you briefly describe what you do?

GW: Sure. In short, I make video games. Most of my games are written in a language called Actionscript 3 for the Flash platform, so they can be played in a web browser. I’m responsible for the graphics, the programming, and the design of the games. My most well-known work at the moment is probably (I Fell in Love With the) Majesty of Colors.

WFIT: What would you guess it is about (I Fell in Love With the) Majesty of Colors that made it more well-known than your others?

GW: Well, I should begin by saying that I’m very new to actually making games. I’ve played with game development in the past, but Majesty was only the second video game I’ve released, except for a piece of interactive fiction or two in college. But I think that Majesty’s appeal is that it provides a very unified aesthetic, and makes players feel what it would be like to be a titanic, tentacled horror from beneath the waves who really only wants to be loved.

WFIT: It’s interesting that you mention Majesty having a unified aesthetic, because I was going to ask you about how your games all feature radically different visual styles from one another. Could you go into why you’ve opted to do that? What would you say informs your artistic choices across the various games?

GW: Well, what I try to do is fit the art to the game. Majesty is really a very simple game, with simple controls and a simple-minded protagonist, so I went for blocky pixel art, which is both easy to make and evokes a simpler era of video games. With Bars of Black and White, I wanted the strong black-and-white aesthetic combined with sketchy line drawing to reflect the fact that the protagonist’s perceptions of the world are not entirely… accurate.

Exploit’s graphics are meant to evoke the way we all imagine hacking should be like: neon geometric symbols, binary streaming past, and simple vector art on primitive displays.

WFIT: Considering you place such a strong emphasis on the unique graphical identities of your games, do you have any background in visual art or anything like that?

GW: I don’t have much art training. I took occasional art and cartooning classes growing up, and I did a weekly comic in my college newspaper called “The Absolute Sum of All Evil”. So I suppose I would consider myself an experienced amateur.

WFIT: What was it that attracted you to game design?

GW: I’ve always loved video games. I grew up with them, and I’ve always wanted to make my own. I’m a very creative person; my head’s always full of ideas. I’ve done some fiction writing, some cartooning, and a few other things, but I find interactive entertainment the most interesting. There’s this huge potential in video games, and we’ve only cracked the surface of what they can do.

WFIT: What are some of your favorite examples of game design, past or present? Things like experiences in games you thought were great, standout features, or narrative methods.

GW: Wow… that’s a tough question, since there are so many. I highlight a lot of stuff that I find interesting on my blog, Ludus Novus. But let me think of a few:

Shadow of the Colossus for the Playstation 2 was an incredibly emotional work. It’s a game where you’re battling immense creatures called Collosi in order to resurrect your dead love. The game is just effused with sadness. It makes you feel awful for killing these majestic creatures, while still motivating you to keep doing it.

Planescape: Torment is a classic roleplaying game for the PC based on Dungeons & Dragons. Unlike most D&D games, though, you spend most of your time having conversations with people instead of fighting. Planescape: Torment continually asks the question “What can change the nature of a man?” It gives a lot of answers over the course of the game, but never holds one up as the correct one.

Knytt is a small, freely downloadable game where you control a little furry animal who’s exploring a strange landscape. It manages to create better atmosphere with a few hundred pixels and some sound loops than any multi-million-dollar triple-A video game title. I could go on and on. I write a column twice a month for GameSetWatch called “The Interactive Palette” where I highlight an interesting technique in some interactive work and examine it in detail.

WFIT: It’s interesting that you mention Knytt’s simplistic, intuitive appeal versus a more mainstream game. I realize this is something of a broad question, but could you highlight what it is that you think such mainstream games are missing?

GW: Well, I definitely don’t want to come across as one of those people who are impotently scornful about mainstream gaming. There are some amazing works being done by big companies: Portal and Prince of Persia: Sands of Time are two of my favorite games in recent years. But because mainstream games are money-driven, and because the current state of the art is so complex, big game companies can’t afford to take too many risks. In order to keep huge game studios and publishers running, they need to make games that appeal to a broad spectrum of customers, and they need to avoid alienating too many of the fans.

The strength of independent game development is that a 2D game can be made by a couple of people over the course of a year or two and can be totally innovative and amazing. That’s World of Goo. Or you can make a whole bunch of rapid-fire games that don’t take long to code, and might not appeal to everyone, but they’re unique and clever and weird. Cactus and Increpare are two amazingly prolific developers who make some really cool stuff.

WFIT: I know this is a subject you’ve gone into a bit elsewhere, but what would you say it means to be an “indie” game developer?

GW: That’s a controversial topic. In my opinion, an independent game developer is one who can make games independently, without having to worry about the influence of a publisher or client dictating what they should be doing.

Of course, by that definition, Valve (the creators of Half-Life 2) is an independent developer. So my definition might be a bit flawed.

WFIT: I know you’re particularly fond of the sponsor-driven revenue model that sites like Kongregate have adopted. I’m not particularly knowledgeable about things like this, but I’d have to guess, then, that Kongregate stays out of your creative hair even though they have sponsors to worry about?

GW: Definitely. The way all my games have worked is that I have made the game from start to finish first, and then offered it up for sponsorship. Effectively, Flash portals competitively bid to sponsor finished games. That means that I get to maintain creative freedom, although it does introduce uncertainty. I’m never quite sure if a game is going to get sponsors interested at all.

One thing that I’m seeing more of is established indie game developers moving into the Flash platform. It’s a great way to make actual money for making free games.

WFIT: Could you ever see that sort of bid-based revenue model moving into other media, like print or video?

GW: I’m not very knowledgeable about the business side of things, but it’s definitely possible. It’s very similar to how fiction publishing works now. Many authors finish novels before submitting them to publishers. The thing about print and video is that there’s much more involved in publication. I don’t have to wait for a book to be printed and distributed; I can accept a sponsorship for a game, have the sponsor’s logo in the introduction, and have it up on their site in under 24 hours. But with the increased popularity of digital distribution for all forms of media, I can see the Flash-style sponsorship model working for other stuff. I wouldn’t be surprised to see Youtube or Hulu sponsoring some independent films or shows, and I think it’s already happening some with shows like “The Guild.”

WFIT: That’s true. I’d like to switch gears a little bit and talk about your podcast. On the podcast, your style of speech seems somewhat stream-of-consciousness. Has that intellectual exploration ever produced ideas that you ended up working into a game?

GW: My brain definitely works in an intuitive, random-access fashion. I’ll often come up with an idea that’s just a flash of an image. Majesty started that way. I keep a list of one-sentence game and story ideas that come into my head as I’m struggling with insomnia or taking a shower. A couple of examples: “Game that simulates a talk show, w/ player choosing topics & callers,” or “Sad game, sad like Randy Newman. Player character is Death?”

WFIT: Those are solid ideas. Would you ever consider developing a more traditional longer-form game for, say, a console?

GW: I’d definitely consider it. Nintendo recently made an announcement that suggested that WiiWare games might be able to be implemented in Flash, which would fit nicely with my workflow. However, for a game to be well-received on a console, it needs a lot of work put into it. We’re talking years of work. At the moment, I’m happy making a game in 1-2 months. It lets me experiment with different things and avoid getting bored with an idea.

But if anyone’s offering me a position as a lead designer, I might consider it.

WFIT: Aside from your game-a-month project and continuing the podcast, do you have any other plans for the future?

GW: Hmm. I’m not sure how much I’m allowed to say, but I’ve been talking with a portal about doing games exclusively for them. Some of those would probably be some of my monthly games. Apart from that, my April game is going to be a piece of interactive fiction, which I’m finishing up right now. Although the piece I’m doing won’t exactly be a classic-style text adventure. It’ll be a little weird.

Joe Bernardi interviewed Gregory Weir on March 18, 2009. Links to all of Gregory’s games, as well as his blog and podcast, can be found at Ludus Novus.