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Realtime Roots
Realtime Roots episodes
- Steve Lee | Level Designer [Irrational Games, Arkane Studios, Half Mermaid] on his Roots in approaching level design through a holistic lens
Steve is a level and game designer most noticeably known for his work on Dishonored 2, Bioshock Infinite, Alba & more recently Tactical Breach Wizards.
Steve has spent most the last 15 years in the games industry as a level designer and has spoken about his work in various places including his 2017 GDC talk titled "An Approach to Holistic Level Design" which I'd highly recommend digging into.
Steve also has a YouTube channel where he teaches level and game design principles that he believes every designer should know.
About Steve Lee
Website: http://doublefunction.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/essell2
About Peter Bottomley
Website: www.whitepapergames.com
X: x.com/pete_bottomley38 min - Jamie Smith | Principal Game Designer at People Can Fly on working on AAA games whilst fostering a collaborative team culture
Jamie Smith is a Principal Game Designer at Sumo Digital with over 12 years of games industry experience.
His experience has led him to work on Driver: San Francisco, The Crew, Tom Clancy’s The Division, FIFA, Hood Outlaws and more recetnly Call of Duty: Vanguard as a Campaign Systems Designer
Jamie has judged multiple BAFTA games awards along with having experience as a Senior Lecturer in Games Design at Teeside and through all this experience, Jamie articulates his thoughts about Game Design in a really insightful way.
In this episode, we discuss game design concepts such as the 3'cs - cameras, controls & characters, marginal innovation and more recently how Jamie is thinking about subtractive approaches to design in his own work. And we talk about these concepts all through the lens of fostering collaborative cultures in creative teams.
About Jamie Smith
Website: https://www.jamiesmith.dev/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/smithst0ck
About Peter Bottomley
Website: www.whitepapergames.com
X: x.com/pete_bottomley1 hr 6 min - Des Gayle | Studio Executive Production at Radical Forge on his roots in founding an omni-channel development studio with a focus on story, quality and accessibility
Des is the founder and CEO of Altered Gene, a remote games studio currently working on two unannounced titles for PC. Des has over 24 years experience starting in the games industry 1998 and has since won 2 Develop Awards and a BAFTA award. Des is also the GamesAid vice-chair, a board member UKIE and a founding member of POC in Play.
We discuss omni-channel games and experiences and what current shifts the games industry is making. We tackle everything from process in storytelling down to financing and funding the projects.
About Des Gayle
Website: http://alteredgene.co.uk/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Kid_Desimo
About Peter Bottomley
Website: www.whitepapergames.com
X: x.com/pete_bottomley1 hr 5 min - Dan Da Rocha | Co-founder & Studio Head at Jaw Drop Games on his roots in starting companies, shipping critically acclaimed titles and being acquired
Today I'm speaking to Dan Da Rocha, a game creator who made QUBE, recently re-envisioned for its 10 year anniversary release.
Dan has worked in the industry for over 12 years and has been named on the Forbes under 30 in 2019 as well as being an avid industry speaker whilst growing a strong network of collaborators.
Dan currently runs Jaw Drop Games and has 2 projects being developed; Deathground, a dinosaur survival-horror game, and Gun Jam, a rhythm FPS game.
Jaw Drop has over 40 team members and Dan talks us through his career of high highs and some low lows along with important inflection points both through successes and failures that have helped develop and foster strong team culture.
Dan recently had one of his companies acquired by Curve digital and how teams may think about M&As with their own work.
About Dan Da Rocha
Website: https://www.dandarocha.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanDaRocha
About Peter Bottomley
Website: www.whitepapergames.com
X: x.com/pete_bottomley51 min - Hannah Watts | Principle Environment Artist at Crop Circle Games on her roots in senior mentorship & the various forms her work and tools take depending on the realtime mediums
Hannah's work has ranged from AAA production at Ubisoft reflections to smaller, independent titles at Coatsink with many side projects and team collaborations along the journey.
In this discussion, we talk about her approach to seniority and how Hannah's developed her approach to feedback over the years.
We dive into what she looks for in studios and elements of company culture she believes all teams should have.
Throughout her time in industry she's transitioned across multiple 3D roles and constantly looks to improve her techniques and processes whether it be through the latest technology or refining her traditional art skills.
The conversation covers a lot of great ground ranging from technical discussion, to mentoring & to thoughts about the current games industry so I hope you get a lot of value out of this conversation with Hannah Watts.
About Hannah Watts
Website: https://hannahwatts.artstation.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/IrradiatedCat
About Peter Bottomley
Website: www.whitepapergames.com
X: x.com/pete_bottomley54 min - Peter Harries | Senior Game Designer on his roots transitioning between independent and AAA game productions and his role as a senior designer
Today I speak to Peter Harries, a senior Game Designer on Wardogs at Bulkhead.
Peter is credited on 8 game titles across his 10 career in the games industry.
Peter's roles have seen him starting in a AAA game development environment before transitioning to smaller, independent games and then back up to AAA projects before coming to Bulkhead who are a 100 person independent developer in the UK.
We discuss the role of a senior designer as Peter reflects on skills he's developed over the years and how you can approach mentoring and communicating your ideas to a team.
We then get into some great books on managing your time and process along with talking about some of his key design principles such as the 'water cooler moment' and how he thinks about onboarding players to an experience.
About Peter Harries
Website: https://peterharries.blogspot.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PeterHarries
About Peter Bottomley
Website: www.whitepapergames.com
X: x.com/pete_bottomley59 min - Jared Thompson | North West Cyber Resilience Centre on thinking about keeping your studios secure in a digital environment
We're doing something slightly different today and chatting about real-time tools.
Digital security is an important topic that I wanted to dig into for my own knowledge which I also hope benefits a lot of other creative studios who maybe don't have it on their list of priorities due to pending milestones and deadlines.
We tried to keep the information concise and succinct to give you as much information as we could, but please also consider listening in chunks.
You don't have to do everything at once, but even doing the steps 1 at a time will help protect your studio in a digital world.
About Peter Bottomley
Website: www.whitepapergames.com
X: x.com/pete_bottomley1 hr 6 min - Jon McKellan | Founder of No Code on his roots in growing and sustaining an award winning company working on new IP
This week I spoke to Jon McKellan - the founder, writer & director at No Code.
No Code are best known for Observation & Stories Untold and Jon's background among other projects was the UI / VHS / DLC guy on Alien Isolation.
He's a BAFTA award winning developer & No Code have been awarded one of the best places to work awards twice over among many others.
We discuss No Code's trajectory from mobile games startup into the weirder, more narrative driven content they're now known for.
No code are a scrappy, measure twice cut once developer which allows them to force into creation the scope and quality of games well above what you'd expect from a small team.
We also discuss Jon's role as a creative director and how the position has evolved as the team went from 2 to 25 over a 7 year period and about how being open to critical feedback from the team is a key to creating the work they do.
About Jon McKellan
Website: http://www.nocodestudio.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jon_NoCode
About Peter Bottomley
Website: www.whitepapergames.com
X: x.com/pete_bottomley1 hr 4 min - Ryan Garry | Founder of Unlimited Motion on his roots in virtual production
Today I'm chatting to Ryan Garry, the founder of Unlimited Motion.
Ryan works on a wide range of projects including performance capture, virtual production, 3D scanning & visual effects.
Recently his work has been featured on the BBC show Strictley Come Dancing where he presented virtual dancers in real-time to dance alongside a real performance, live on national television with millions of viewers.
We also explore what new capture techniques and approaching to creating interactive experiences. Ryan then breaks down the new technologies and interesting projects on the horizon.
We discuss some of my favourite directors throughout such as Jon Favreau & David Fincher so please do enjoy this episode with Ryan Garry.
About Ryan Garry
Website: https://www.unlimitedmotion.ltd/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/RyiGarry
About Peter Bottomley
Website: www.whitepapergames.com
X: x.com/pete_bottomley51 min - Barry Meade | Co-founder & Director at Fireproof Games on his roots in putting players first
Barry Meade is a Co-founder & Director at Fireproof Games.
In an industry where we can sometimes fall into the trap of believing the more followers and likes you get are the key to your projects success, Barry simplifies it down to key perspective:
Great games are made my great teams. That's it.
From starting as an art outsourcing company for the first 4 years and almost going out of business in the first year, Barry alongside the rest of his founding team have built Fireproof games into a company of over 20 people.
In a market where they didn't have enough money to make a console game, they focused on the more risky approach in mobile gaming. What started as an experiment over a 6 month period, led to The Room; a BAFTA award-winning 3D puzzler released in 2012 that went on to sell more than 2 million copies by May of the following year.
Since then, Fireproof has released 6 titles from the Guildford based studio.
Our conversation focuses very much on the player's of the titles, and why the player's are ultimately what matter.
I had a great time speaking to Barry and his insight caused me to reflect on some incorrect beliefs I might have held so I hope you're able to take a lot of value away from this conversation.
Please do enjoy this episode with Barry Meade.
About Barry Meade
Website: https://www.fireproofgames.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Fireproof_Barry
About Peter Bottomley
Website: www.whitepapergames.com
X: x.com/pete_bottomley1 hr 4 min
About Realtime Roots
From the publisher's feed
I'm fascinated by how teams do what they do in the real time space.
Whether it be small independent video game teams going it alone or large animation houses hand crafting every frame, each…
one of these creators has an interesting story to tell and a different approach to production through their tools and processes.
Realtime Roots is an excuse to pick their brains and tease out best practices so that we can all use them in our own work to become better creators. Whichever real time medium you might be in I hope you find something you can take away and use in your own creative endeavours.
Realtime Roots is an excuse to pick their brains and tease out best practices so that we can all use them in our own work to become better creators. Whichever real time medium you might be in I hope you find something you can take away and use in your own creative endeavours.