Rediscovering the Road Not Taken …

Intro:

We founded in 1999 with the intention of creating games for PDAs and desktop computers. Over the past 9 years, we’ve created 12 titles, our latest being The Wonderful End of the World for Windows.

1. What is your background and how did you get started as an indie game developer?

Burt, you know the way most kids’ fathers throw them a softball when they’re young? My father sat me down in front of a computer. (I bet the same’s true of a lot of your readers, so we’re all in good company.) I cut my eye teeth programming for the TI 99/4A, which had a 3.3MHz processor, 16 kilobytes of memory, and a screen resolution of about 1 pixel, which you could flash one of 16 colors. I started

developing shareware in 1988 with a BBS doors game, worked with a game development company, and then co-founded a successful online games company called Worlds Apart Productions before starting Dejobaan.

2. Is there some part of the creative process that you enjoy the most ie conceptualization, programming, or creating game assets?
As long as I have a deadline and a several cups of crappy black tea with gobs of cream and sugar, I’m pretty happy with most of the process. But I really enjoy prototyping — seeing an idea just begin to form is something awesome. And, I enjoy “plussing,” which is a term Disney created — you basically take your finished, wonderful project, and figure out how to make every aspect of it better.

3. You seem to have a very unique look and feel of game, can you put into simple words the philosophy or vision that drives your game design?

Thanks, Burt. Would it be bad karma to say that we just sort-of meander around until we hit on something good? Ah, but that’s only part of the time. We basically take a look at what’s really hot with the major studios our market — be it a gameplay mechanic or an aesthetic — and try to go as far as we can in the opposite direction. Games like Crysis take care of realism pretty well, and we’re about $20m short of their $20m budget, so why not investigate minimalism? Or algorithmically generated animations? Or, if there’s a game mechanic that’s not available on a particular platform, why
not snag that and see if we can expand on it?

4. How do you approach a new project? Do you have a specific work flow?

What’s worked for us is this:

(1) Bandy an idea about and mock up a prototype.
(2) Ignore the prototype for several months.
(3) If it seems fresh after that hiatus, continue.
(4) Build the game using stand-in art assets. White boxes with the word “OBJECT” all over the place!
(5) Once the gameplay works, add in the art and music.
(6) “Plus” it until we’re happy.

5. Do you have any favorites artists, games or other sources that inspire you?

Yep! I’ll avoid the game developers — how about film? Hayao Miyazaki (Laputa, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away) and Jean-Pierre Jeunet (Delicatessen, The City of Lost Children, Amelie) do such an amazing job of giving their work a unique look and feel. Their films are wonderful, and it’s impossible to mistake them for anyone else’s. I’d love that to be said
about my games, someday.

5. Care to offer any advice for budding game developers who might be interested in working indie game developers?

I’ll go with conventional wisdom: create and complete many small projects, and seek out mentors who have already done what you want to do. Mine their brains for gold - with a pickaxe.

The Wonderful End of the World

Here are a few shots from the demo version of this game. It is hard to judge the uniqueness of Ichiro’s games from from these shots alone so I highly recommend a visit to Dejobaan Games for a deeper look at the games, demos and development blogs.