Squanch Games Reveals High On Life

 Hey everyone.  As you may know Squanch Games is a company lead by Rick & Morty creator Justin Roiland.  They finally revealed the title I was working on with them in 2020.  It's called High On Life about an alien cartel that is selling humans as drugs for aliens.  So you and some talking guns team up to take them down.  

Looking at the trailer I see some familiar things and also some great new stuff!  Hope they don't forget about me in the credits, but seriously Squanch was a fun group of people.  Glad to see the game is alive and doing well.  Can't wait to play it.  

Check out the trailer!

Farcry 6 Shipped Today!

Since I left the project before it finished I wasn't sure if they would credit me or not. It appears that I did make the credits however.

While I was there I was the game designer and my main focus was on the new Outpost system. I'm not familiar with the shipped version but the version I was working on was each Outpost had an objective which players could choose to got for or not for bonus rewards.  So if you wanted to get the objective you might need to sneak in stealthy or use only explosives, etc.  But if you wanted to do the old kill everyone to concur an outpost you could do that too.  But not sure what shipped.

Anyway, congratz to the team and I guess to myself.  haha

Ubisoft & Coffee Gripe

So this is kind of a dumb thing but it bugs me. I've been around the industry for awhile & worked at several companies.Usually the studio wants to encourage you to be at your job, happy, and working.  So they offer little perks.  Raven for instance had free coffee and free soda 24/7.  Gray Matter was really over the top. They had a full stocked fridge and would go get anything you wanted upon request.  Hell they even bought me a pillow and blanket so I could sleep on the floor of my office.  But the standard at all companies I've been at is free coffee.

Ubisoft however doesn't really give you free anything.  Sometimes they have fruit. But snacks, coffee, soda, are all through vending machines.  And pretty high priced vending machines.  A candy bar would cost you $1.50, chips $1.25, and a can of soda $1.  So screw that, we'd go out for coffee.  Going out gives you a chance to step away from the monitors and take a breather.  Since Ubisoft has around 800 employees several coffee shops sprung up within walking distance. So you also were supporting the local economy which is the whole point of Ontario giving them tax breaks, to help boost business overall.

Now I see Ubisoft Toronto added an "in house" coffee shop.  Not a free coffee shop, hell no.  A full fledged pay for coffee and pastries coffee shop, with a freakin' menus on the wall and everything.  What the actual fuck??

It totally reminds me of the old mining companies that would setup a town around the mine.  Then charge their workers for food, rent, supplies, medical care, which was basically taking back the money they pay them.  I believe these practices were deemed illegal?  lol

Then there are all those local coffee shops.  They will be going out of business shortly.  That's gonna be a huge hit on their livelihood. So much for supporting the local economy.

But seriously not cool.  Just have plain standard FREE coffee machines in-house, then let people go to the local businesses for the special coffees and pastries. Their employees work long and hard, literally making Ubisoft millions of dollars. Buy them a fucking cup of coffee.

Your Experience Has Little Value

I've been searching for a new position these last few months. I've seen an interesting trend that I didn't expect, and I find it pretty disheartening.


If you've been working at a big AAA game developer more than likely you've been using their proprietary engine.  In my case I was working with Dunia which is a far deviated version of the CryTech engine.  I've worked with this engine for almost 9 years.  My role was to build and script game play areas and missions.  I did not consider however that while I was working with Dunia the industry was changing.

Unreal 4 & Unity made game development so much more accessible for small startups which is was great!  Big AAA publishers are really more of a money machine who's goal is to churn out cash rather than taking risks with innovative ideas.  Giving these little studios access to make something new not only helped them, but it helped the industry as a whole. The competition forces AAA out of their comfort zones and drives the whole industry forward.  So when the time came for me to move on I jumped out into the job market with 20+ years of game development experience expecting that I'd be in demand, but that was the wrong assumption.

Working for 8+ years with a proprietary engine translates to zero experience for most companies that use UE4 or Unity.  They're not interested in dealing with anyone that would need to get up to speed with their production.  They want someone that has been living with their engine daily for years. Sure, I've used UE4 and I can create a map and script it but this is not a major part of my portfolio. I've been building in Dunia and id Tech engines shipping titles like Farcry 5 but this is of no value to them.  I had one developer straight up tell me, "My years of experience means nothing because it was with proprietary engines.  I have no useful knowledge for UE4 / Unity devs."   He went on to say, "You need to be using UE4 every day for 2 to 3 years min."

Let me be frank about this shortsightedness.  Most game engines are similar.  They all basically do the same thing.  For a person to move from one to another does require some time to get up to speed. An experienced designer generally knows what they are looking for, they just need to learn where to find it in an unfamiliar engine environment.  This would take two weeks, maybe three.  After that you then have a designer that has shipped top selling AAA titles since before you even started in the business.  Isn't that worth it?  Are two weeks going to be such a setback?  I shared this feedback with a friend and studio Creative Director he replied, "What a load of bullshit. That excludes so much of the industry workforce."

This attitude isn't just in regards to engine experience, its with platforms as well.  People that have worked on PC or console titles are at a huge disadvantage if they're looking to change to mobile or VR development.  Mobile studios aren't interested in console devs and vice versa.  Even within familiar platforms if you've only worked on single play VS multiplayer or if you've never worked on a free-to-play game you're immediately less desirable.  So what are these developers looking for?  I think I've found the answer.

Right now the majority of studios don't seem to be looking for creative, experienced people to help improve their titles.  They want someone who can quickly fill a seat and close some JIRA tasks.  No thinking required or even desired.

Google Stadia Experience

I received a package in the mail yesterday. Kind of forgot I had pre-ordered the Google Stadia back in June. Since we are a developer I thought I should have one. I have to say I was VERY skeptical. I had ordered a Steam Link in the past and expected the same laggy performance. 

So I hooked up the Chromecast, installed the phone apps. Our router is in the center of the home on the first floor and the TV I was using was in our basement entertainment area, so wireless. I launched Destiny 2 and it instantly started playing of course with no installing. I experienced zero lag or rubberbanding, and the graphics looked great! It was actually pretty amazing.

Ultimately I wished the subscription service was more like Netflix where you have unlimited access to a game library but that's really a dream service I'm not sure will ever exist.  I've heard with Stadia the subscription won't be required to play games which makes it more like an Xbox Live or Playstation Plus service which makes sense.

Overall I must say I was impressed with the performance.  I'm looking forward to their title choices expanding and I'm optimistic for what's to come from this.

A Great GDC Design Talk from MTG Designer Mark Rosewater

Here's another great talk I wanted to share for those interested in game design.  It's Mark Rosewater who has worked on Magic the Gathering for over 20 years.  He's super easy to listen to and his observations cross into all aspects of games.

https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/twenty-years-twenty-lessons-part-1-2016-05-30

The Witcher Series Design Process

The Witcher III is one of my favorite games to date with high hopes on Cyberpunk 2077.  Here is a great video from one of Game Designers over at CD Projekt Red.  If you're interested in game design he really hits the covers some awesome methods for creating good designs.