From big budget to casual pastures

Jan 21st 2010 at 14:55 by Dene Carter

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It's a cold, grey January afternoon in London. Christmas has come and gone and - like the silent elevator farter - has left some a little deflated and others slightly unsettled. I've just finished working on version 1.1.0 of my first app 'Flaboo!' and am in a reflective mood.

In January of 2009 I was working at Lionhead on Fable III. I turned my increasingly flabby buttocks toward that world last May, and traded it for the lure of making a game by myself for a change. Despite the fact that I'm still sitting on those buttocks for about 16 hours a day (now with occasional breaks for home-made espresso) my working life is now utterly different.

As the old saying goes, 'People. Can't live with them, can't dispose of their bodies without some nosey parker asking 'Eh, mate! Why is your duffel-bag dripping blood?'' Or something.

See, though I have high standards of personal hygiene, and am – bafflingly - married, I'm still a nerd who primarily got into computers to avoid dealing with people.

Ironically, as creative director for Fable, most of my days in 'big industry' involved them. If I was not attempting to convince level designers that my idea for a big moving dungeon set inside a fat bloke wasn't insane I was talking to writers about character motivations or coders about how a monster should move ('No, not like a fricking monkey. Monkeys are rubbish!'). 

These days, it's just me. Nobody else. Long periods of silence are punctuated only by the rhythmic thrum of key presses, or curious electronica. Occasionally, I go out to buy some necessities (it seems my life is an endless cycle of toilet rolls, soya milk and coffee) then I come back again and continue tap-tap-tapping away. When I left to make casual games, I don't think anything quite prepared me for the colossal level of culpability I would experience due to my lack of colleagues.

If I encountered a major problem back at Lionhead my job largely consisted of tutting loudly and shaking my head. I might even make a cup of tea while waiting for some vastly talented person to fix the issue. These days everything is my fault.

A smoke particle's sprite is one pixel too big to fit into the texture page? My problem. The palette of the main character clashes with the new backgrounds? My problem. The iPhone does some weird thing when there's a full-moon and you stare at it from the corner of your eye? Still, my problem.

I used to respect my colleagues, but now I'm in awe. Every    thing. Is. A. Potential. Disaster.

However, at the risk of sounding new age for a moment, where there is destruction, there is usually rebirth. In my case, I've had to learn about absolutely everything. I've had to learn colour theory. I've had to learn openAL in order to get sounds into my game. I've had to learn openGL to get things on the screen. I've had to study musical composition. To my surprise and delight, it seems that there are many knowledgeable people out there who are genuinely helpful and keen to share their experience despite getting nothing in return by my slightly teary thanks. Yes, in some cases these same people have deified their cats, but I'm ignoring that.

In its maturity, the internet has turned out to do what it was designed to do from the outset: aid the dissemination of information. I'm sure I could find a video tutorial on the 'Correct way to dispose of a human body that doesn't involve duffel bags' if I tried hard enough. But at this point, such a guide is probably unnecessary. People aren't looking so bad.