What Game/s Were Pivotal for MMG Staff Becoming Game Developers?
Often video game designers are inspired by games they grew up playing and so today we are finding out the favs and inspiration for some of our developers; what they say may surprise you!
So to start out with myself, I played quite a few classic point and click games growing up as well as many handheld console games. Although I wouldn’t describe any of those being the main reasons as to why I became a game developer, I did find a game throughout my tertiary education that really sparked my passion.
Despite one of the bigger pushes for me was a course I took in highschool which required me to make a game, which was one of the major reasons I pursued a game developer course afterwards. However I knew I was on the right track when I discovered We Were Here, a co-op puzzle escape room game – which has since become a series of games; of which I have completed them all, of course.
The reasons this game in particular stuck with me I believe was because I was quite obsessed with escape rooms at that time and the unique difference that We Were Here had was that both people are stuck in separate areas and having to only communicate through a walkie talkie – or in person if you’re sitting back to back with your sibling like I was; which made it so much better.
Also I loved the art style and I certainly have saved screenshots of the game that I made my sibling wait for me to take.
It has inspired me to make my own escape room that is currently in WIP purgatory where many artist’s abandoned projects can be found. Though it does occasionally get small updates here and there, I swear!
A few honourary game mentions though would be the Pokemon franchise and A Kingdom For Keflings of all things. Please release Corbel, I need that childhood feeling back!
Now on a slightly different note, one of our designer’s it was Command And Conquer 1995, a sci-fi real-time strategy game developed by Westwood Studios in 1995. Described as having those “campy cut scenes that provided really important meta contextual info for WHY you were playing the game”. In simpler terms, it had fun and campy cutscenes that would explain why you were both Commanding and Conquering. It gave you reasons for why you were performing tasks and continuous motivation so that the player would keep playing the game.
For a bit more context, full-motion video cutscenes were used with real actors playing the various characters; no CGI found here. It was initially considered a fad for video games in the 1980s but shot to popularity in the 1990s; however it is now considered a dated feature and only games trying to capture those 80s – 90s nostalgic feelings include it.
Command And Conquer was also pivotal in teaching them that; like many action movies, it doesn’t matter the odds you’re up against, with the right plan and a strong belief in said plan you too can “overcome ridiculous, nonsense odds”.
And to end this I quote “it’s just a shame you can’t save and restart levels in real life haha”.
For an artist it was Halo 1 (then preceded by 2 and 3) was the “first game I really fell in love with”. A first-person shooter and space opera all in one, Halo 1 was released by renowned developers Bungie in 2001; it was truly a staple of its time and then many years after. It would be hard to come across any gamer that has never played yet alone heard of the Halo franchise, which brought an emotional and in depth story and world that had never been experienced before. Growing up they watched the dev logs that the developers published to their YouTube channel. They remember the in depth discussions they had about how fun it was to work together and create something they’re all passionate about; “It was the first time as a kid I thought about what I wanted to be career wise when I grew up”. Obviously they didn’t quite understand what that meant as a child, but being inspired by something as a child to enter into a particular industry is not unique to any industry in particular.
But as to why the Halo franchise stood out to them can be listed below:
- World design
- Architecture
- Ship design
- The aliens
- Narrative
- Lore
And the overall art style was unique and memorable for them.
Furthermore, as they got older and Elder Scrolls: Skyrim was released and a new modder was born! The first push to look into how to actually develop a game and more importantly game art; specifically what 3D modelling involved, from making meshes to UV editing and then texturing those meshes. At this time many of the pretty armour mods were made for the female characters only and with all male characters they chose to join the large Skyrim modding community and created the armour they wanted their characters to wear. Though they admit that “can’t say I made anything good, but it made me realise that it was actually possible to do game art”. Blundering around in blender and 3ds max they waded into the modding community and are forever a part of the history of modding games, something I will be doing a deep dive into later this year!
Just remember no matter what gives you inspiration and career aspirations follow that to the best of your ability, all the devs discussed in this blog grew up with a variety of games and found inspiration from different areas.
Follow your dreams and if those dreams require a placement in a games company, we’re here for you; just shoot through a message to contact@minimammothgames.com!