So we decided to do that project.”Įrich was even more excited to return to his spacegame concept than Travis, and not just because it had been his idea.
I’d already built combat prototypes, which were terrible compared to anything we have now. “It had been Erich’s original pitch that I had kind of glommed on to, and added this broadside component to, so we both already had interest in it. “It made sense to do that as our first project,” Travis said. Soon enough, Travis was having much more fun populating his rendition of outer space than he was overseeing work stuff at Runic.īecause Travis’s and Erich’s departure from Runic was amicable, Max and Peter were happy to let them take spacegame with them. Growing increasingly dissatisfied at work, Travis asked his fellow co-founders-Peter Hu and Max and Erich Schaefer-if they’d mind if he took the defunct “spacegame” prototype home so he could experiment with it in his spare time. Travis’s workaholic streak had set in long before he and Erich had split off from Runic Games to form their asynchronous company. Looking to the Stars Adding tool tips allowed Erich and Travis to communicate essential functions to players. From the moment he placed them reverently along desks and shelves, he felt at home-away-from-home. Still, trimmings like conference rooms and front desks rounded out the office space nicely, and Travis’s keepsakes imbued it with personality: dozens of old computers-including a vintage Commodore 64-and classic games replete with boxes and instruction manuals. Even one additional employee would render their company’s name obsolete, after all. Of course, neither of Double Damage Games’s co-founders planned on hiring anyone else, ever. There was even a conference room and a small lobby with a front desk where a receptionist could field calls and deliveries. The new digs were perfect: two sizeable rooms partitioned by a wall of glass, which meant Erich would have space to work when circumstances dictated he fly up from the Bay Area. I can work wherever I want.”Ĭruising around Seattle, Travis and Erich rented a small space in an office park. “If I have to get something done and I feel a lot of pressure to do it, I can go home and nobody’s going to say, ‘Why are you leaving the office at 5:00?’ That specific pressure doesn’t exist: the pressure of presence. Maintaining a separate workspace enables him to clearly delineate his responsibilities as husband, father, game programmer, and dog walker. He is a husband, a father to two adorable but boisterous little girls, and owner of an equally rambunctious dog. He still worked out of his house in San Francisco, but unlike during his time as a co-owner of Runic Games, he didn’t have to cede design work-his favorite part of game development-to the designers he had hired for the job.įor Travis, drawing a line between work and home was essential. It’s too much of an echo chamber for yourself: you do stuff and say, ‘This is probably good.'”Įrich Schaefer was enjoying being one half of a two-person organization as much as Travis. One person is too isolated because you don’t have enough friction over design decisions.
He was no longer in charge of a company made up of dozens of employees who might balk at not being consulted on every little decision. “I went and bought a Kinect for $30 used, and I stood in front of it and waved my arms around for a little while, and I imported it into 3D Studio Max, and we had some character animations and we were done.”įor Travis, the fact that he was able to make these and other decisions on the fly was as satisfying as flailing around in front of an Xbox camera for a few hours instead of fussing interminably with bloated software. The package had been pricey.Īfter a few hours, he’d had enough.
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Creating idle gestures was a simple task that his software insisted on overcomplicating, and time was money, almost literally.
All he needed to do was create an idle animation-game development parlance for the fidgety movements characters make when they’re standing around talking.
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The software at his disposal was dense, full of tools and sliders and values to modify. It was an alien, one of many extraterrestrials that players would meet in the game he and Erich Schaefer were developing. He’d been picking his way through a graphics package for hours, poring over options to put the finishing touches on a character he’d been working on. The trade off: you can’t fire while shields are up. Activating a force field is as easy as holding down the right bumper on the X360 controller.
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