Showing posts with label nicolich. Show all posts
The BeautiFun Team Stories - Lourdes Nicolich (Artist) Part II/II
Link to Part I/II.
With videogames I discovered a new medium that was really special and thrilling, they let me choose my own path and take control of a character in amazing fantasy worlds! I started thinking about how much I would love to be able of creating those universes someday.
As I was telling you before, when I was between 8 and 10 years-old I played Super Nintendo games like Donkey Kong Country or Aladdin. Those, aside of being really funny, had a superb art that inspired my drawings a lot by the time. Also I loved drawing landscapes of the nature, I had to be good at it, since some schoolmates accused me of copying/cheating because they didn't believe I could be able to paint them all by myself.
So I continued painting by pure hobby and inspiration, all of this followed by passion of someday becoming a game artist. I learned some Corel Draw in my free time and wrote short fairytales, that I also illustrated. You may think I studied arts since very young, but I got a little bit misguided and did a human-sciences bachelor in high school. But afterwards I was quite strongly determined to go after my dream of being an artist and with a lot of effort I passed the entrance test for Fine Arts University.
Jesús: What did you enjoy the most learning at the University?
I loved animation subject, the teacher was Josep María Blanco, a brilliant professional. Also natural drawing inspired by human models was something I deeply enjoyed. Thanks to graphic design I reinforced my critical sense about texts styles, paragraphs, etc. I also remember how much I critizised some games that didn't take care of those issues.
Jesús: I see you are quite perfectionist and are rather curious personality, right?
Yeah, I think we all are quite perfectionists at BeatutiFun Games. As a proof, in Nihilumbra you can see the smooth and well-finished texts of the game, the typography is really carefully selected for each language. But I'm still learning to be satisfied with a certain degree of perfection, because all the extremes are bad.
Jesús: And what happened after the university? Did you finally started make videogames?
Not really, its a bit weird because, in spite I focused on learning everything I thought could be useful to make games, but somehow lost track and I ended up working in the graphic design area for web, multimedia applications and advertising. After working during a stint on several companies, I was wondering what happened with my passion for doing art for videogames. And what a coincidence that one day I received a letter from the University where they informed about a videogame Masters Degree. That was a true temptation and the only thing that kept me back from signing up was the really high price. But my parents ended up convincing me, they told me that it could be paid in installments and, combining their help with some money that I earned working, we managed to pay it; so there I went, learning how to do art for videogames!
Jesús: How was your experience with the Video-game Masters Degree?
I started the course thinking absolutely in positive, trying to learn as much as possible, especially about the technical side of how video games were made, that was amazing for me. And also the technological side was my weakest point in my curriculum after I did my Fine Arts studies. Also I enjoyed very much attending conferences by industry professionals who came around to share their experience with us. There I had also the chance to meet great people, with the same tastes than me, and as a consequence of this, some of us ended up founding BeautiFun Games.
Jesús: What can you tell us about the game you developed at the Master, "Once Upon a Night"?
It was a game we based on experimentation, trying out different ideas each member of the group had. The game aesthetics were very important, since we had two worlds, the dreamy and the nightmarish, it was a challenge to keep the art of each world different and related at the same time. I got the idea of how to change the appearance of the environment from dreamy to nightmarish and vice-versa from watching a seaweed that reacted by hiding when it was touched. The programmers played with the shaders to try to change the textures progressively and in a stylized way. It was quite a complex project for beginners like us, when we tought a problem/bug was solved, another issue emerged somewhere else. Also I found fascinating how things were done internally in our game, we learned a lot from other commercial games and how they solved those problems. As an example, I remember we studied Alan Wake and how it used the flashlight in each position and situation, and also how commercial games tried to avoid or dissimulate tiling.
Jesús: How did you met the different components of BeautiFun Games?
I met Aniol because we shared the same passion about game development process. We were both curious about all the aspects needed, since our goal was to be able to make a complete game. In fact I was the first person who encouraged Aniol it would be a great idea to create a videogame company, he liked it and after the Masters Degree he surprised everyone from our group with the company creation purposal, and finally here we are!
Jesús: What were the key factors for defining the artistic aspect of Nihilumbra?
I clearly remember when Kevin and Aniol came one day with several game ideas, and then Kevin explained the idea of Nihilumbra. I started to imagine many things about how that world would be, the amazing journey the player would live. He had the monsters design very clear in his mind and I quickly shaped in my mind the main aspect for the landscapes. The world Kevin had in mind at the beginning was designed to emphasize the use of the paintings, so it lacked colors, the characters were silhouettes, quite Limbo-esque. But I thought that the player should be able to feel the inmensity of the world like Born feels it, and also perceive colors, at least a bit, in some way, so I suggested the usage of expressiveness and plasticity of painting to illustrate the scenarios. Born is a character that begins his existence at the beginning of the game. He is not capable of fully understanding the world that surrounds him. He’s especially fascinated with the colors that he finds, but he can’t really assimilate them properly, like he was colorblind. I thought that we could represent that giving the colors a special importance in the backgrounds while keeping them desaturated, so every world Born visits is somehow pervaded with the predominant color of that world (blue with frozen cliffs, green with the living forest, etc). I took Kevin’s initial idea and developed it so the art fitted with Born, the story and the atmosphere. In the following images you can see a few concept arts Kevin showed to the team to start thinking about how the game should look like.
Jesús: Are you especially proud of something in particular in the artistic aspect of the game?
I loved that I didn't need to change a lot of things we did on the original Photoshop concepts to what was finally included in the final game (textures, etc). This is something I really appreciate and I thank our dear programmers because they did a great effort to make it possible.
And now we are finishing the interview, can you tell me a good quality of each member of the team, and a good and a bad quality of yourself?
Aniol is very analitic and persevering, loves to look at things from every possible aspect.
Pol is a really patient guy, I remember that I loved the particle, weather and special effects he did at Nihilumbra. He is also good at estimating the time that a technical task will take.
Kevin is always in the journey of self-improvement, he plays tons of games to analyze them and try to learn from their good and bad design choices.
Suey is a really down to Earth guy and always loves to work the extra mile, improving the performance of the game code.
Jordi is a very passionate guy, super perfectionist and critic with his own work (also with others' work, but always auto-critic himself first). I like how he likes to learn new things by himself and love the day to day routine, when we share thoughts and cooperate the best we can.
Jesús is very perservering, love how he likes to learn from everything and also very good talking and getting to know people.
And about me, I can say some of my virtues are I'm persevering and also put tons of effort into making everything as perfect as possible. Those virtues can turn into weak points when they go too far, so I try to learn to say "stop improving something that's already very good", and also while most of the time I'm optimistic and cheerful, I have to control my bad-temper from time to time.
Jesús: Thinking about the near future, what can you tell us about Megamagic?
Megamagic story is not as abstract and philosophical as Nihilumbra’s, also at an artistic level it presents a lot of new challenges. My work on the game is focused on environments and backgrounds, in this case the game is really happy and colourful. Conceptually I like how crazy it is, the mixture of very different cultural influences, films, cartoons, comics, etc. I really love the freedom I have to create things from my own imagination.
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The BeautiFun Team Stories - Lourdes Nicolich (Artist) Part I/II
This week we start our interview to Lourdes Nicolich, artist and co-founder of our studio. In this first part you will know more about her gaming background. Her life with games is really intense and she also has a great memory, so be prepared for an amazing travel back in time!
Lourdes: Almost could say I literally was born surrounded by video games. My parents loved them since the very beginning, even before they married they were absolutely fascinated with the first arcade machines. So before I was born they already had played Pong and Space Invaders arcades, then bought a Coleco-Vision!
As I was growing up I found out they had bought an Amiga and an arcade cabinet. My father installed some kind of connectors on it that allowed me to play Amiga games like if it was an arcade. I remember it was on that Amiga computer and with those arcade joysticks where I beated the first Prince of Persia!
We also had an MSX that worked with a cassette tape. Each game we wanted to play on it took a really long time to load! Many times the game would hang during the process, so my father, with infinite patience, had to use a screwdriver to try to re-adjust the cassette and plug it again.
Something curious I strongly remember is each and every title screen from each of the games we played at the time. Since I was a small kid, I unconsciously received the influence of my mother's passion for crafts and drawing. Always got astonished looking at those pixel art screens, they made my imagination ran free! One of the most memorable title screens for me was the one from Mad Mix Game, a Spanish game inspired by Pac Man. In that cover it seemed like the character was getting its own life and he wanted to jump out of the screen.
Another games I fondly hark back to are:
- Mickey's Runaway Zoo, an educational game I played while riding a train.
- Rodland, a beat'em up I played along with my sister. Remember we crafted really cool cooperative strategies to kill all the enemies around, and we finally beated the game, it was quite hard, especially because we couldn't save our progress and, once we died, we had to restart everything again from the very beginning.
- Cannot forget to mention Silk Worm, a side-scroller shooter starred by a heavy armed Jeep and a helicopter were my mother and I spent countless hours playing co-op mode, obsessed with the idea of getting further and futher without being killed.
- I was fascinated with Flashback, especially watching its introductory sequences. It was awe-inspiring to see how with so few polygons the game could transmit you a lot of feelings.
Jesús: So your family was a key factor in your gaming life. Could you explain a bit more about your gaming habits with them?
L: Yes, I used to play a lot with my parents back then, and I still do it nowadays when I visit them. My father was the one who started this hobby for video games and then my mother got really passionated too. My father loves pinball games and also plays FIFA from now and then. Lately he is pouring many hours into GTA Online with my sister and her boyfriend when they all come out of work. My mother loves platformers like Mario, puzzle games, and adventure titles like Zelda.
J: I see you love Mario games, I would like to know your opinion about how well Mario has aged since the first game came out.
L: I think they have kept the essence of what makes Mario an excellent platformer. And at the same time they have innovated in their playability. For example Mario Galaxy produced me a really exciting vertigo feeling. I also enjoy a lot when we play four people at the same time in any of the last Mario games (New Super Mario Bros Wii and the likes).
J: Here I asked Lourdes if she had tried that Nintendo Land mini-game called Luigi's Ghost Mansion with her family and friends. I had played it and really think it was bringing something new to the typical multiplayer gaming experience with the usage of the Wii U GamePad controller.
L: That kind of gameplay is not so innovative, it looks really similar to what had been implemented for Pac-Man Vs., a mini-game launched in 2003 that was included as part of Namco's R: Racing Evolution. Three players were controlling ghosts, that could only view a limited part of the map, and the fourth player was Pac-Man, that was controlled using the Game Boy Advance handheld. Pac-Man's goal is the classic one, to eat all the pills and also defeat ghosts on its way before he could be captured.
So there was a clear similarity between both games, and that's not something that should surprise us, since the game designer was nothing less than Shigeru Miyamoto himself!
J: I see you mainly played consoles during the last 20 years, can you tell me about the story of the different consoles you had?
L: Yes, the Amiga, as happened with all the other 16 bit computers, was dethroned by the PCs and my father was looking for the next big thing to give us for Christmas, it had to be something we could all play in the living room. He researched a bit and finally bought a Super Nintendo, he liked the graphics and the kind of games it offered at the time (1992).
Then we started renting Super Nintendo games, one each week, on a constant basis. So we easily ended making a great friendship with the owners of our closest video club, a couple around the same age of my parents that didn't take too long in adding us to their VIP clients list. That privilege allowed one day to be one of the first to try Donkey Kong Country, a game that my father was curious about after reading some magazine reports. He sent me to rent the game and as soon as I came back home I started playing, and couldn't stop! My father came back from work and when he saw the game he was astonished, petrified. He saw the whole evolution of videogames, and he couldn't believe that the Super Nintendo was able to handle those character animations, beautiful and detailed scenarios, that music, the smooth and responsive control... that was an instant buy for him (and me too).
Another really curious anecdote happened the day my father connected the console to our Hi-Fi system and started recording the game music. He asked me to play some games without being killed (so we had no FX in the audio), so he could record the music of each level to listen to it at anytime. We loved to listening to that music during travels or simply at home. That also created a great culture of listening to game scores in all the family. For example, recently I enjoyed very much the Castlevania: Lords of Shadows soundtrack.
As my father started collecting computers and consoles at a very young age, I was really lucky to be able to play pretty most of the systems available. We didn't buy all the consoles at launch, only the ones we really loved. We have been adquiring most of consoles followed by the one that offered the best games and stories. Since we got a Super Nintendo we were big fans of most of Nintendo titles, but also appreciate SEGA systems, games like Sonic or Ecco the Dolphin justify the purchase of a Megadrive or a Dreamcast.
J: Can you mention some games from the 90s that left you a strong mark?
L: From Nintendo 64 era I adore The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, the story, the world, the depth in the gameplay, that beautiful music, it got me hooked. The game was full of surprises and mysteries, the hidden magic caves, the fairies... Was fascinated with the owl that magically teleported you to other areas of the game, Zora and the whale, the part when you meet Epona, the game is full of memorable details that really make up a superb experience.
Tomb Raider is another saga that I won't forget. I loved how Lara was depicted in the game, she was a mixture between an explorer and a warrior, and the game had also some sci-fi / mystic elements that fascinated me. Totally loved the challenges and puzzle resolutions Tomb Raider games always presented.
J: And during the last decade, which games have been the most significative for you?
L: I have been impressed by a few games to say the truth. First one would be Bioshock, where I loved that discovery feeling of exploring strange old worlds, the powers of plasmids was kind of magic and fascinating, a story that unraveled progressively. I was a bit afraid during the last part of the game, but my sister took control and she beated the game while I was watching and encouraging her. Something similar happened with the first Dead Space, but I also loved it!
Also, I cannot forget to mention the last two Rayman titles. Now I'm playing them both, when I get tired of Rayman Origins on the Wii I alternate with Rayman Legends on the PS3. The previous Rayman games (Rayman 1, 2 and 3, etc) were more adventure-oriented around a story (something like Zelda), and the last ones are more focused on pure old-school platformers, quite challenging and filled with tons of crazy fun!
J: As a player, how do you see the evolution of videogames and the state of the industry nowadays?
L: I have to admit I'm tired of those AAA games that aim to imitate films, to be more and more realistic while repeating the old gameplay formulas we all know.
But we still have some classic sagas like Mario, Rayman or Donkey Kong that, while keeping the same characters and mechanics, they are somehow fresh and still have the original high quality production values that made them so successful.
Now with us, the indies, things are really more diverse. Recently Jordi recommended me to play Deponia, Aniol told me about how cool Fez was. So I have to try them out! I'm used to play together with friends and family in the living room, so PC gaming is a bit of a problem for me. But somehow I will connect the PC to my TV, plug a controller and dedicate a good time to dive into the vast indie game catalog available.
Continues in Part II.
You can get in touch with Lourdes on Twitter, she is @llEvadne
Other interviews:
The BeautiFun Team Stories - Aniol Alcaraz (Producer and programmer) - Part II / II
Link to Part I/II.
Jesús: How do you see the game industry at the moment in relation to the kind of games we are making at BeautiFun Games?
Aniol: About the videogame industry, I have to say at the beginning we were a bit skeptical about how successfully commercial an indie game could be. Everyone was talking about casual and social gaming for mobile and Facebook, but after our experience with Nihilumbra (that's making a game we would love to play as traditional videogame players), things changed very favorably! Now we trust that keeping our efforts and passion, we can make our own road as part of this vibrant indie scene.
J: Nowadays, BeautiFun Games has grown and added three members more, so it almost doubled its size since it was funded, back in early 2011. How those changes have affected your roles at the company and what are the biggest challenges you faced?
A: I started to work as a producer without noticing that "producer" was the name for that kind of task. Focused on coordinating everyone's work so we all can get all done with the least possible delay. I also make sure that the result has the level of quality needed. More than order "what" we have to do, my main task is about the "how" we have to do it and what to change in order to get it on time.
About challenges, as programmer, I think one of the most difficult situations we had to face happened while developing Nihilumbra. Firstly getting used to work with the tech capabilities of a cellphone, since we couldn't read the textures from scenarios pixel by pixel, we had to sort-of invent a method using tables in RAM memory. After this issue was solved, we had to program the game physics and also create a realistic "painting effect" when the player touched the screen. The painting effect was specially tricky, since we had to recur to use polygons to represent paint stains, also those polygons had to be small enough in a way when the user is painting close to any surface border, there won't be any stain "half floating" where that border ends. Something curious that not many people know is that we had to add a limit to the amount of painting you had in the game. The purpose of this feature was to avoid a potential performance slowdown if the player started painting -filling with polygons- on all the surface available.
A: Surely we could have chosen an easier path to go and try to avoid facing those challenges, but in the end we followed the hard path since we believed that those features were sort of unique and nobody had technically created such experience with a touching device until that moment. In addition, the gameplay demanded it and it made full sense to all of us. Finally, we got our effort rewarded with good sales, and it was not only because of the technical achievements in the game, I believe it was thanks to the combination of great art, level design and narrative.
J: Aniol explained me some concrete dares he and the other two programmers in the team (Pol and Suey) had to solve, but trying to go for a more general question regarding programming, I ask him what part he loves the most of this side of his work.
A: I specially enjoy the starting and closing of projects. To create a solid technical base, and then polishing the details during last weeks of the development.
J: Can you go a bit into detail about what it means to create a solid technical base?
A: A videogame project is subject to many changes, that means you may need to adapt the implementation of some parts of the game depending on the variable needs of an artist, the game designer or even the musician. So to try to diminish the negative impact those changes have, as a programmer you have to code in a very tricky and strategic way with the goal of making your code as reusable as possible. This hability is very important here at BeautiFun Games, because our projects main direction are driven by the artists and designers, more than the programmers.
J: About Nihilumbra, is there an impressive moment for you when you look back at the first months after launch?
A: We received messages from people telling it was the best iOS game they ever played, that was mind-blowing. Also we got great comments about the PC version, something amazing who nobody expected was a fanart by a Russian fan called "~Nemesis~fierce", it mixes both universes from Nihilumbra and Journey! It is been a true honor to be compared with ThatGameCompany's masterpiece.
We try to leave a mark in gamers, like those movies you remember for a long time, if we achieve that, that will be a success.
J: I would also like to know how did you (the four funding members) met each other?
A: About Pol, as I explained before, I met him before thanks to our shared fondness for poker, but it was a coincidence that he also entered the same Videogame Development Course as me. In that same course I met Lourdes and Kevin... for the final project Pol went to work with Kevin's group and Lourdes was in the same working group as me. So it was only a matter of time until the core team of BeautiFun Games was born.
J: Now you know the members of the team after a few years of hard work, I would like our fans to start knowing them too. So what is better than asking you about a good quality of each one?
A: Kevin always gets his way. That's not a bad thing, because I always put a lot of spokes on his wheels, and consequently we end up approving only the best of his ideas.
Pol is always making your day easier, he hasn't only good mood, he also knows when is the best time to use it.
Suey works hard as hell, always running the extra mile to make a project go forward.
Lourdes is kind of a mother for everybody. I know it may seem weird to you, but its somehow like that. Aside of working really hard, she also takes care of the whole team. Something that makes her unique is that she is very versatile, working with the same passion on scenarios or an options menu.
Jordi is the fastests hand in the painting western! In a very short time he can draw something amazing.
And lastly you, Jesús, I think one of your best qualities is to be insistent and always wanting to get to the heart of each matter. I think that is a very good, since your job is to be like an explorer, somebody who stays alert about what we can do to spread the word out about our games and the studio, and at the same time putting an eye on the community to get feedback about how the world feels about us.
J: And what about your good and bad qualities?
A: I would say I work too much and also some people from the team tell me I have the bad habit of being tedious because I always remind them what is left to do. But I need to be like that, to try to establish a discipline that can be valid for everybody and some common rules in the team. This is the only way that, in the end, the processes will be streamlined. So my bad quality can be also my best one, since the purpose of that insistence is always to facilitate the work to others.
J: Before ending this interview, I don't want to miss the chance of asking what can you tell about our next game, Megamagic?
A: I can say we are going to showcase a few things about the game this March. Megamagic is nothing like Nihilumbra, well, somehow yes, since magic powers will be key. Gameplay-wise, it is going to be a mixture of action-RPG Zelda-like games and strategy mechanics... and also tons of awesome Magic! Won't be as dark and depressing as Nihilumbra, but we can warantee that the same "spirit" will somehow remain there. As it happened with Nihilumbra, we want to make the game accesible to all kinds of audiences. From the beginning, we will consider the casual and the hardcore gamer experience. Sorry, I cannot say many more things at the moment.
J: How much involvement will have the community in Megamagic?
A: Nihilumbra was a closed title, and we don't discard a sequel at the moment. With Megamagic we are creating a world that we can expand in this and future games, so all the feedback we get along the development process will be used to try to improve the experience.
