Rare Life: Gameplay Engineer
It’s been a while since we did our last batch, but with the games business having blossomed into a hotbed of ongoing recruitment, it seems like a peachy time to bring back Rare’s in-house staff profiles. Hopefully these will prove informative for those hoping to get into a particular line of work, but also entertaining enough to be worth a read for anyone interested in Rare or a general industry career.
In this edition: James Thomas, Gameplay Engineer. Let’s have it, Trophy Thomas!
Rare: What’s your background and how did you arrive at Rare?
James Thomas: Despite loving videogames from an early age, I got into programming relatively late compared to a lot of others here. I wrote my first “if” during Computing at college and then followed that up with Computer Science at University. Between them they managed to get me up to a decent level, so I was able to put together a ropey FPS demo and send that in to Rare. Although it only ran at four frames per second and featured enemies no more threatening than a series of white triangles, it managed to get me past security and I’ve been here for just over ten years.
Have you found yourself doing the job you always thought you’d do?
Yes. And no. Being completely honest, I wasn’t 100% sure what games programmers did when I first set my heart on cracking the industry. So whilst I have achieved my dream job, it’s been so varied during my time here that I don’t think I could have predicted that.
What are your main responsibilities on the average game?
On my last couple of projects I’ve been involved at a lot of the early planning. This is an honour and a privilege but what it boils down to is a lot of architectural design, pouring thought into large UML diagrams and flow charts that describe just how we will build the game and how all its constituent parts work together. Whilst this may not sound very attractive, it’s extremely beneficial and gives a great insight into what the next few months will contain.
After that initial phase, it’s time to get my hands dirty. My duties lie mainly on the gameplay side of things – sitting above all the system level code and actually coding up the fun bits. For Kinect Sports: Season Two‘s Tennis this involved getting things like the AI and the ball up and running, but also getting a whole mini-game to myself, all of it spent working closely with a Designer to ensure that everything was what had been expected.
Finally, and this goes for everyone: bugs. No matter how well you think you’ve programmed, there will be errors and the last stage of any project is squashing them good and hard so they don’t come back.
Which Rare games have you worked on, and what’s been your biggest achievement?
So far my CV reads: Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Viva Piñata, Viva Piñata: Trouble in Paradise and Kinect Sports: Season Two.
Jan 2013
December Social Deceleration
Not to make it sound like we fizzled out like a wet sparkler in the twilight days of 2012 – we prefer to think of it as winding elegantly down for the holidays. Fortunately there was plenty going on in the first three weeks of the month to balance out the final week, when we were all at home ignoring anything work-related in favour of tearing open presents and eating all the Ferrero Rocher in the world.
Of course, perversely, the main Rare event of the month went and happened on the 25th anyway with the second wave of Kinect Sports Gems rattling through the system and spilling out onto Xbox LIVE Arcade. Prior to that, we’d published the long-in-gestation Kinect Sports Tepid Seat, said farewell to the exhausted KS1 Facebook app and witnessed the gamerscore huntsmen at TrueAchievements get cracking on guides for the first wave of Gems. In terms of Rare’s Minecraft contribution, December held only a single piece of news, but as a round-up of the Halloween Skin Pack charity haul it was a good one. Heartwarming developer solidarity ensued.
The month in Exciting Lists and Features started with a bang as GoldenEye was bigged up in TIME Magazine’s All-TIME 100 Video Games and crowned king of GameTrailers’ Top 10 First-Person Shooters, although Game Informer’s nod to DK64 in a rundown of the Freshest Raps was an honour on pretty much the same level. Perfect Dark gave us 10 minutes of rowdy LAN Party action, Freezeezy Peak got a Synthetic Orchestra makeover and Rare Gamer delivered a Top 5 of Rare Doomsday Scenarios. Very festive! One thing in that paragraph, at least.
The 12th month of 2012 was also laced with interesting dates, references to Schwarzenegger and Don King, attempts to do justice to the #XmasGames hashtag, totally legal fights, fire alarms, freebies and seasonal photos of frosty windows and the Rare Xmas tree (the latter instantly subverted by scandalmongers). And the Games on Demand version of Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts went briefly on sale on December 29th, but we couldn’t post a reminder on that day due to Ferrero Rocher immobilisation.
Right, 2012, we’re done with you. You couldn’t even deliver an apocalypse, just so much rain that even the Rare ducks and geese looked sick of it by June. We’ve already set sail in the 2013 social media fun boat, so if you’re interested in seeing what kind of stuff it throws overboard, doggy-paddle after it on Twitter (at RareLtd) or Facebook (at RareLtd or KinectSportsOfficial). Failing that, catch you back here in early February for our next monthly stopover.
Jan 2013
The Tepid Seat: Kinect Sports
For various reasons, some beyond our control and some within our control but involving dangerous wild animals, it’s been a long time coming back. But today, finally, it is upon us. You submitted the questions, we got Rare folks to sit down and answer them. Or, technically, answer them while running around emitting a high-pitched whine and trying to do two dozen other things at the same time.
In this edition: Kinect Sports team designers Travis Ryan and Paul Collins. Knowledge dropped!
Jump up, and down, this question’s passed, around.
I’ve always wondered what the process was like for Kinect Sports when it came to implementing an idea into the game. Obviously there’s the set sports that come with the disc that have their own origins, but it’s the creative fodder added to the DLC packs that must be interesting to see the development pan out around the studio. Is one employee sitting at a table when he suddenly jumps up and starts impersonating Blazing Banana, or is it more of a team thing where the entire studio undergoes a stage of sports ideas before carrying it off to their own field of expertise?
Flumpet Flavor of the month,
Steve aka Lerako
TR: Herding new ideas is a tricky process, not dissimilar to herding kittens with wool. There are usually so many ideas pinging around the office that we have to wear protective gear. When developing full sports we home in on those with high popularity, fan requests and things that just sound plain fun to play! As we’re talking about Kinect, we then try to get a feel for it before a single finger taps the keyboard. You can get a feel for a sport pretty quickly and establish whether the core interaction is fun to perform, fun for others to watch and so on.
When we get to the slightly sillier activities we always take the core elements of a sport and throw fun stuff at it until it sticks. See our Prize Driver golfing game show and Darts shenanigans fending off hungry zombies…
I have your game Kinect Sports, is still the best of all games I’ve played. But one thing bothers me. Why is Bowling for up to four players? Often I meet with friends more, and then we wonder who will play. You will not issue a patch that would extend the possibility of players? Thank you for your reply and sorry for my English.
Peter Neveril
TR: Blimey, I bet you make the girls blush with such a generous portion of friends. Technically we limit it to four players for a number of reasons, mainly to keep the offline/online player synched up and in line with restrictions on the number of active profiles available on the box.
How about a tiddlywinks league, pro rules, to determine the participating four?
PC: It’s great that you want to get more players involved – my advice would be to set up your own mini-tournament when you have a large group playing Kinect Sports Bowling. That way everyone can feel involved even when it isn’t their turn!
Dec 2012
November Social Non Sequiturs
Movember! Black Friday! Thanksgiving! Kinect Sports Gems! Second week of Kinect Sports Gems! That’s what happened in November. Well, there were a few other things. The Minecraft Halloween Skin Pack charity deadline was up, we landed ourselves some space to talk recruitment in Develop and marked the 30,000 Twitter followers milestone with a couple of Rare shelf tat giveaways. That’s what happened in November. As a result, Gary Busey secured the presidency.
Off-site Rare list and feature sightings got started immediately as we picked up on Games Radar’s Halloween celebration of hooded characters, Complex’s 50 Coolest Video Game Villains and a day of speculative Xbox fightin’ game rosters featuring contributions from OXM (US) and Invert-On. Rare Gamer list action also kicked into gear later in the month, with Top 5 rundowns on Mr. Pants Sightings, Thanksgiving Gluttons and Femmes Fatales. The rhinoceros horn, it turns out, is formed entirely of keratin.
In particular, late ’90s Rare shooters got a good share of coverage in November. Perfect Dark was not only the focal point of some tasty retrospectives but seemingly present in spirit in Black Ops II. For GoldenEye, meanwhile, we saw late recognition of both its 15th anniversary and its LCD game little brother. Neatly bridging both games, NeoGAF pundits had some interesting things to say (good and bad) on the topic of GoldenEye and PD‘s lasting popularity. Our locally sourced red cabbage has won plaudits for its rich texture.
Other blink-and-you’ll-miss-’em Rare game reappearances throughout the month: Banjo-Tooie in limited edition art, Bad Fur Day in sculpture, Blast Corps in real world news, and Kinect Sports just out there pulling muscles, slugging vegetables and empowering the youth. Only the most experienced professionals should attempt to integrate chimp juggling into their act.
Finally: poll results! When we kicked off the latest run of Rare Life staff profiles, we asked which areas you’d like to see covered. For some time it was neck and neck between Art and Software, but in the final stretch those budding coders raced ahead with 27% of the vote, leaving Art on 25%. Design finished a close third with 23%, trailed by Production (9%), QA (9%) and Audio (6%). Software it is again for the next one! The people, they have spoken. Those stains? Dandelion & burdock.
So that’s that – we’re all Novembered out. Next monthly social media catch-up scheduled for the start of 2013, but you can keep up with us on a more regular basis via our RareLtd Twitter feed or our Facebook presence at RareLtd and KinectSportsOfficial. Have a merry Mayan apocalypse! You win the Blankety Blank cheque book and pen.
Dec 2012
Rare Life: Designer
It’s been a while since we did our last batch, but with the games business having blossomed into a hotbed of ongoing recruitment, it seems like a peachy time to bring back Rare’s in-house staff profiles. Hopefully these will prove informative for those hoping to get into a particular line of work, but also entertaining enough to be worth a read for anyone interested in Rare or a general industry career.
In this edition: Gavin Price, Designer. Bear witness to the inner workings of the Gavster’s mind.
Rare: What’s your background and how did you arrive at Rare?
Gavin Price: My background was just being a huge games enthusiast. I knew from a young age I loved videogames and as I grew older the thought of making them really appealed. I was on a programming course at college before fate intervened and I applied and took a testing/QA role at Rare back in ’99. 18 months later I went down the design route and haven’t looked back since (though I’d like to finish that college course one day)…
Have you found yourself doing the job you always thought you’d do?
Yes and no. I tried not to define how I’d be making games early on – even though I was on a programming course it was mainly to get a foot in the door. When I started in QA, over time I figured out what role I thought best suited me and worked at it from there.
What are your main responsibilities on the average game?
Early on – ideas! Then planning and implementation, as designers here can turn their hand to anything (levels, control mechanics, systems, UI – it’s really fun and diverse), followed up by polishing (UR and fixing bugs). Some would also say that bringing in cake from a much-loved local cake-making business is in there too.
Which Rare games have you worked on, and what’s been your biggest achievement?
Loads – my first job was testing Jet Force Gemini on N64 (and then all of our other releases in the 18 months or so that followed). Design-wise I’ve worked on Grabbed by the Ghoulies, Viva Piñata, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Kinect Sports 1 & 2 and the current secret project. Also one or two prototypes that didn’t make it into production.
Biggest achievement… hmm, the BAFTAs for KS 1 & 2 are amazing, but on a personal level I’m still proud of not going crazy from editing a bazillion Piñata assets around their various behaviours and rules. And naming things in a classic Rare fashion, be it Piñata names that HAD to sound like chocolates/snacks/candy or coming up with fun names for activities in KS2. I love doing that stuff!
Nov 2012
October Social Occurrences
Caketober! We promised cake photos (regardless of whether or not you wanted them) and so with the assistance of the world’s oldest Rashberry, we rustled up, presented and went to town on three deliveries of novelty cake action throughout the month. Well, three that we told you about, anyway. Next time: Pievember! Or not.
Things unrelated to cake or pie but related to Rare during October included an onslaught of new vacancies that we’re looking to fill (both permanent and contract), a couple of Skin Packs for a popular 4m-selling XBLA game, and the opportunity to grab Kinect Sports Ultimate Collection (of celebrity casino scuffle fame) for 20 squid. 13 sports! 20 squid! Do the math/maths depending on your regional abbreviation of the word ‘mathematics’.
As Halloween approached we unleashed a frenzy of pumpkin-whittling creativity, just a glimpse of which could be seen in this pic (featuring all three eventual winners, as it turned out). Also easing into the Halloween spirit throughout the month were fansites Rare Gamer and RFDB with lists of Grating Ghosts, Halloween DLC, Cemeteries and Ghostly Encounters, while an earlier non-spooky Top 7 featured the toughest Rare challenges for all you hard mans.
Notable mentions on other sites included GoldenEye love in GamesRadar’s history of Bond games, a dedicated outing for Banjo in Game Informer’s B-K Replay and some real old-school memories in a Retro Gamer thread on fave Ultimate games. Not forgetting fan art highlights of gaming’s premier post office loon Fanny Franker and buff Battletoad Pimple.
And the traditional penultimate paragraph round-up of other arbitrary shenanigans: a couple of competitions for Minecraft Skin Packs! 4000 tweets! Pre-Rare arcade games! Birdwatching! Intranets! Darth Vader! And Mike Singleton. Sad face.
That’s it then, people. If you want to catch up with us before the next monthly social shakedown, you can use Twitter and Facebook to hunt us through the night like those tramps in Hard Target: we’re on Twitter as RareLtd and Facebook as both RareLtd and KinectSportsOfficial. Be sure to bring Lance Henriksen with you. He can sign our faces. Lance is the man.
Nov 2012
Rare Life: Character Artist
It’s been a while since we did our last batch, but with the games business having blossomed into a hotbed of ongoing recruitment, it seems like a peachy time to bring back Rare’s in-house staff profiles. Hopefully these will prove informative for those hoping to get into a particular line of work, but also entertaining enough to be worth a read for anyone interested in Rare or a general industry career.
In this edition: Steve Mayles, Character Artist. Open up, Steve. Guh-huh!
Rare: What’s your background and how did you arrive at Rare?
Steve Mayles: I was in my last year at sixth form when I was interviewed by Tim and Chris Stamper for a role as a Trainee Graphics Engineer. There were no computer art/animation courses in those days (1992!) and I was adamant that was what I wanted to do as a job. So I turned up in my bad suit with mullet-style hair, showed some of my A-level artwork and a few images I had slaved over in Deluxe Paint on the Amiga 500.
Have you found yourself doing the job you always thought you’d do?
Pretty much, yes. I specialise in character work now, but when I started I just wanted to do graphics. My first job was finishing off the character and animation work on Battletoads Double Dragon for the NES, which looking back was a pretty cool first project! After that it was characters and animation for the next 10 years or so, then recently concentrating on characters, as jobs have become more and more specialised.
What are your main responsibilities on the average game?
Responsibilities will change depending on what stage the product has reached. Early on, it might be more about exploring concepts in 3D to nail a style, maybe some research into different ways of doing things and deciding the right approach for the game. Later in production, when everyone knows what they’re doing, it’ll be more about creating specific assets to go into the finished game and giving feedback, especially if outsourcing assets. Towards the end, bug fixing and trying not to break the game! Throughout development there will be various asks for promotional renders; these really ramp up close to the end.
Which Rare games have you worked on, and what’s been your biggest achievement?
*Takes a deep breath* Battletoads Double Dragon for NES and SNES, Donkey Kong Country and Diddy’s Kong Quest for SNES, Banjo-Kazooie, Banjo-Tooie and DK64 for N64, Grabbed by the Ghoulies for Xbox, Viva Piñata, Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts, Kinect Sports and Kinect Sports: Season Two for Xbox 360.
Oct 2012
September Social Selection Box
Cake! We forgot to address the urgent social issues of the day by bringing in tons of cake last month. Next time. Definitely next time. October? Caketober.
While most of September’s Rare press activity swirled around Kinect Sports Ultimate Collection – its launch day, its trailer and its hip and banging college tour, assuming young people still use those exact terms – momentum also built behind recruitment as we continue to marshal our forces for the next big thing. Word was spread of opportunities including Network and Gameplay Engineering through the futuristic trumpet of social media, and our first staff profile in a while settled on Tools Engineering to form another facet of a software-focused September. But if you find all that stuff boring, someone also sent in a humorous picture of Jet Force Gemini on XBLA. Kind of.
Outside the loop of our immediate in-house schemes and plans, Rare Gamer rallied round the proud standard of Top Fives to deliver on Rare Arcade References, Unlucky Characters and Awesome Tanks, while RFDB rolled up their Rare commercial collections into one mighty whole. Elsewhere, The Completionist tore through the fundamentals of Diddy Kong Racing in approximately 17 minutes, Zero1Gaming pottered around in gaming gardens including one of ours, and Dorkly locked and loaded some of the best ever multiplayer maps.
It was also a month of Twitter two-fers, with two Rare-inspired comic strip outings, two quality snippets of translated Kinect Sports: Season Two reviews, two instances of unsolicited end-of-week education, two film-related Kinect Sports retweets, two overheard workplace comments and (at least) two raised glasses on the 30th birthday of Ultimate Play the Game. And among those posts not so easily paired up were the latest Minecraft Skin Pack giveaway, a belated Revels outburst, a vengeful cat and someone getting excitable about KI3.
Sirs and madams, it ends there. You know where to find us for more frequent updates: on Twitter as RareLtd, on Facebook as RareLtd and KinectSportsOfficial, or round the back of Somerfield in Ashby de la Zouch selling insider secrets (and stale cake) at very reasonable rates if you know how to do the special handshake.
Oct 2012
