TGC '10 Keynote: The Secret Sauce of Insomniac

John Funk

U.N. Owen Was Him?
Dec 20, 2005
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TGC '10 Keynote: The Secret Sauce of Insomniac



At the first day keynote at Triangle Game Conference '10, Insomniac expansion Studio Director Chad Dezern explained the essence of the Ratchet & Clank studio's development, and how they transported it all the way across North America.

When he took the podium to start his keynote presentation on the first day of the Triangle Game Conference 2010, Dezern apologized in advance - there's quite a pollen crisis happening down in our neck of the woods, you see, and he was allergic. He warned that there might be sneezing... and yet, miraculously, there never was.

When the Burbank, California-based studio decided that it wanted to open up another branch on the other side of the country, said Dezern, it was because they felt they had a "way of making games worth expanding - a philosophy we've come to love." If you asked him to encapsulate that philosophy in one short sentence, he continued, his response would be "No, I'd rather not do that."

But if you persisted, Dezern admitted, he'd sum up Insomniac's philosophy thusly: "We create the kind of games we'd like to play."

As an example, he related an anecdote about a conversation that had taken in 2000 on a Burbank rooftop - the team had just finished Spyro 3, and the developers were trying to think about what they wanted to make next. "We all knew that we weren't going to work on another game about a quadruped," he chuckled, "We wanted a character who could hold something."

After some discussion, the ideas were off to a slow start - but Insomniac eventually began work on a game about a girl with a stick, called... "Girl With a Stick." It was a working title, naturally. However, even though there wasn't "anything terrible about that idea," as the game shaped up as a third-person action title with fantasy elements, the team's heart wasn't in it. "Our hearts were just never in it. We could have probably pushed that idea and made something, and it could have turned out okay, but it wouldn't have ever realized its potential."

Instead, the decision was made to scrap "Girl With a Stick" and start over - and instead of designing based on external factors, like the popularity of Zelda or Tomb Raider, said Dezern, everyone just contributed their own ideas. Studio co-founder Brian Hastings eventually suggested a simple idea: Why don't they make a game about an alien who travels from planet to planet? That one idea sparked the team's creativity, and in just three weeks animators and programmers and designers had a rough demo that would eventually become the first Ratchet & Clank. "We gave ourselves the permission to make a game we wanted to play," said Dezern.

The studio enjoys a challenge, said the Insomniac boss, and pointed to two of its series - the dark, gritty FPS Resistance and colorful action platformer R&C - as evidence that they wanted to work on games that were different thematically, not just mechanically.

"Ideas come from everyone," he insisted - every member of the team could have input on something that could end up being great, from environmental art to animation to raw programming, and it was just important to foster a culture in which the "best idea wins." Not only that, but it was important to play ping-pong with even the ideas that worked the best to make them better: An artist draws an area, a level designer plans it out in a map, an environment designer models it in 3D, and each of them add and tweak at each step of the way. "'This is really cool, but how about a little bit of this, too?' We really trust this process - it's worked really well for us," said Dezern.

"Your first idea doesn't have to be right or perfect; that never happens! It's only through the process of refinement that something good comes out."

That was the culture that Insomniac tried to move to North Carolina, with its high quality of life, its proximity to several major universities, and its "delicious barbecue." While Dezern couldn't tell us what his studio branch was working on - it's been quite the top-secret project - he did say that so far, things were looking up.

"We hope that the work we're doing in the Triangle serves as proof that Insomniac's culture is portable," he concluded.

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Casual Shinji

Should've gone before we left.
Legacy
Jul 18, 2009
19,570
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That "Girl With a Stick" idea didn't sound to bad.

It sounds more original than most games out there today.
 

Jared

The British Paladin
Jul 14, 2009
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They certainly know how to work across the board and create a good group and wide, varied number of titles.
Lets hope it continues into the future and they keep challenging themselves to make greater games!
 

Fayathon

Professional Lurker
Nov 18, 2009
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As long as they keep cranking out fun titles I'm all for their methods, although I really wish they would make a proper Spyro 4.
 

Mr. Mike

New member
Mar 24, 2010
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I remember when I first played the Ratchet and Clank demo off some PS2 magazine DVD. I played it and played it over and over again, amazed by how good it was. They definitely struck gold with those games.
 

tendo82

Uncanny Valley Cave Dweller
Nov 30, 2007
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Chad Dezern's talk on art direction, at last year's TGC, profoundly altered my conception of video game development.
 

Kollega

New member
Jun 5, 2009
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"Make a game we would like to play" strikes me as a better approach than "just rip off what's popular and hope it works". When you look at it, even Resistance is far from most uninspired FPS out there.


And now you must excuse me, but this title simply calls for it...

The Secret Sauce of Insomniac is... *glasses pull* The Awesomesauce.

YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH!!!
 

Pronema

New member
Apr 7, 2010
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I was thinking of picking up the new R&C today in fact. I love Insomniacs games. It's nice to see an article featuring them.
 

Ben Anderson

New member
Mar 19, 2010
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They create what they want to create, they don't just follow the latest gimmick trend. This is just pure, unhindered creativity and I love insomniac to bits for it. "Screw what others think, lets just have a fuzzy dude beating things with a stick and a random robot because we can and lets see where it goes".

Words cannot describe how much I love these crazies. Favourite game studio by a country mile... infact... the ONLY game studio I love now because, to me, they have set a standard which no one has yet to match.

:)

~Ben
 

werty10089

New member
Aug 14, 2011
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Insomnaic is a truly unique company that has time after time again woven my heart into their games. Such superb humour, storylines,and dedication was put into many of their releases out of gratuitous respect for each and every player of their games. cramming their series chalk-full of nifty little bonuses and interconnectivity. Being able to regain some of your old weapons from previous save files, having inside jokes about previous games, and even going out of their way to reference Naughty Dog games (the C.E.O'S of both companies are friends) in almost every title has won over my loyalty.