Sweet Release

Electronic Arts and Hothead Games announced a release date for DeathSpank today. It's July 13th on PSN and July 14th on Xbox Live Arcade.

The game has come a long way from the random doodle of a bumbling hero in my sketchbook all those years ago. There were times Ron and I were pretty sure the game would never see the light of day, especially after shopping the concept in every corner of the planet. It's ironic. A concept that started as a parody of games from a cartoon that mostly made fun of the game industry was picked up by one of the biggest game publishers in the world.

It's somehow fitting, since a smaller publisher simply cannot contain the mighty awesomeness that is DeathSpank. Props to Ron who followed our initial vision for DeathSpank all the way to Canada, the fine folks at Hothead Games in Vancouver, B.C. and everybody who gave their blood, sweat, tears, emotional support and tacos to make the game happen.

Evil may not be 100% vanquished, but I'm feeling way less downtrodden knowing DeathSpank is about to be unleashed.

CK

DeathSpank: My Clip Runneth Over

Something I helped create, gave up on, resurrected then forgot about again is about to be unleashed on the world. That means I can post stuff based on work I did years ago like I had anything to do with it.

Here's the launch trailer from the lovely people at Hothead Games. It reveals some of the story in the upcoming DeathSpank game. I fondly remember the first orphan-related story & design sessions with Ron earlier this century. We knew then that DeathSpank would be special.

DeathSpank: Now with 20% more orphan!

CK

Impending Spankitude

My old pal Ron has been hitting the PR circuit for a little game we cooked up a few years ago called DeathSpank. Ron was sequestered in Vancouver, B.C. for the last couple years working on the game at Hothead, but has finally emerged from hiding to proclaim the game pretty much, kinda totally finished.

Here's a link to some hands-on impressions, first from Joystiq.

And from Gamespot.

Look for DeathSpank on some form of shiny box with blinking lights near you soon!

CK

At War With My Friends

I've been a Senior Design Director at Microsoft Game Studios for nearly a year now and I've had the pleasure of working on some damn cool things. I work in an incubation group. We get to experiment with new concepts while pitching in on games across the studio. We also build games ourselves as we explore wacky new ideas. I haven't been able to talk about anything I'm doing, until now. One of our efforts just launched on Facebook. It's called Match Defense: Toy Soldiers.

Toy Soldiers is a truly awesome game for Xbox Live Arcade. It will launch during the upcoming Block Party campaign on XBLA, and it's one of my favorite games in a long time. Really. I can't stop playing it. Signal Studios has created a masterpiece. The game looks as good as it plays, and that's saying a lot.

Signal's brilliant upcoming Toy Soldiers game for Xbox Live Arcade.

Not too long after I started, my boss Ken Lobb asked me to think up a basic idea for a Facebook companion game for Toy Soldiers. I was already a huge fan of Signal's title, even at that early stage, so I whipped up a quick mockup for a puzzle game that combines a basic match-3 style game with elements of tower defense. Thanks to Ken and the rest of our team, the final result went way beyond that initial idea. Match Defense is a nifty little experience with some surprising depth. Ken's influence really shows in the layered scoring and a robust combo system that brings to mind some puzzle games of yore.

Sure, you can play it like any other swappy, matchy puzzle game, but you can also build huge combos, or go for pure accuracy, or speed, or a mix of everything. I've seen people debating in the hall outside my office about the best technique. Passionate arguments can be music do a game designer's ears. So can music, but that's not the point here.

This is more than a promotional item for the Xbox 360 game. The games are connected by a continous connection to an ongoing Great War. Scores from both games contribute to whichever side players choose: Allied or Central. Two countries are up for grabs every day. The first side to win eight countries first wins. After that, medals are awarded, the war begins again and players once again choose sides.

We expect to continue refining and tweaking the game, especially after the XBLA game is available. It's an early step, but an interesting one where two different kinds of games share a common connection that is as social as it is technical.

See you on the leaderboards!

http://apps.facebook.com/matchdefense/

CK

Dungeon & Dragons & Life

All I Need To Know About Life I learned From Dungeons and Dragons. An IgniteOKC Talk. from Chad Henderson on Vimeo.

Hilarious talk from IgniteOKC from Chad Henderson. It talks about the many things he learned playing D&D and how that applies to the real world. I can say without equivocation, I would not be a game designer today if my friends hadn't ruined my teen years by introducing me to Dungeons & Dragons. The jury is still out as to whether this is a good or a bad thing.

CK

Everybody Loves DeathSpank

DeathSpank meets a wizened old adventurer. And chickens.

DeathSpank. He doesn't shoot first and ask questions later. He doesn't even realize there are questions.

To celebrate DeathSpanks impending arrival on the show floor at PAX this coming weekend, 1up is running a weeklong series of articles about the game, Ron and the fine folks at Hothead. For my part, I may descend from my secluded aerie above far flung Bothell to take in the show. As co-creator, I fully expect this to net me a stick of gum and/or t-shirt.

Read all the glorious coverage here.

CK

Self Portrait of The Artist as A Spastic Gamer

This is pretty much how I look on the weekend. And weekdays.

CK

It was free

I've been doing enough non-game stuff lately, I figured I'd just start another blog. I can easily ignore two blogs for the price of one, thanks to the fine folks at Google.

This is where I plan to post pictures I've been doing in a semi-diorama style, hence the name. Other pieces may show up now and then too.

CK

Resume In T-Shirts

The game industry isn't as full of excitement and romance as some may think. The hours are long. Stability isn't always that great. Royalties and riches exist only for a lucky few. One thing we do get is a crapload of t-shirts.

There are two big reasons for this. First, it helps companies to identify and collect their employees when they go astray in the wild. Second, we don't get out to the local haberdashery all that often while crunching for months at a time. I was looking at the ever-growing pile in my closet the other day, and thought it might be fun to make a visual survey of these garments in all their nerdly glory. That turned out to be a terrible idea. Besides highlighting my desperate need for an iron, it was way more work than it was worth. But here it is. I tried to stick with shirts related to companies and product I actually worked on, otherwise there would be another 20-odd shirts.

CK 

So Many Years, So Few Bits

So, you may be wondering, "How did Clayton learn to do that crude, crappy style of animation so wonderfully showcased in the last post?" This may give you some perspective on that. In my never-ending quest to reduce clutter and bring screenshots from games nobody ever cared about to light, I offer the following.

I stumbled across an old portfolio floppy containing a bunch of goofy little animations. These are some background and characters I did way back when for Pink Goes To Hollywood, one of the Pink Panthers darker, more confusing chapters. But it was the 90's -- Pretty much everybody got a sidescroller then.

Funny story... The folks at TekMagic got so used to just calling the game "Pink Goes to Hollywood" instead of the more accurate "Pink PANTHER Goes To Hollywood," it ended up on the box that way. Hilarious. I mean, who needs to know the name of your main character anyway?

Yup. They pretty much crammed the word "Pink" into every sentence they could. The results were sometimes a little unsettling.

We did all the "cut scenes" like the one above in three days. This was back when everybody was still amazed by blinking lights, telephones and whatnot.

The original format for these files was .ANM from Deluxe Paint Animation. The movement is so choppy because I did very few frames, and kept things to an 8 pixel grid. The actual game moved much more smoothly. It's funny what passed for a portfolio back then... or talent.

CK

Just Because

Being a mighty game designer for all these years can leave a man hollow. Hollow and empty. What fills this vast, desolate void? Animating dancing hippos and rhinos, of course. I did this for HBO's Flight of The Conchords Fansterpiece contest (love those guys), though it may not be quite what they're looking for.

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 Why? CK

Character Generation

Ron just posted some concept art I did for DeathSpank over at his Grumpy Gamer blog. These are two of the many characters we created to populate the game's world. The pieces portray Ms. Heybenstance, the demon witch and everyone's favorite stoner merchant, Bong The Potioner.

CK

UPDATE: And just to prove I can put hands on my character's correctly, here is a revised Bong, with everything pointing in the right direction. Let this be a lesson to all you youngsters: Don't drink and draw.