Dev Box Interview: Press Start Studio’s Philippe Rapin

It usually takes a small army to create the video games that we play, and, most of the time, all of the focus gets put on the game itself, and not on the people that came together to make it. Our Dev Box interview series takes a look at some of the unsung heroes (developers, producers, artists, etc) that have committed their lives to entertaining all of us. In this week’s Dev Box we are letting Press Start Studio’s Producer Philippe Rapin, who recently worked on “Twin Blades: The Reaping Vanguard,” for the iPhone and Xbox Live’s Indie Games provide us some insight into who he is as a gamer, and how he ended up working in the game’s industry.

Name: Philippe Rapin
Title: Producer
Company: Press Start Studio
First title worked on: The Legend of Spyro : The Eternal Night (mobile)
Most recent title worked on: Twin Blades: The Reaping Vanguard (iPhone/iPod Touch, XBLIG)

What game has most influenced you, and why?
With “Twin Blades” it was definitely Vanillaware’s “Odin Sphere.” We were all in awe before its animations; the game was fluid and fun, the graphics detailed and attractive. We still see it as a masterpiece not only from a technological standpoint but also with its character design and storytelling. The game has been an inspiration in every way; to an extent where we’ve spent countless hours analyzing the game, trying to figure out how we could appropriate their technology and transform it into something of our own.

What are you playing right now?
Unfortunately, I haven’t had much time to spare with gaming since the release of “Twin Blades” on XBLIG, but when I do have a little spare time, I’ve been replaying “Mirror’s Edge.” The game is still a shock today and it gives me the shivers every time Faith falls 20 stories down. Dice really did a great job there, and I’m so glad EA decided to keep supporting the franchise even if the game didn’t meet their sales expectations.

What was your first break in the games industry?
About 5 years ago I started as a junior product manager at DreamCatcher who was most famous at the time for publishing the “PainKiller” franchise and Kheops Studio’s adventure games. Working in a marketing department was nice but I wanted to be more involved in the game-making process so a couple years later I went to The Mighty Troglodytes to work as a producer. Alas TMT studio went bankrupt last year so we founded Press Start Studio and now well, now I do both of what I used to do so I’m really happy with where my career has taken me!

What’s the best advice you’ve ever gotten?
It’s actually something I’ve read on a video game industry veteran’s website a couple years ago. He talked a lot about the production environment with a focus on how people interact together within a team. There was this one sentence which I’ve found very revealing, it read something like: “It’s nice to fight for your views, but be smart about which hill you choose to climb to die on”. It appealed to me immediately because on the production side especially there are so many creative people and, well, these people tend to fight a lot because every one have their own vision of what every aspect of a game should be. In the end it’s not about what you think the game should look like, it’s all about how you work together with your teammates to produce something you’ll all be proud of.

Where do you look for inspiration?
While in the shower, conversing with friends, in porn, in sickness, in the frozen section of my local supermarket, I don’t know…anywhere and everywhere I suppose. Inspiration isn’t really something I am looking for, it just somehow pops up suddenly – usually when I least expect it. You lay there agonizing in your bed and all of a sudden two synapses connect and an idea sprouts from the void and you think to yourself, “hey, that could make a cool game.” I suppose it’s the rockstar’s way of making games: you have an idea and you try to make it into a game, the opposite way of having a marketing target first and then brainstorming around it.

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned about game development?
Avoid scope creeping. It has always been something happening at some point of every production I have been involved in. I suppose it’s the main problem when you work with passionate gamers: we all want to make the best game ever, but there’s only so much a team can chew, and adding more and more features as the development progress isn’t necessarily the best way to do it because there will be a time where the additional burden of work becomes unbearable – I’d say most of the crunch comes from that, and crunch is extremely counter-productive in the long run, it kills motivation.

Who do you think will come out on top this console generation?
You’d have to define what being on top is really: in terms of console units I suppose the Wii will keep its leadership. However it is an established fact now that it’s the games associated with a platform which makes its success, and so far as an indie developer I have to say the 360 is the one of the most attractive platforms. Microsoft has developed a great set of tools with the XNA framework and although the system still has its flaws – in particular in terms of marketing – it really is one step ahead of its rivals.

I wouldn’t be surprised to see more great games coming to the XBLIG, if only Microsoft gave us more means to reach the audience it could become a platform of choice for all indie developers out there.

What do you think is the biggest problem current games suffer from?
I don’t think there is one problem applicable to the whole industry. But if I had to narrow it down to one affecting a majority of games, I’d go for publishers’ capping the creative process. We’ve suffered a lot from ‘crea-trusion’ in the past and a lot of great ideas have been killed off by random executives who thought the game should have a different kind of grass instead. It is extremely frustrating for the developing team, and it bins great features for the sake of obscure business-hype terms such as ‘casualization.’

What is the most important thing that has happened to gaming in the last 10 years?
Digital distribution. It gave indies the possibility to reach gamers with much more ease than ever before all while keeping a complete creative control. The business model is still experimental but it has spawned some very nice success stories and hopefully it’ll keep doing so without too much interference from the big fishes. It’s a great thing for the industry as a whole because it allows innovative gameplay and things that would never have been greenlit by any publisher to find its audience.

Where do you see gaming in 5 years?
In 5 years I see videogames having a much stronger focus on multiplayer. While there will always be a market for solo play, I think the multiplayer trend will increase more and more. Playing on your own is nice, but how you interact with others within the game really brings another dimension to the experience and people are more and more demanding about that. We’ve received a lot of feedback about a multiplayer feature in “Twin Blades” and that’s definitely something we’ll keep thinking about in our future productions.

Thank you for this fantastic opportunity & we hope that you and your readers enjoy “Twin Blades” as much as we did making it.

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