Small Team, Massive Achievement
DP: We have this sense, now, of looking back and asking ourselves if Rapture was one of those lighting in a bottle moments. But we know that we want to replicate how we worked on it, in the future. We brought together a really close team, and had a lot of fun making it. It did get intense towards the end, but generally it was a really happy development. And we want that again, and the last year has been about finding what studio we want to be now, and what we can learn from the three years of making Rapture.JC: I was in with the team every day making the game with them, which was extraordinary. I was making all the decisions with Dan every day, as well as writing the music. I'm very shy and I don't like attention, and I know it's a gender stereotype, but I think Dan's never shy. He's not ever boastful, and he's the least egotistical man I've ever met, but he's never shy about saying, "I did this." And I'm always like, "Mmm, well, I can be a bit shit at that." I think women need to get better at not being embarrassed or ashamed of their contributions, and it's something I often hear when I go talks. We're very self-deprecating and I look back now, as I'm not in the company so much, and I wish I had been more vocal about my day-to-day contribution to The Chinese Room, on every level."I think women need to get better at not being embarrassed or ashamed of their contributions. I wish I had been more vocal about my day-to-day contribution to The Chinese Room, on every level." – Jessica Curry
The Pros and Pains of Being Platform Exclusive
DP: When you're taking a significant amount of someone else's money, they are going to want some control over how that money is spent. And you have to accept that. You're not naïve about those things. That other party will determine how your game is marketed, what platforms it lands on, and stuff like that—and that's their right, because they've taken the risk with the cash. But we came out of the back of Rapture with the clear decision to, whatever we do now, be a multiple-project studio, so we're never just working on one thing at a time. And one of those things will always be 100 percent owned by us. And that means it's okay if we're also doing something for someone else."When you're taking a significant amount of someone else's money, they are going to want some control over how that money is spent. And you have to accept that." – Dan Pinchbeck
A Small Minority of Internet JERKS
Some days I'd open my email and go, "Oh whatever, I'm not bothered, whatever." But others, if I was feeling a little bit vulnerable or tired, and someone was criticizing my appearance on such a horrible, deep level, it felt really, really mean. It was like being back at school. But with death threats.DP: I think Jess suffered very heavily at the end of Rapture, and got it in the neck a little bit, because she was shielding the team from a lot of the worst stuff that was happening. The basic thing is that if you're a game developer, and you have an opinion, you're going to get it. And if you're a game developer, with a product out, you're going to get it. It becomes water off a duck's back after a while, at least to me—pretty much anyone who expresses an opinion on the internet is going to get shit.The thing that I really liked, in terms of community feedback, was people telling us how they hadn't expected to like it, but they did. I don't know how much of that is down to the cultural landscape changing, as there were more games of this style out there by last year, but it was a total surprise to have that positivity from people who we didn't necessarily expect to like it.Article continues after the video below"It was like being back at school. But with death threats." – Jessica Curry
The Reality of Awards
The Challenges of Modern Development
JC: What's really special about working in a small team is that it's usually either one or two of us, or we're all in the same room. And I think it completely changes the discussions that you're able to have. In terms of when I need a scene to be longer, I just go, "Andrew, can we have a chat?" And because we're talking all the time, it makes those decisions feel completely normal. But when I talk to people who are working on triple-A games, they're like, "That couldn't happen." Not out of a lack of good will, but just the amount of dependencies that completely fall. It's like dominoes that once this thing changes, you're changing a thousand things behind it. But when there's just one person on each job, and we're all working holistically together all the time, those things feel eminently possible in a way that I just don't think bigger teams would be able to logistically make happen."Crunching is failure, a total failure of management, and scheduling. We, as an industry, can be better at that kind of thing." – Dan Pinchbeck
On the Culture of Crunch, and Better Working Conditions
If You Could Remake Rapture Today
With Rapture, the sprint function was originally automatic—the more you moved in one direction, the more you'd speed up. In testing, which happened really close to the game going gold, we got told that people hated that, and we needed a dedicated sprint button. So, we put one in, but it was too late to update the UI, which led to that debacle about the "missing sprint button."The things that make great games truly great often happen right at the end of development, and they're not in the big ideas that sell the project. They're the little polishes. I feel like early access, which we see a lot of these days, doesn't do a lot of games a lot of justice, a lot of the time, because they've had none of that polish time. Ideas are kind of cheap and easy, but getting that degree of finish on a product, that's not just where skill comes in but also real dedication and passion. Those final three months can be quite dull from a development perspective because you're just honing and honing these angles until they're spot on, and it takes a hell of a lot of attention to detail, but it means the experience will be transformed. Getting 75 percent of the way there is the relatively easy bit—it's that final 25 that gets really tough, and that's where real expertise kicks in."I don't know if I'll ever make something again that feels as complete and as joyous, and as hard and as invested as Rapture. I'll just be proud of it forever." – Jessica Curry
The Lessons Learned
DP: I see now, more than ever, how important it is for small studios to message just what their limitations are, because they're not in a situation where, if something's wrong, they throw another 600 people at the problem. It's amazing what small studios can achieve. Look at Inside—Playdead is a tiny company and that is an unbelievable accomplished game to have put out. It does matter that it's a small number of people who've achieved that, because it's not had infinite resources.It's not hard for small teams to put games out that look a lot more expensive than they actually are today, that look as if they involved a lot more people. But there are still things you cannot do with a small team, because you simply don't have the resources. That's the tough thing: if it looks and sounds triple-A, there's an expectation that the mechanical depth and complexity will be at that level too, and that's often the thing that smaller teams can't do. A larger studio will stick five individual designers on weapon balance for eight months—but you can't do that at a small indie studio.The last year of Rapture was really intense, but now we're loving making games together again, and enjoying being a studio. I get up in the morning and get to hang out with a bunch of people I really love, and we all get to do what we love doing, and that's amazing. You can't really complain if that's your life.Follow The Chinese Room's projects on the studio's official website.Follow Lewis Gordon and Mike Diver on Twitter.Read more articles on video gaming on VICE, and follow VICE Gaming on Twitter."Now, we're loving making games together again, and enjoying being a studio. You can't really complain if that's your life." – Dan Pinchbeck