Gaming Horror – it's a Game Dev's Life

Circa autumn 2001. I was working at NEON Studios as Lead Level Designer. We’ve just finished up Santa Claus Jr. for the Gameboy Color. Then corporate decided to cut costs, slashing about half the staff. Including almost everyone of the teams i was used to working with. I did not get fired but the repercussions were such that i left about half a year later, in May 2002.

From that time on, nothing at NEON felt the way it was before. Previously being an independent Studio, NEON Studios was bought by an Austrian publisher sometime in 2000, i believe. I still have that christmas present from the first corporate Xmas Party – a warm winter jacket. “The best thing they have ever produced” we still say jokingly and by “they” i mean the publisher aka corporate – just to make that perfectly clear. But without the team and friends i’ve enjoyed working with the soul was gone. NEON was still a great place full of great, artistic, intelligent, visionary people. But the corporate identity we had assumed was now consuming us. Feeding on us. Leaping a few years ahead, NEON was shut down sometime after the release of Legend of Kay (PS2) but i was happy to hear that most of the team almost instantly started a new company, called keen games.

Back to the present in the past. Soon after we had finished Santa Claus Jr. followed the search for a new Gameboy Advance project. We pulled together 4 very intruiging, intelligent and enthusiastic ideas for our pitch, ready to push the new Gameboy Advance hardware and gaming abilities to the limit. But we had to include a fifth pitch, the obvious sequel to Santa Claus Jr. We made it so that the effort and issues of that project were a bit exaggerated because none of us wanted to do another Santa Claus project, even though the first one was a joy to work on. But the Gameboy Advance technology was something we really wanted to push, we saw opportunities for games that weren’t possible on the old Gameboy. Another jump’n run game for kids just wasn’t going to cut it.

Of course the obvious happened. None of our pitches ever had a chance. Instead we got Santa Claus Jr 2 stuffed down our throats and swallowed. I couldn’t swallow it hole, something got stuck and i couldn’t breathe anymore. Sequelitis, my old team gone, me having to do Level Design for a jump’n run. A genre i’ve never had much passion for, and in general i haven’t done pure Level Design for a loooong time (not since DooM was kewl). I was used to do a lot of scripting and actually wanted to become a programmer. I’ve scripted all the “AI”, controls and menus in our previous titles and as far as i can remember, if there was any remote possibility to script something, i did it.

Until that time i did not know how lack of passion feels like and how much it can pull you down. Much of my later Level Design work was reworked but i’m still glad that most of the ice world was left untouched. That’s where you start the game, see the screenshot to the left. These were the levels for which i’ve actually tried to build something fun and an easy introduction for the kids. It was created during the time i really tried to make the best of the whole situation. However that changed when i had to move on to the next world (town) which didn’t inspire me at all.

As time progressed, pushing tiles around, trying to squeeze out something interesting gameplay-wise for which i had absolutely no feel, no understanding and got no sense of accomplishment out of – it became more and more of a drag each day. It felt as if my career just seemed to turn in the wrong direction and i had to get my hands back on the steering wheel. I was so down at the time i did not see any other option than to quit.

And then the obvious happened, again. Santa Claus Jr. Advance was released and sold a few hundred copies initially. Much less than the original, which came out early in development of the sequel and had sold just a few thousand copies. Which in hindsight would have been a good time to reflect and maybe cancel the sequel.

Disclaimer about the sales numbers: They may be grossly exaggerated for all i know. They might even be completely incorrect. We didn’t get such information directly, it was always someone knowing someone else who knew.