Jewels II: Gems of Darkness
Journal Notes
By Anne-Marie Huurre
Background
Development
The Big Pitch
Pre-production
The Team
Finding Women
Spring
Production
Show time!
The Ups and Downs of Business
Personal Thoughts
Background
I have produced or directed over 50 computer games or educational titles. One of the first was called Jewels of the Oracle. It was an exciting time to be in the early years of the game industry. Even though the industry has grown in revenues, status and hardware, the principals of how a game is created and brought to market remains the same. Hope you enjoy the insight for what goes on behind the scenes of a popular sequel.
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Development
The designer tinkers away at writing another title to exceed the expectations of the previous hit. The creative process is months in the making. I leave my role as executive producer at a company I’m with. It eventually goes bankrupt. That wasn't unusual in the early days of the software development or game business. Together, with the designer and myself as producer, there is lots of brainstorming, creative thinking, and working lunches. Design specifications, my producer's notes, and marketing plans develop, as does the strategic planning for investors, etc. Our family and friends give us support as we embark on an adventure to make another game.
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The Big Pitch
The development business isn't easy. It's just like the film business. Every publisher wants a hit and counts on your track record. Fortunately, the success of the first game helps to open doors. We board a train to Ottawa, Ontario, Canada to pitch Corel Corporation on an idea. My briefcase holds the presentation and trade magazines. The designer’s, Courtland Shakespeare, holds 18 electronic, hand-held games, one historical reference book, and 42 puzzle sketches. He's mumbling something in Sanskrit again. By the way, we leave Ottawa with a handshake deal from CEO Dr. Michael Cowpland. We are excited! Corel people have energy and a fabulous test lab.
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Pre-production
It takes probably nine months for Courtland's Jewels II: Gems of Darkness to incubate into a workable design. I wish I had that much time for researching and developing the budget. My calculator, spreadsheets, and, yes, even old-fashioned pencils and erasers smoke for three months. An ad agency executive once told me that in the entertainment business there are two sides-a business side and a creative side-and never the two shall meet-unless there is a VERY good producer on the case, of course.
Courtland moves out of his basement, grudgingly. Have you seen how many games and toys he hides down there? I leave the home studio and computerized sewing machine, but bring along Buzz Lightyear and the gumball machine for inspiration. We officially set up shop in downtown Toronto, close to the train so everyone can commute from all over the metropolitan area.
The SGIs, Macs, and Alias software all roll in, along with countless yards of network cables. The dollars, for which I am responsible, start rolling out. Contracts are signed with key team members. Modeling begins. Puzzle prototypes are whipped into electronic form. Texturing samples are created. Schedules and budgets are finalized. Navigational maps start hanging on the walls.
And last, but not least, I teach the guys how to microwave popcorn for the long nights ahead.
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The Team
As publisher, Corel has asked me, as producer, to push the game development so that the title can come out before Christmas. It's already March. So I schedule the team in shifts starting with the modelers, the texture artist, and camera animator. The lead programmer gets the design specs. A second programmer is assigned to program puzzles. A programming/production assistant liaises between the programming and art team. A separate crew is hired for the video shoot. The crew consists of the director of photography, lighting director, grip, gaffer, continuity person, two production assistants, props person, make-up person, set manager, and teleprompter operator. I have my hands full coordinating everyone over the one-day set up and one-day shoot, but it runs like clockwork. That's a wrap!
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Finding Women
As a female producer I am bound and determined to keep a balance on the development team. Yet after hours, days, and weeks of recruiting it seems like an insurmountable task. Women on the development side are difficult to find. Women are getting in on the marketing areas, but it's hard to find them in programming or animation. We are fortunate to find our talented software tester who also has production insights into the software development business. And she just happens to be female!
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Spring
Spring has sprung. Things are rocking and rolling. Squeeze in a quick trip to E3 in L.A. - the world's largest computer and video game trade show. Check out the competition. Fourteen guys volunteer to teach me how to play Duke Nukem on-line. Oh well, boys will be boys. I pitch publishers another idea. "Love it," they say. "We want it," they say. "Come back in two years when the consumer is ready," they say. You know what I say!
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Production
Months three, four, five
We’re in the thick of things. I kayak on Lake Ontario or play tennis to blow off steam. Do they make wetsuits for PowerBooks, yet? Meanwhile, the team tries to convince the designer that his Easy Level puzzles should really be the Difficult Level. I tell him to go back to the drawing board so the rest of us dummies can figure out how to play his mastermind contraptions. He's just too brilliant. Charlemagne's tutor would be proud!
Month six
The designer and programmers are into the thick of things, and production is active at all ends. Everyone works around the clock.
Month six and one-half
Laretes, Banquo, Malvolio, and Caliban join the team. OK, that's just what the hard drives are named. We now have 150 gigs of hard drive on the desk for the edited video segments. Back then that was a ton of rental equipment or about a dozen external hard drives. Now my notebook has twice as much hard drive space. Unfortunately, the drives are full and we need more space. What happened to the compression technology? Altogether there are over 800 movies in the game, all to be compressed and cross-platformed. And we're dealing with Windows 95, 98, 3.1 and Mac all at the same time. We'll cross platform to consoles later.
Somewhere between month six and one-half and seven
(You have to understand, we cram 27 hours in a day) We make the decision to build the game on three disks, not four. Our thinking is that it will make things easier for the player. DVDs weren’t invented yet. No, programming department, this is not feature creep. It's called player enhancement. The change affects everyone, but it will benefit the player and that's all that counts. I'll deal with the budget ramifications later. Game development is a creative process. Yet a good producer needs not only to understand this and make room for it, but also to keep the other side of the business in balance-the publisher stakeholders and financial investors. This is the crucial responsibility of the producer. Otherwise, the result is software that's late or, as those in the industry call it, vaporware!
Month seven
Finalize the talent negotiations. Design and prop the set. Makeup, costume, lights, camera, and action...the shoot runs like clockwork. Professor Bhandam, alias Henry, and all the crew are total professionals. In the studio next to ours, Wesley Snipes does an action scene. Love those stunt men and the craft services catering!
Month eight
Of course, we're late. Yes, there are bugs in the original authoring program. What's the story on the rendered, "floating" main hall blocks? Yes, we only drink decaf coffee. Who has the flu, now? Of course, we need another Challenge Server to render all the animations. Yes, the Challenge is like an Onyx on steroids. No, we don't have any more money in the budget and we have due dates and milestones to meet or no one gets paid!
Month nine
There's a full moon out tonight. Thanksgiving comes and goes and I miss the turkey and stuffing. OK, it's the squash and chocolates I miss. The computers are smoking. Final tweaks are made all down the production line from visuals to programming. There is a light at the end of the tunnel...maybe. The bug catchers are starting to smile. Professor Bhandam's journal finally goes to print. Behind the scenes the publisher and I frantically work on package design testing and marketing. The snow beckons for some cross-country skiing, or snowperson making.
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Month ten - Show Time!
A Gold Master-we did it! All we can do now is to keep our fingers crossed that all the gamers out there are having fun. Yes, the next game is ready for production. Yes, we are exhausted. But who cares? We love what we do. And it's your feedback that keeps us going.
In the meantime, marketing is just about to launch.
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The Ups and Downs of Business
The game is finished on time and on budget, but it sits around on the publisher's desk waiting for its turn in the test lab. Then Corel sells its game division to concentrate on software development, and out goes our game. Legal discussions begin to get our game back. After months of discussion, the game sees a new distributor, DreamCatcher Interactive. Jewels II: Gems of Darkness sold in over 20 countries with over 60 percent of its purchasers being women.
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Personal Thoughts
I've been a film, video and live event producer and director for almost my entire career. One thing that keeps any producer ahead of the competition is the understanding of technology. I've been fortunate enough to have started on the ground floor of computer technology, and now mobile. I'm not a programmer or animator, yet I understand the functions of these team members and how the technology they work with affects their work and deliverables.
Being a producer can be a thankless chore, leaving few tangibles to be recognized. After all, who really cares that the spreadsheet accurately estimated everyone's time or that delivery was actually made ahead of schedule? Who cares that one stayed up all night and drove in snowstorms to keep the production targeted? Who cares if the vision of the project and the integrity of the development team are respected?
Well, a good producer cares. I find meeting the challenges facing a producer the most rewarding experience one could ever have. To know that I've had the opportunity to inspire a team, motivate and challenge the team members to push themselves or technology to the limitations of what their imaginations allow, given time frames and budgets, can result in a great feeling of satisfaction and achievement.
My own personal philosophy is to create entertainment and edutainment products that are non-violent but pleasurable experiences for whoever is the intended user.
A while back, someone wrote and shared a story of how she introduced computers to her retired dad. It gave him something to look forward to and they often shared the fun and challenges of my first game. Her father passed away, but she fondly recalls the good times they had together and the bond they formed over the game and this new technology.
What really counts for me as a producer, as in life, is the positive influence people may have on each other as individuals. To hear that story and share it with the team was the ultimate high and inspiration.
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