Izvor: Playsomnia.com, 11.Dec.2010, 20:51 (ažurirano 02.Apr.2020.)
Amanita Design interview
Amanita Design is an independent Czech video game development studio known for its adventures Samorost, Samorost 2 and Machinarium. Jakub Dvorský, the founder of the studio, gave us a chance to find out something more about these uniquely styled games and the team that stands behind them.
Introduce yourselves to our readers.
I was born in Brno - Czechoslovakia and I still live here however it's only Czech Republic now. I studied at the Academy of Art, Architecture and Design in Prague (my diploma work was Samorost, my first Flash game). In 2003 I founded Amanita Design studio which has grown to 8 people by now. Among the most noticeable projects are small games Samorost1, Samorost2, The Quest For The Rest, Questionaut, full-length game Machinarium or design for feature puppet film Kooky by Academy Award-winning director Jan Sverak.
How did you get into developing games?
I grew up on early 8bit computer games, I owned Atari 800XE and later I had my first PC 386. Of course I loved to play all that great games. Later on grammar school I started doing my own games with some schoolmates and we were enjoying it a lot. My first game called Asmodeus was published 12 years ago.
Samorost is a fairly unusual game. What inspired you to take the unconventional route and come up with these unique ideas?
I created Samorost as my diploma project in the studio of animated film at The Academy of Art and I wanted to make it accessible for non-gamers and even for people who are not very familiar with computers so I thought about it more as interactive animation than a game. It's style is probably inspired by traditional Czech and Russian school of animation (J. Trnka, K. Zeman, Y. Norstein etc.) and also by the nature itself, especially by small details in a forest like rotten stumps, roots etc.
Samorost 2 was your first commercial game, but it didn't generate as much attention as Machinarium did, despite the overly positive critiques. What do you think is the reason for this?
Well, Samorost2 was very popular in my eyes, it was played by huge number of people and it's still popular and selling well. Machinarium is even more popular probably because it's much bigger game, a real "full-length" game I would say. And Machinarium is also better game in many ways in my opinion.
The term 'art game' is believed by many to have been coined by Samorost. What is your opinion on games as a form of art?
Games are definitely form of art and it's a matter of consideration if this or that game is a real piece of art or not and why. I believe this interactive audio-visual medium is nowadays the most exciting one because it's the least explored and it has great possibilities how to work with it's audience.
Machinarium was your first game that used the classic inventory system, while the previous games had puzzles that did not depend on it.
Machinarium is much more complex game and the game design was more important for us this time, that's why we decided to include also the inventory which offers more possibilities for designing environmental puzzles.
How well did Machinarium sell? Are there any official figures for the Pirate Amnesty promotion?
The game is still selling well so we are happy with it, especially because we are now free to develop next game without external funding and publisher so we will stay fully independent and it's the most important for us. Also we don't have to push ourselves to more commercial space. During the Pirate Amnesty we sold about 20.000 copies of Machinarium on our website which is really cool considering that the game was about 10 months old already.
Before Machinarium, Amanita was known for the organic surreal visual style. All your games have elements of steampunk in them, and it's noticeably dominant in Machinarium. Was this the result of the game's concept or did you decide to work with Adolf Lachman for a different reason?
At the beginning we knew we need a little bit different look from our previous games which is also very different from most of the current games and match the world of rusty robots. We felt we need something warm with visible human touch in it to create a contrast to that robotic world, so we came up with an idea of hand-drawn backgrounds. We also knew we need some graphic artist to help us with it because it was obvious this game will be big project so we started to collaborate with one artist who wasn't so keen on for this project and eventually we asked Adolf Lachman to work with us because we knew his previous work and we knew he would be perfect. Luckily he agreed.
Most of your games prefer non-verbal communications for the narrative. Do you think this is more appropriate for interactive media?
We had several reasons not to include any language in our game. First of all I'm poor writer so it's easier for me to design dialogs based on animation or symbols instead of language. It's also more accessible, easier to localize and more funny - I don't have patience to go through those lengthy dialogs in most of the adventure games.
Tomáš Dvořák worked on the sound in most of your projects. How important is sound in creating the atmosphere in a game?
First of all I'd like to emphasize that we have two men in our team whose name is Tomáš Dvořák, one of them is sound maker and the second one is music composer. Nice coincidence:) The music and sounds are extremely important for us and it will be even more in our next game. It helps to create atmosphere, it's making animations to feel real and you can do a lot of other things with it as a game designer. The music can help to upgrade the experience to a different much deeper level if it's done well.
Can we expect a port of Machinarium to other platforms as well?
Yes, WiiWare version is coming soon and we are also working on other conversions but nothing is guaranteed and it's definitely not so soon so I'll be rather quite about it :)
Amanita Design has an interesting way of dealing with the stories of their games. What does interactive media have to offer over others regarding the story of a game?
Storytelling in games isn't easy because you can't work so well with timing, pace and editing as you can in films but it has other advantages. For example you have better tools for making the player feel like he is really part of the experience. Of course that's just one thing that popped up in my mind but this topic could be elaborated to a fairly lengthy book I guess and it's up to game developers to explore all the possibilities.
You have also worked on smaller games, such as The Quest for the Rest and Rocketman VC. How are projects like these different from classic projects like Machinarium and Samorost?
These small games were commissions from other companies and it was a good experience because we could try some things in it, but to be honest I prefer working on our own projects and also on bigger projects so we can bury ourselves deeper into it and build more complex world with some back story etc.
Questionaut was developed in association with the BBC. How did this partnership happen and are there any plans for cooperation with more third parties?
The collaboration with BBC was fine, we had a lot of creative freedom and the whole project was meaningful so we enjoyed it but as I said above, we are more into our own projects.
What is your opinion on the current state of adventure games? How do you see the genre evolving in the future?
Classical adventure games are considered as something dead already, but I don't think so. I believe this genre just need to be innovated in many ways. It needs to be more accessible yet challenging enough and of course every game should be original and full of ideas. Cloning older games and improving just graphics is useless. And where the genre is heading? I have no idea but I know quite well where we want to push it right now.
The independent scene is more and more becoming an alternative to mainstream. Do you consider yourselves as part of this scene and what advice do you have for teams looking to develop independently?
Yes, we are definitely indie developers and my only tip for beginners is very simple: start small, create the most original, distinctive and polished little game you can and publish it at least on your website. You will learn a lot during the whole process. Also don't forget listen to any feedback you will get.
Do you have any favorite games? Any other hobbies, perhaps as a source of inspiration?
I have many favorite games, e.g. Neverhood, Knytt Stories, World Of Goo, Limbo, Windosill and I'm playing Amnesia: The Dark Descent right now. I'm looking forward to play Sword & Sworcery EP.
Otherwise my hobbies are traveling, hiking in nature, drinking beer and smoking marihuana.
Any closing comments?
No, I guess I've said everything already:)
Thanks,
Jakub
