Last Epoch News

Tell us a little about your job and what it includes.
I’m a producer here at EHG, basically that comes down to making sure that the features we work on get done. So, it’s a lot of planning, organizing, making sure people are doing what they need to be doing, and making sure that bottlenecks and obstacles are taken care of.

What inspired you to get into game development, and how did you end up at this studio?
Well, the studio is a different question, I think, apart from getting into games in general. Getting into games: basically at school, when I was in college, I was an electrical engineering major with a software focus. Then I was looking for jobs and I just found an opening for an engineer at a game company called Stormfront Studios. And I was like, “Oh my gosh, I can do games for a living.” Because, you know, I grew up playing games and always loved it. So, I applied for that, I got it, and I’ve pretty much been in the games industry ever since.

For EHG specifically, at the time I was just looking for a good position and a good place that I could join, and EHG popped up. I checked the game out. It was awesome that it was already in early access so I could actually just play the game and see where things were. I was really impressed by the game and met with the people. They seemed like a great group of people to work with and it just happened to work out.

How does working at an indie studio differ from working at a larger studio?
I’ve actually found that the indie studio is not so different from a big studio where I’ve also worked. I think a lot of it just depends on how the teams are built. For some reason, the team here at EHG is relatively similar. The big difference is the remote aspect of it. I found just making a game remote is so different from when everyone is at a physical studio at the same time. That communication is just a very different vibe and on top of that, we’re distributed around the globe. The team chemistry and the bonding is very different. You can’t just turn around and talk to someone and ask a question. You’ve gotta ping them, hope that they’re online, and look at your pings at the same time to get an immediate response. You just have to adjust how you work a little bit differently.

How do you balance working from home with your home life?
I think it’s just a matter of being responsible for a lot of it, right? I mean, the nice thing about going into work is you go home and it can be a clear delineation between work and home life. It’s very different when you’re always checking Slack for work and I think a lot of that’s just the decision you make for yourself of like, “All right, this is how I’m going to draw my boundaries for work life balance.” and it’s very much on you. Hopefully, you’ve got a manager who understands and is on the same wave length as you in terms of when you’re on, when you’re off, and it’s kind of the expectations of the job.

For me, it’s worked out pretty well. I find that I’m pleased with both my work life and my home life right now. So, I think whatever balance it is that I figured out, it’s at least working for me.

How do you balance creativity with practical constraints like time, budget, or technical limitations?
My role as a producer, I find works a lot better when I approach it from a practical standpoint. We have so many just amazingly talented, creative people that I let them ask to do the creative side of things. It’s on our designers and our creative folks to ask for crazy ass stuff. That’s how you achieve greatness, by not caring about how hard something is or how long something’s going to take, because it gets the conversation started.

But there has to be that balance, in terms of making sure we can actually get the work done on time; that we’re not completely rearchitecting the game to get something done. And so I bring that counterweight to the creative side of things. And if you set it up with a team of people, where that conversation is open, that it’s not antagonistic, then you realize that everyone’s working towards making a great game. Then you find that balance in between, and you’re able to come up with something that is awesome, is fun, and doesn’t burn out the team to get done and keeps the game stable. All the things that have to be kept in mind in addition to “How awesome would this be?”

What’s the biggest lesson you’ve learned while working in indie game development?
I think it all comes down to communication. So, communicate often, communicate early is really something that just kind of works both in life as well; but certainly in games. You need everyone to be on the same page. Everyone needs to reach alignment and if you can do that, then you’ll be in pretty good shape. Related to that also is to be honest. You can do that without being cruel. If something isn’t working, if a deadline isn’t going to be reached, if something painful is coming up, it still behooves you to be honest and open about it as early as possible because it gives the team a chance to react to it. The longer you put it off, the harder it is to do something about it. So, you really gotta bite the bullet and just make things clear from the beginning that, if something’s going wrong, you have to communicate it. So, that’s something I found. It’s better to be honest than to try to spare feelings by hiding it. You don’t want to do that. In my role especially, a lot of what I try to do is let the whole team know “This is what we’re doing. This is why we’re doing it.” Give them an opportunity to respond. You want to communicate it as many times as you can, because everyone takes information in differently. And that’s kind of it. Just communicate, let people know what’s going on and, you’ll be in pretty good shape.

How do you stay motivated and creative, especially during long or difficult projects?
For me, it really just helps to have good people. I thought, at least in my career, that if I like the people I’m working with, then that is really what motivates me to want to continue to do a good job, to do right by them. More so than anything else, It helps out Last Epoch. It’s a fun game. I don’t play all the games that I work on in my spare time but, certainly I do with Last Epoch because it’s just a fun game at the end of the day. But really it’s the people and knowing that I’m helping them succeed; and that’s kind of where I get my kicks.

What kind of feedback from players do you find most helpful or motivating?
I like a healthy dialogue of “You guys are doing great.” That certainly helps motivate you to know that you’re in the right direction. I think constructive feedback is always useful because we recognize the game’s not perfect. There are problems with it and it’s good to know what people think we should be focusing on. It depends on how it’s worded; it helps if you can be honest without being a dick about it and so I think that as long as you do that, it’s always great to hear from the players. You assume positive intent, right? You know that they’re trying to make the game better. They want to have fun with it and we want them to have a good time also.

What’s a feature or design choice you’re particularly proud of in one of the games you’ve worked on?
Most of what my job is has been outside of the creative side of things. Really, whenever the game gets out the door on time and in a fun state. If the game shifts and if we were able to ship most of what we wanted to in it, then that gives me a good sense of satisfaction.

What advice would you give someone who wants to get into this industry?
You’ve got to work well with others, I think, is really what it comes down to at the end of the day. You can be the best engineer, the best artist, the best whatever, but if you’re a jerk and no one wants to work with you, dude, you make it so hard. It’s a team effort and you’ve got to be a team player if you want to make a game with a group of people. Obviously, technical acumen and being good at your job is certainly important, but I think even more important is the culture fit. You want to be someone that people want to work with.

Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers?
Just, really, thanks for playing the game. We see the appreciation and love that we actually get from the community, and it feels really good. And if it’s making you happy, then we’ve done our job right.