Bulletstorm‘s one of the most anticipated titles for next year. The hyperkinetic FPS comes as the result of a joint partnership between EA Partners and Epic Games. As with most things Epic, Cliff Bleszinski’s heavily involved with the title but the man sometimes known as CliffyB isn’t the lead producer on the game. This time, the person in charge isn’t even a dude.
(More on Techland: Killing with Skill: Trailer and First Look at EA & Epic’s Bulletstorm)
Tanya Jessen’s leading the charge on Bulletstorm, overseeing the development process that spans the People Can Fly development studio in Poland, EA Partners HQ in Redwood Shores and the Epic offices in North Carolina. While showing off the latest build of the upcoming game, she took some time to tell Techland about how she got started.
Evan Narcisse: OK. So I want to talk a little bit about Bulletstorm, but also your start in the industry too. When did your career start in video games? And how long have you been at Epic?
So I actually got my start right out of college. I’ve always been a gamer–life-long, y’know? And I decided I was going to be lawyer when I was in college. I got my degree in PoliSci. And I was, like, “All right, I’m going to take a year off before I go to law school.” I actually became a recruiter because I put that I played video games on my resume, under skills. My resume got seen by some people who were looking for a video game recruiter for Microsoft. And they called me because I listed video games on the skills section of my resume, which is kind of hilarious, right?
And so, I was like, this is my dream job. First of all, I never even considered for one second that I could work in video games, even though I love video games. And second of all, I was like, “I could be responsible for hiring the people to make the games.” So, long story short, I got a job as a recruiter for Microsoft hiring game people in the industry. I did that for just under a year, and I realized after talking with people, well, why don’t I just work in the industry? What could I do? I’m not a programmer. I’m not an artist.
So I thought, maybe I’ll do the programming route. So I started planning out for computer science stuff. But ended up doing an interview at Microsoft for a tech position, and got a job offer as a contract tester. So, 2002 was when I was a recruiter. And then, it was early 2003 when I got hired as a tester.
(More on Techland: The Bergman Files: So You Want to Work in Games, Huh?)
I literally went from this like awesome, super stable, good paying job as a recruiter. And as soon as I got that offer for the test position making not a whole lot of money, I decided I couldn’t turn down the opportunity because I’m such a hardcore gamer. So I jumped on it. And that was in the sports group at Microsoft.
OK. So what games were you testing, were you working on?
NHL Rivals 2004.
Oh, wow. God, I totally forgot Microsoft was publishing its own sports games for the first Xbox…
Yeah. I worked on [NFL] Fever. I helped out Links. I helped out on….
Top Spin?
Uh-huh. That was all a long time ago. Links, which by the way, I was surprised to love because I was not expecting to like a golf game. I’m not a golfer or anything. I really enjoyed that, and Amped.
Yes. Amped. Amped was a good snowboarding game.
And so, I worked my way up basically through Microsoft. I got hired full-time at Microsoft, eventually worked on Jade Empire and Dungeon Siege II. I went on the Vanguard team when it was being published by Microsoft. I was a big MMO player. And when Vanguard got bought by Sony [Online Entertainment], Microsoft came to me saying, “well, we need someone to lead testing on Gears of War.” I’ve been watching Gears of War by that point for a few years when they first…
Debuted it?
Decided to publish it. So, I was, like, “Yes!” Because I was hardcore into shooters. But they said there’s a catch. They had to send me to North Carolina. So I lived in North Carolina for six months working with Epic on Gears 1.
And after the game shipped, I went to Rod Ferguson, who was the team producer back then, and poured my heart out about how I loved, loved, loved everything to do with Gears, with Epic and the people there. Basically, it was “How can I work here?” Rob said I should talk to the president and see if there’s an opportunity.
And I told Mike [Capps, Epic Games’ president], “What do I have to do to work here?” And he’s like, well, are you willing to be a test manger for us? Because at the time there was no test bracket at Epic. And I told him that I was actually really interested in production because I’ve been working with some great producers. His response was to ask how would I feel about being a test manager/associate producer, and getting my start that way. Well, yeah, if that’s what it takes, that’s what it takes. And he said hat he needed to talk to the team and make sure that everything was all good. I did some other interviews with other companies and stuff. A week later he called me and said the team wants you to come on board and when could I start? And I moved out there. That was four years ago.
Did you have to deal with any skepticism when you were transitioning from recruiting to testing? In a male-dominated field where competitiveness is such a hallmark, did you feel like people were second-guessing your desire? Or your ability to do the testing, to actually get your hands dirty with the games?
The thing about it is that, I don’t think it’s unique to our industry. Still, when you’re good at something, it’s recognized. If you have the credibility, it doesn’t matter who you are, or what walk of life you come from. Talk the talk. You walk the walk. Sure, people might look at you like, “Who is this blonde chick walking around our offices?” Greg Hjertager–who’s now one of my old friends–was a tester at Microsoft. He’s friends with the Penny Arcade guys and is a super hardcore gamer, right? He gave me on my first day, like the full interview: “Tell me about your favorite game? Tell me about what’s the game you spent the most hours on? Let me know what your favorite experience was? And what are you looking forward to?” He was just like, going through and through, trying to see if I really knew my stuff.
(More on Techland: Video: Ken Levine Talks BioShock Infinite, Blows Our Minds)
I actually loved it because video games are one of my favorite topics. I came out of it thinking that that was a friendly conversation. Then, afterwards he said, “Yeah, I think you’re one of the more hardcore people in the team right now.” And I was like, “Oh, so that was a test, and I passed?” And he was like, “Yeah, you’re awesome.” “You’re cool.” And so this is just kind of, initially, what everyone tends to go through. Where people say, “Oh, I don’t know who that is. What are they all about?” But the moment you prove yourself, it doesn’t matter if you’re a chick. It doesn’t matter if you have black hair, blonde hair, red hair, whatever. You either have what it takes or you don’t.
You’re in a production job now. Can you differentiate production from design or is there not much of one at Epic? It seems like every studio defines their various titles differently. So what is your experience day-to-day?
My definition of a producer, especially like a lead producer, it’s someone who does whatever it takes to get shit done. And so for some studios, it is more creative. It can be more design-focused or being the one driving the story. It’s supervising voice recordings. It’s all of that. For some studios, it’s really process-heavy because they need lots of scheduling. They need people to follow up on communication, and stuff like that. So the producer’s job in general is pretty open-ended depending on…
Where you are?
The strange this is hat at the studios now–both at Epic and at People Can Fly– there’s opportunities for producers to do either of those things. Because we appreciate process on the production side, but producers like myself and Rod Ferguson, both are very creative on the games, too. We work very closely with the design team. I work very, very closely with Cliff and Adrian [Chmielarz, Creative Director of People Can Fly]. And everything goes through the core stakeholders, like materials that need approval. I feel very privileged in that I do get to be involved in that. But I’m not, by any stretch of the imagination, designing stuff. I might go, “Adrian, I had a dream last night about this amazing feature. And I know I’m the producer, and I know I should be trying to lower some risk, but I don’t give a crap because this sounds awesome. Can we set up a meeting and talk about it?” And then Adrian will be like, yes. And then we’ll come up with a plan and then I’ll go to Cliff. I’ll be like, “Cliff, Adrian and I came up with something that’s awesome. And I think you’re going to think it’s awesome.” And he’s like, all right. We talk about it and Cliff’s like, yeah, show it to me at the end of the week.
So that’s part of the corporate ethic as much as anything? Right?
Yeah. Once you get that credibility, people recognize that you know what you’re doing, and give you that trust. And then you get to be naturally kind of involved. With Bulletstorm, I got to be very, very involved with the whole story creation process, developing the characters, script reviews and all of that stuff. Normally, Cliff would be very heavily involved in that. But, on Bulletstorm, he was like, “Tanya, I understand you know what this game is all about. You know what we’re going for with the flavor. You and Adrian, I trust you guys are going to figure that out, right?” That can be kind of unusual for a studio but, again, the trust is there. Let it be said, though, that Cliff reviews everything, like every single day.
He doesn’t seem like the sort to just sit back…
(More on The Techland Interview: Cliff Bleszinski, Part 1)
Not at all. He knows what’s going on. But, when it came to the script stuff, he was sending in some of our reviews, saying “Oh, I’m so glad I didn’t have to review the scripts to these because these are awesome.” People who are playing it at Epic are just laughing because they’re experiencing it as gamers. As opposed to, “Oh yeah, I remember that Excel document.” They get to come to it fresh, and not as something they’re building.
Yeah. So when they come upon an event or something in the game, their response is more organic. So, Bulletstorm is a hardcore FPS game with some interactive elements in the environment. How would you sell, say, a girlfriend of yours on it or someone else who’s not a gamer? Like how would you try to draw them in? “This is what I do, and I’d really love it if you’d played it.”
For me, there’s something naturally visceral about the game. The way I would probably sell them on it is just to try to get them to play it. Just pick the most hilarious part of the game, sit them down and give a little tutorial, and just let them play. The feedback you get from the game is so obvious. You don’t have to know a whole lot of gaming rules to play the game. You walk up to something, and it gets a little shimmer on it. Little buttons pops up so you know, “Oh, I can do something with this.”
You don’t have to have been a gamer for 10 years to know that you get something special for shooting the guy in the head. It is pretty obvious. And it’s very colorful. The feedback, the color and the design part of the whole experience lends itself not to women specifically but just to people who maybe wouldn’t want to play a shooter. Other games leave them feeling like, “I don’t know, it’s too hard.” Or, “I hate running into an area and dying.”
Bulletstorm is not about that. It’s about maximizing your opportunity. Running into an area and seeing ten different ways you could take out all these dudes gets you thinking. You might think, “I’ve been getting a lot of head shots lately or I’ve been exploding a lot of shit lately, so I’m probably not going to get as much points for that. “Maybe I should look at my skillshot list or maybe I should try unlocking a new weapon depending on what kind of skillshots I get.” It’s not about getting punished over and over again. It’s about, “Hey, I didn’t get prevented from completing an area. Not only that, but I want to play it over again.”
So this is your first game as a lead producer. Correct?
Correct. Well, I was like the quasi-lead on Gears PC and I was also the lead for all of our DLC for Gears 2.
And that’s where the relationship with People Could Fly came from?
From Gears PC.
Right. So, what’s the best and worst thing about calling the shots?
At the end of the day–if the game sucks, if the game doesn’t come out on time, if people aren’t in the know as far as what’s going on, or if the quality isn’t there– that’s my fault as a lead producer. We’re very, very quality-driven at Epic. But, because of my skillset, I can’t be the one who goes in and decides, “ooh, this picture needs to be polished up, let’s go into the graphics editing software.” What I can do is figure out the areas that where I’ve been noticing that our floor textures in general have been low-res, and decide that we should go in and do another pass. Then I would find the people who could do it and make sure that we had time for that. The worse thing about calling the shots, is that you have to be the umbrella, if stuff starts falling from the sky. You have to be playing the game all the time. You have to be in every meeting. You have to know what everyone is working on every single day, helping them be focused towards whatever the goal is at that point. And, then if you see something going wrong, being able to actually have enough time to find it and fix it.
[vodpod id=Video.3833237&w=425&h=350&fv=%26rel%3D0%26border%3D0%26]
What’s been really nice, before I was ever a lead on a game, I was in the games industry for six or seven years. I had a lot of learning about how the good games are always changing and they’re so creative. I’ve gotten to see the same mistakes get made over and over again. Sometimes, developers can’t avoid making certain mistakes because it’s always new technology that they’re dealing with. You never know. But, what I’ve learned is how to deal with all those different parts of the process. So, that’s the most challenging part of my job. I’ve got to be able to see the problem without actually knowing what might be causing it and find enough time to actually deal with it.
Can you see any of yourself in the game ideas, or in the gameplay mechanics?
Oh, yes. So I’m not going to take credit because this is Adrian’s baby. But, a lot of the core story ideas (which we haven’t talked about yet) came from me, Adrian, and Rick Remender being locked in a room for a week.
So a lot of those ideas, Trischka’s character is very much a product of me because I wanted a strong female character that wasn’t stereotypically hot. But still, obviously had a way about her that implied sexiness. You know, [sarcastically] the fight for boob size was an awesome one. It was probably a week of back and forth, like…
From B to D cup?
It was everything imaginable. It was width. It was the cleavage showing. It was height, from top to bottom. It was the level of bounciness. It was all of that. I’m in Adrian’s office, like, “Adrian, come on. No! Are you crazy? Trishka, she’s our badass. She’s going kick your ass and take no prisoners! She’s sexy because she has the confidence. She doesn’t need to have giant breasts!” Adrian is like, “She’s so hot, she needs to have a giant rack. I love chicks in video games that have giant boobs.” I could see his face was kind of sad. I think we came to a good middle ground. He genuinely wanted what he considers the most beautiful looking woman in the game. What I wanted is a believable, strong, not-stereotypical fighter chick.
So we shouldn’t look for the giant rack to be an unlockable?
Oh my God. I don’t think I could even talk about that as a feature. But there was a discussion.
So you believe that there is a happy medium to be found between producers and developers?
Everything in Bulletstorm is a happy medium. The skillshot system was a big byproduct of the back-and-forth between Adrian and I, because he didn’t want to do something so hardcore. He didn’t want to go too RPG with it. But my two favorite genres are RPGs and Shooters. And I’m like, dude, this is where we’re getting the depth and the gameplay and the strategy. And so we found a really nice middle ground between with just enough RPG elements to keep that strategy there, but not so deep that it turns off your casual gamer. The great thing about Bulletstorm is that we’re going for this very different tone, a very different feeling. And when you’re going for that feeling, it frees you, a little bit, to do things that you may not do otherwise in a game.
What I’ve seen so far is goofier. It’s self-aware.
We don’t want people to come in and see the characters taking it all so it super-seriously, like Gears. It has an amazing story. Great characters. A great world. All that good stuff. We want you to laugh. We want you to really enjoy the experience. And there are some things you would not do for Gears of War, but something that you would definitely do for Bulletstorm. Here’s an example. We have this awesome collectable; it’s a bottle of booze. When you drink it, it makes your vision double blurry. If you get skillshots while you’re buzzed, you get an Under the Influence bonus.
That’s hilarious.
It is. And so it’s a risk-versus-reward scenario, right? We want players to think, “I can get more points if I drink it.” Or you can just shoot the bottle and not drink it. It’s up to you. You can think, “I can’t see things as well, but I get more points. Or, it’s a collectable and I can just shoot it. I’ll still get credit, but I’ll lose some points.” So it’s constantly doing things like this to make Bulletstorm feel a particular sort of way. I think I just gave you the exclusive on the bottle by the way. [Laughs] Don’t think anyone else knows about that, yet.
Well, thank you.
It’s all part of the job!