EveryDay Shooter creator Jonathan Mak

How did you connect with Sony to publish EveryDay Shooter?

One day, Warren Currell, who represents me in the business side of things, called me up saying, "pack your bags, we're going to LA to meet Sony." I hate doing pitch meetings, talking business, basically doing anything other than making games, so it was a bit of a chore to fly down. When we arrived at the Sony studios, I remember walking into the conference room thinking "oh geez...this is going to suck!" Let me put this into perspective: one of the publishers we met trashed Everyday Shooter because it had no sound effects (Huh!?? Did they even play it?). So I had a lot of bad experience with publisher meetings.

But Sony was different. Surprisingly, and refreshingly different. They were one of the few who understood the game on a personal level, and this is the main reason why I decided to connect with Sony.

You're the quintessential one-man garage band game creator, while Playstation 3 is supposed to be incredibly hard to program for. Were you nervous about moving development of EveryDay Shooter from PC/Mac/Linux to Playstation 3? How long did it take you to get the game up and running on the PS3, and what kind of help did Sony provide?

It's only incredibly hard if you're trying to emulate life. This bugs me a lot. The technology in EveryDay Shooter is old. The collision systems are based on algorithms from the 90s, and the graphics/sound technology is based on techniques from years ago. But those technologies/techniques are still incredibly powerful/expressive! I can't understand why people don't use it more often. It's like they're substituting technology for creativity.

To specifically answer your question, yes I was nervous, but after a few days without sleep I had EveryDay Shooter running on the PS3. Of course there were problems, and there are probably still more problems to fix--you should ask me again when it's all said and done because who knows what QA will find.

However, I'd say that the most frustrating part of building ES for PS3 was converting the gameplay to fit a widescreen [16:9] format. Originally, I spent a good deal of time tweaking the game so that it played perfectly on a 4:3 screen, and so I wanted to maintain the same game balance that I worked so hard to achieve. I mean, if I'm going to do this, the conversion has to be perfect. Anything else is unacceptable. Fortunately, after an unbelievable amount of worrying and work, I think I've finally implemented the last major tweak to make the game play perfectly.

As for Sony's involvement, they were helpful in hooking me up with useful resources like documents, sample code, and answering whatever questions I had.

How has the game evolved since you began working on the PS3? Is the album metaphor that you've been working with still in place?

Sony has been great so far. The game is intact, true to its original vision, and absolutely nothing is compromised. Hopefully I can say the same thing when the game finally ships, and given how great they've been so far, I think that's a safe assumption.

Specifically, the album metaphor you mentioned is definitely still in place. Once the song to a track/level finishes, the next track/level starts. And just like a music album, each level is completely different (musically, visually, and gameplay-wise) yet the album stands as a cohesive whole. You can also play each track individually or in a shuffle mode.

It's probably not clear how gameplay changes between levels. Each level has completely different enemies, and a completely different chaining/combo system for the player to discover. So when you first play a level you will most likely rely on twitch skills, but with a watchful eye you will notice clues indicating the relationship between each enemy. This relationship is the key to discovering the chaining system which will increase your chances of survival and yield a higher score. Some of these systems are fairly basic, while others are a little more complex but never obscure.

I don't want to get into specifics because a large part of the fun is the sense of enlightenment gained from discovering the chaining system.

What did you draw upon for inspiration for both the visuals and the sound? Is there anything that you're doing in these two areas that is specific to the PS3?

Nothing I'm doing is specific to the PS3. I try not to buy into using new technologies simply because I feel that old technology is already so rich. It's sorta like how an acoustic guitar, while being very simple, is still very expressive. That's how I feel about old technology.

The inspiration for the sound direction came mostly from Steve Reich's "Electric Counterpoint." In the liner notes of the album, he writes "in 'Electric Counterpoint,' the soloist pre-records as many as ten guitars and two electric bass parts and then plays the final 11th guitar part live against the tape." In EveryDay Shooter, I like to think of the player as the soloist playing the final 11th guitar part live against the game. The difference of course, is that I'm some punk kid off the street banging on his guitar while Steve Reich is a musical genius!

As for the visuals, it all started when my friend Raigan introduced me to a game called Parsec47 by Kenta Cho. At that time I had not yet seen Rez, so Kenta Cho's work was the first time I saw geometric shapes celebrated so beautifully in a video game. A couple years later, I saw many games emulate this style, but while they all captured the inherent sexiness of shapes, they ignored the inner beauty of geometry. What makes geometry and vectors so special is that the shape only exists as parameters to a function. Once you start modulating these parameters and connecting them to gameplay reactions, the shape begins to take on a life of its own. Now instead of boring, static geometry, you have a visual that's breathing and reacting to everything you do. It's sort of like how sound synthesizers take simple mathematical waveforms and shape them into wonderful, living sounds.

And so I guess that's the root inspiration for EveryDay Shooter's visuals. Mathematical functions mapped to user interactions.

Like you, we're big fans of Lumines and Every Extend, which Tetsuya Mizuguchi was involved in turning into Every Extend Extra. In the original design for Mizuguchi's game Rez, gamers were supposed to be able to shoot down objects in time with the music for a more melodic effect, but that never made into the final game. How difficult was it for you to achieve this synchronicity between virtual destruction and music creation in EveryDay Shooter?

My approach to musical response is different than Rez in that instead of altering code to achieve the melodic effect, I altered the method of music composition. So from a technical standpoint, it was very easy. The technology is pretty much the same as any other shooter except for a tiny little bit of extra logic. From a creative standpoint, it was slightly tedious at times because some notes/riffs are only harmonious for a certain parts of the song. So the trick was to either find the right note/riff that works in all parts of the song, or record a different sound for each part. Worse is when I had to rerecord the exact same thing just because the tempo of the song changes.

I think the hardest part in creating visual/audio/gameplay synchronicity is ensuring that all media is created as if one. In other words, each media component must have a counterpart in the other media component. If there is a sound on the screen, it must correspond to some visual aspect and some gameplay aspect. This isn't a hardness in the same sense of solving a hard technical problem. It felt more like the hardness of learning a new instrument. In the end, I had a set of guidelines I followed, but a lot of it was very subconscious. I'd see something and think "maybe this type of sound or riff will go with it."

With respect to Rez, EveryDay Shooter is only better suited for a certain type of composition just like how musical instruments are better suited for a certain type of sound. It's not like Everyday Shooter is better than Rez just because it's melodic. It's more like both games are two different instruments.

The folks at thatgamecompany, which made flOw for Playstation Network, come out of the indie gaming scene. Did they give you any advice about working with Sony and/or developing on the PS3?

At first I had a lot of reservations about signing with a major label, but after talking to TGC and seeing how they've grown, I felt a lot more comfortable. Also, I bugged John Edwards with a bunch of technical questions (Thanks John!).

Short, final question: Have you had a chance to play Sony's Super Stardust HD, and if so, what do you think of it?

I'm on a no game diet until I finish ES. The problem is that whenever I play something, I start getting game ideas, and then I get depressed because I'm not working on something new. Then again, if you asked me this question a few months ago when I was still doing creative work, I would've had another answer. I have this weird idea that when I'm knee deep in a project, it's better to keep my mind clear of too many outside influences to ensure that the original vision and flavor of the game remains strong. If I start playing other games, I get all distracted and run the risk of adding a whole bunch of incompatible ideas into my game. I'm not sure how seriously I take this idea, but I do think about it a lot. Plus, when I start, I have a strong obsession to finish.