Lucas Pope interview: How to create a game based on “constraints”

On February 5, 2024, he was the representative director of Unity Japan.Retirement of Mr. Hiroki Ohmae and appointment as advisorwas announced.

Mr. Ohmae, who was appointed as Unity Japan’s representative in February 2023, has been working hard to spread Unity in Japan since around 2010, and was also involved in the launch of Unity Japan.He previously worked as a game programmer at From Software.“Demon’s Soul”We are working on development such as, and in Unity.『COGEN』He also has a background in the development of.

In order for Mr. Ohmae to deepen his solidarity with game developers, a series project was underway through Den Famicom Gamer in which he would be the listener. From the perspective of Mr. Omae, who has the background mentioned above,Wouldn’t it be interesting to talk about various things, such as current game development and the lifestyle of making games?That’s what I was thinking.

However, in September 2023, while preparations were underway,New fee policy “Unity Runtime Fee” announced by Unity headquartersThis caused great confusion, especially among game developers.

Nowadays, the problem has been corrected and the policy has been officially changed, but at the time,“Shouldn’t the series itself, including the completed manuscript, be shelved?”The discussion progressed to such a point that it was decided that Mr. Ohmae would step down.

Considering this trend, to be honest, I thought it would be safer not to release it, but after consulting with Unity and Mr. Ohmae,

“The article itself is not something that we were able to complete on our own, but also because of the people who responded to the interview.If the article was postponed due to Unity’s circumstances, that’s probably not the case. Isn’t there?”
“At Unity, we intend to take various steps to restore trust. Although we understand that there are various opinions, we have no choice but to take the first step.”
“Even after Mr. Ohmae changes from representative to advisor, Unity Japan remains committed to the game industry.”

I received this opinion.
If that was the case, the editorial department requested that the article be published, and the article was published at the same time as Mr. Ohmae announced his retirement.

To be honest, I think this was a risky decision for both Unity and Mr. Ohmae, so I would like to first thank him for giving me permission to publish the article. thank you.

so.
This time, we spoke with Mr. Omae, who is known as the developer of masterpiece indie games such as “Papers, Please” and “Return of the Obra Dinn.”Mr. Lucas Popeis.

Most recently, a new game for Playdate, a unique portable game machine with a hand crank.“Mars After Midnight” releasedIt just happened.

Speaking of Mr. Lucas,A truly genius game developer who took the indie world by storm with his extremely unique style.That’s why I want to hear about things like that!

In fact, during this interview, I was able to hear in great detail about his unique method of creating games.
In addition, Mr. Lucas is a person who is rarely seen publicly, which makes the contents of this article extremely valuable. For this reason, the Den Fami editorial department felt that it was too much to shelve it.

I think this is a must-read not only for indie game developers but also for anyone who makes a living in game development, so I hope you will give it a read. What is the thinking behind the highly original Mr. Lucas?

Listener/TAITAI
Edit/Existence
Photography/Hideji Sasaki

Click here for Unity official website

Click here for the “Mars After Midnight” store page

Click here for the “Papers, Please” Steam store page

“Return of the Obra Dinn” Steam store page is here

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The good thing about Unity is that you can quickly decide what to spend your time on during game development.

Mr. Hiroki Omae (hereinafter referred to as Mr. Omae):
Thank you for your cooperation today. I’m a big fan of Lucas, so there are so many things I want to ask you. So, to be honest, I probably won’t ask any questions about Unity today (lol).

Mr. Lucas Pope (hereinafter referred to as Mr. Lucas):
If you need it, I can talk about Unity as much as I want (lol).

Mr. Ohmae:
thank you. If that’s the case, you’ve already been using Unity, so it might be a good idea to ask some questions.

Now, Mr. Lucas lives in Japan and makes a living by making games entirely on his own. I’m sure your family was there too, right?

Mr. Lucas:
Yeah. My wife is Japanese and we met her in Los Angeles. Even after they got married, they worked together at a game company called “Realtime Associates” in Los Angeles.Then I Naughty Dog【※】I will be changing jobs to.

However, my career itself began with the creation of experimental games. So I wanted to go back to that time, so I decided to try the same thing in Japan.

Mr. Ohmae:
Where in Los Angeles did you work?

Mr. Lucas:
It’s Santa Monica. It wasn’t bad, but there was a lot of traffic… In that respect, Japan is great because you can get around without a car.

Mr. Ohmae:
I also lived in Los Angeles for about three and a half years, so I understand (laughs).
Actually, I went to the University of Southern California. I didn’t graduate though.

Mr. Lucas:
That’s right. How long have you been in America?

Mr. Ohmae:
It’s been around 6 years since I was in high school.
I’ve wanted to become a game programmer since I was 14 years old, but I thought I needed English skills to do that.

After quitting university, I started working at an IT startup in Japan, and after about two years I moved to a game company.

Mr. Lucas:
That was tough, huh.

Mr. Ohmae:
It was actually fun. I was making my own games on a Mac that my girlfriend’s mother had bought for me. However, Macs at that time were not very suitable for game development.

At that time, there were no game engines, so“Making a game” is similar to “doing almost everything yourself.”was.

Mr. Lucas:
Actually, when I started making games, I was using a Mac. Game development back then was difficult but fun. I really didn’t know what was going on and what to do.

Nowadays, you can publish from Mac to PC using Unity, so I develop on Mac. I think it’s a good time.

Mr. Ohmae:
After that, I worked at From Software for five and a half years,“Armored Core 4”I was in charge of music library development for several PS2 games.

From then on, Fromm expanded into multi-platform development, and at that time I was the only person at Fromm talking about multi-platform game development. Then, when the opportunity came, I said, “Okay, let’s do it.” So we created a system that works on multiple platforms.

Mr. Lucas:
That’s great, is it for multiple platforms?

Mr. Ohmae:
That system was used in “Demon’s Souls” and “Armored Core 4,” but…I went out for drinks with him recently.“Armored Core 6”According to the staff, the system I created is still quite intact.

Mr. Lucas:
Ever wonder how much the code you wrote has changed?

I was in charge of the menus and save data for the Uncharted series.Most of that code was written by myself and was a mess (lol).It worked fine in the end, but it’s a bit embarrassing to see what that code looks like now.

Mr. Ohmae:
But I think things like this tend to remain as they are. Even if the code is dirty, it still works properly (lol).

Mr. Lucas:
That’s right. In reality, the beauty of the code’s appearance and structure is not that important. Production code can be messy but still work.

I was quite a perfectionist when I was younger, so it took me a while to realize that. I think passing QA (quality control) tests is much more valuable than coming up with a beautiful API specification.

Mr. Ohmae:
You’re right.In fact, much of the game engine and system-related code is neither productive nor creative.That’s why.
As a project, work towards multi-platform support is necessary work, and it doesn’t matter who does it, and in the end, 80% of the work will be the same no matter who does it.

So you don’t need to worry too much about it.
If an improvement is really needed, it’s probably more important to decide if the improvement is actually needed or if you’d rather use that time to make the game more interesting.

Mr. Lucas:
As you say.
This is because if you are developing everything by yourself, you will have to make a lot of choices just by deciding what to spend your time on.

I think the good thing about Unity is that you can quickly make decisions about what to choose.Even if I stumble on something, I can put the problem on the back burner and move on to other tasks, such as graphics or music.

Mr. Ohmae:
In that regard, how was the development of Papers, Please?

Mr. Lucas:
The original version of Papers, Please was powered by an engine called OpenFL, which is based on OpenGL. However, even if it is based on a 20-year-old powerhouse-level engine, it cannot overcome the PC compatibility issue.

And when you think about 200,000 copies of that game running on 200,000 different computers…

Mr. Ohmae:
It’s scary…

Mr. Lucas:
Issues related to hardware compatibility and engine selection are important in game development. Hardware can fail anytime and anywhere.

In fact, hardware-related failures are not my fault, the engine’s fault, or the programming language’s fault. If the people who make the device driver change the specifications a little, the game won’t work in a specific user’s environment.

But since the users are paying, I have a responsibility to do something about it.Since we can’t directly test the problem in the user’s environment, we have no choice but to try to find a solution through repeated interactions.

Mr. Ohmae:
Actually, the reason I joined Unity was because I had a similar experience to what Mr. Lucas just mentioned.

Especially for small-scale developers, having to provide such after-sales support is too much of a burden. Instead, we want them to spend their valuable time providing content and experiences.

Mr. Lucas creates a lot of development tools.I like tool development more than game development.

Mr. Lucas:
What surprised me about using Unity was the ease of use of the editor, its consistency, and the ability to do whatever I wanted.

I’m a big tool lover, and I’m always creating development tools. Once you create it, your work efficiency will double, soI even like tool development more than game development (lol).

Even if you’re a tool lover, Unity makes it very easy to change tools, add new inspector panels, run processes, automate, etc.

For example, in Return of the Obra Dinn (Obra Dinn), we used Unity for the map layout, but without actually running the game, you could just move things or press buttons. Being able to reinstall assets was also convenient.

Mr. Ohmae:
Do you make that many tools? What is the ratio of time spent creating tools to time spent not doing so?

Mr. Lucas:
I think making tools is about 40% of my work, and the remaining 60% is spent programming games.

For me, tools are a kind of solution that helps me when something goes wrong.
When there is a problem and development stops, we isolate the problem and think of a solution. Once I have a certain idea, I start working on it and start creating tools using Python, Haxe, C#, etc. as appropriate.

Another good thing about this tool is thatThat means it doesn’t have to be a finished product.is.
To be honest, I also threw away a lot of work during development. At times like this, I was trying to earn even a small amount of output by making tools. There were many situations where that output later became effective.

──Is it normal to make a lot of tools like Lucas?

Mr. Lucas:
I don’t think that will happen.

When I worked at Naughty Dog, we had a lot of tools. But basically, in large companies, the people who make the tools and the people who use the tools are different. I think the production capacity is also on a whole other level.

Mr. Ohmae:
in Japan,“Forever developing”mean that“Eternal”There is an interesting saying.

This term refers not only to the fact that game development ends unfinished, but also because when working on a project on your own, you often end up preoccupied with developing tools rather than completing the game.“Just making tools is not progress, so let’s be careful.”It seems that there is also a didactic meaning.

In fact, the average indie game developer may have to be more conscious of keeping their tools simple. On the other hand, it’s amazing that Lucas is able to release a game properly despite spending so much time creating tools.

Mr. Lucas:
I think I learned a lot from Naughty Dog in that regard. In fact, I used to spend more time on technical aspects and tool development than I do now.

At a game company like Naughty Dog, unlike individual developers, it’s not up to me to decide when the game will be released, but rather the company’s decision. That’s why games are released without leaving them unfinished, and above all, until the game is actually released, you won’t know what was most important in the end.

For example, as users play with the game, they may discover bugs they didn’t notice, or conversely, no one can find what they thought was a serious bug. I believe that only through this kind of experience will I be able to improve my next game development.

Therefore, to the “Eternal” developers mentioned by Mr. Omae,Isn’t there a lack of “feedback that can be obtained by actually releasing a game”?I feel that.
After all, without that feedback, it would be difficult to distinguish between what is “important” and what is “not important” in development.

By setting “constraints” in advance, ideas for “how to do things well” are created.

Mr. Ohmae:
I think it was an interview with another media, but Mr. Lucas gave the reason why he continues to create games by himself.“I don’t want to influence other people’s lives.”That’s what you said.

When it comes to music and graphics, I think it’s relatively easy to collaborate, including by purchasing them on the marketplace, but is there any reason why you insist on producing them alone?

Mr. Lucas:
In the end, I think it’s because I like doing things by myself.
Even if I end up not being able to create many works, I don’t think it will be a problem as long as I can create something that I am satisfied with, like in “Obra Dinn.”

For example, in “Obra Dinn”I decided that I didn’t need to create all the textures.Of course, the game will be richer if all the textures are properly created. However, that would be too much work for me to complete on my own, and rich graphics aren’t necessarily necessary for a game like Obra Dinn.

So, as long as I can find a way to do it as well as I can, it doesn’t matter if there’s a better texture artist.

Mr. Ohmae:
It’s true that Obra Dinn’s unique art style contributes to the overall atmosphere of the game in many ways. Despite being in 3D, the faces of the characters are vague and not clearly drawn.

But this fits perfectly with the concept of “Obra Dinn,” which is “tracing memories.” I think this is a great example of how constraints and style can improve the playing experience of a game.

Mr. Lucas:
In other words, Obra Dinn was a fascinating puzzle that required us to experiment with how to best combine art style and game system.
“Maya【※】Reduce the work above as much as possible,I had a lot of fun trying to figure out how to do it well within the constraints of “how attractive I can make art look.”Yes.

Mr. Ohmae:
Rather than whether or not you have the skills or talent, it’s more important to consider whether you can do it well and how to do it well, given constraints.

Mr. Lucas:
That’s right. If you can do it well, game production becomes interesting, like a puzzle.

This is just my example, but I think it would be ideal if you could create a work flow that allows you to have fun working on it to the best of your ability, and the end result is an interesting game.

Mr. Ohmae:
At what point do the “constraints” you mentioned earlier arise? Is it set before the project starts, or does it come naturally after a certain stage?

Mr. Lucas:
That’s a good question. In my case, I usually set it up in advance.
The important thing is that you need to choose “constraints that major studios won’t do.”is. If we were to compete there, we would be unable to compete.

So the constraints I set for Papers, Please are:“Is it possible to play a game by just being an immigration officer and checking documents?”in “Obra Dinn”“Can you create a modern 3D game with 1-bit graphics?”That’s what it was. I thought about how much fun I could make within these constraints.

Mr. Ohmae:
I’m also one of those who grew up with Macintosh, so『HyperCard』or『Samurai Mech』The moment I saw the graphics of Obra Dinn, which reminded me of games like “Obra Dinn”, I thought, “I have to buy it!” (lol).

In fact, I think that the art style of Obra Dinn, which is based on these “constraints,” is a great success from a marketing perspective. Not only can you focus on the style and direction of the game, but I think the result is that it has a distinct impact compared to other games.

Mr. Lucas:
Since there is no public relations person,When it comes to marketing, there are two choices: “I don’t do it” or “I can barely do it” (lol).

Therefore, there are limited ways to make the game look appealing. You can narrow it down to one or two elements, such as screenshots or concepts that allow you to understand the game content in just a few photos.

Mr. Ohmae:
I see. When choosing an idea that could be turned into a game, you need to consider whether it will win from a marketing perspective.
With that in mind, it is also important to consider how much the ideas you come up with to win contribute to what you want to create.

Mr. Lucas:
As you say.

I usually make a list of things I want to do, and while I sort out the things that I can’t get out of my head or things that I feel like would be cool, I decide which ones are achievable and which I can work on in the long term. I’m thinking about what I can do.

Mr. Ohmae:
Do you sometimes start making a game based on such an idea, make it halfway and then abandon it?

Mr. Lucas:
It happens sometimes, but it does happen (lol). But it’s a pretty rare case. I usually start working on it after I come up with an idea that would make a good game.

For example, the “system for retracing the memories of the site” in “Obra Dinn” is a good example. I didn’t know how much work would be required to make this happen, but I knew I could make a good game with this idea.
However, if I had seen the actual amount of work at that point, I might have stopped making it… (lol).

Mr. Ohmae:
It must have been a huge amount of work… (lol) From what I’ve heard so far, it seems like you have a lot of ideas, but will you be developing multiple games at the same time?

Mr. Lucas:
At least I’m not too busy with it right now. I also have to carry out maintenance for Papers, Please and Obra Dinn at the same time, so I’m doing all I can to make one game.
“Ease of maintenance”From that perspective, Unity is very good and has helped me a lot.