Game Industry Q & A with Bredon Clay, Independent Game Designer, Switchbreak

-Originally posted on TINC Magazine-

Megan E Doherty

Bredon Clay of Switchbreak talks about being an industry outsider, his experimental approach to game development, and the indie scene in Chicago.

MED: What was the impetus, or spark, that steered you in the direction of the kind of game you want to make?

Bredon Clay: Making games is kinda something I've always done. I was one of those kids who was programming from a really young age, and that fascination with interlocking systems has stayed with me. I think anyone who has played games has had ideas start to form in their head about how different systems would work - like, what if you had input X, and feedback mechanism Y acting on it, and then this other process going on, what would their interactions produce? And how do you present it in a way that's meaningful to the player?

I think I mostly make games as sort of scientific experiments to observe these ideas for systems in action. And, 9 times out of 10, to watch them fail spectacularly.

MED: Where do you see yourself fitting in, within the wider Chicago (and/or national) gaming industry/culture - particularly as someone who flies solo?  As an outsider, what are your reflections on the Chicago scene?

BC: What is really cool about the Chicago scene is how different everything is. There are awesome games coming out of DePaul, like Devil's Tuning Fork or Octodad or Delta-G that are all messing with control schemes and sitting on this cool intersection of experiment and big polished 3D game. Then there's the cool surreal, dreamy stuff from Cardboard Computer like A House In California, or the great quirky games like Organ Trail from those Hats guys - you couldn't come up with a list of games more different in ethos, and it's neat to see them all coming from a big crowd of people here.

As for where I fit in, I think ‘outsider’ sums it up. I do what I do out of fascination, I don't really have any aspirations of being a big influence on the scene because my livelihood doesn't really depend on it.

MED: What are you up to now?  What are you working on, or what's the next big thing for you (gaming-wise)?

BC: I've got a couple of projects going currently. I'm working on an expanded version of a flash game that some other people and I made together called Dude Icarus for iPhone and iPad. That game is being designed by Erin Robinson, I'm doing the coding work on it. For my own projects, I am churning away on another flash game, this one a tactical RPG that's inspired by some of the Japanese TRPGs that I love - things like Final Fantasy Tactics or Jeanne d'Arc, and more slightly-obscure stuff like the old Atlus game Kartia: The Word of Fate.
 

MED: What's your 'dream' - what would 'success' look like for you?  Do you want to work for a gaming company (indie or otherwise) -

why or why not?

BC: I would love to be able to do what I do for my own games professionally, but I don't think that's something that's offered by most jobs inside the game industry. I view what I do as sort of experimenting with interesting ideas, letting them react off of each other and seeing what comes out. There are places in the established game industry where that happens, but I from what I can tell from the outside most of the jobs available to programmers offer little more creatively than the type of non-games programming that pays my salary currently.

MED: To what extent do you interact or collaborate with others from the wider Chicago gaming industry?  If so, how has it been beneficial?

BC: One of the cool things that's been happening recently with indie games is this group called Indie City Games that has been meeting up semi-regularly for informal events where everyone sort of shows up to meet each other and show off what they are doing. It's been a neat chance to see what's out there locally, and I've seen a lot of cool games come out of it.

It was a two week game jam put on by those folks that Dude Icarus came out of; I got to work with some really really talented local people (Nicole Lenard and Scott Roberts on art, Erin Robinson on design, Jake Elliott on music - great at what they do, all) and out of all the stuff I've worked on that game has been the most popular by far.

MED: What advice would you give to other folks out there who want to do their own thing, without being part of a larger organization?

BC: Find people who will play the stuff you make! Not just to test it when you're done, have people playing your games while you work on them, and try to learn from watching them and incorporate those lessons into your work. That is, to me, the most important part of game design. Games exist as a set of interactions between a player and the rule systems you build - they aren't a one-way communication that comes out of the head of the author and transmits to the audience like a book, they are a dialogue. So if you aren't taking your designs and looking at how they play - and how they fall apart - in the hands of actual people then you're missing a big part of the equation of what makes a game a game in the first place.