WEB EXCLUSIVE | INTERVIEW
Written by Trinity Thompson (she/her) | Contributing Writer
Within the plethora of games produced and distributed online, there are often hidden gems tucked away - some of which emerge amidst the hustle and bustle of Aotearoa’s very own Tāmaki Makaurau. Here, Sam Bunny and Shannon Jahnel Lanktree form the label ‘Cookie Crayon’. Working on both the art, design, and coding for their games, this power duo has gained recognition for their creativity and visual art/design, as well as received awards in various Game Jams. Outside of Cookie Crayon, Sam works on graphic design and UI/UX whereas Shannon is more illustration based - working in animation, character design and motion graphics.
What are some of the games you have worked on in the past, and which is your favourite?
Sam: We’ve worked on lots of games, so it’s hard to pick a favourite. With each one we tried to do something new, something we haven’t done before - to learn different ways of doing things. One that we enjoyed recently was ‘Neo Witch,’ which we made with another company called Nex. It’s a motion-controlled spell-casting game on their console - a camera-controlled gaming system. We learned a lot, especially about working with a publisher.
Shannon: It was really cool because we had to come up with what sort of physical movements you’d have to do to cast a spell. A lot of the time we were just coming up with different choreographies. It’s like dancing, a little bit. We had to consider, “OK, does this feel cool?” or “Does this make you feel like a magician?” - that sort of thing. It was really different to making a digital game where you’re sitting down most of the time.
What project are you most pleased about developing?
Sam: I think Neo Witch was really cool ‘cause it was quite different. We only had about three months to work on it, and it was a lot larger than we were used to. It was different, but also a lot more stress and time-management compared to the smaller ones we’ve done.
Shannon: We were so involved with it. We would wake up, and work on the game straight away. Then we’d go to sleep really late because we’d been working on it all day, and then wake up and start on it again. We were really, really passionate about it, so I think that probably was the most interesting one we worked on, it was just so different to the other stuff.
(Note: Neo-Witch recently won the 'Composed Segment: Excellence in Audio' award at the Pavs.)
How about the ones you developed on your own? Is there a particular one you are most pleased with?
Sam: I think I quite like our two-player games. We have ‘Neon Knives’, and ‘Flopfish’ was a recent one. I think some of the others where we made a little storyline or puzzles, they got a bit more tedious to work on because you have to play through the same level over and over again.
Shannon: Because we know the outcome, we know exactly how the puzzle is solved, so it’s not as fun to test.
Sam: Whereas a two-player game has a lot more randomness to it. We both played together and got better at it. There’s more unpredictability in those sorts of games.
How does your artistic background impact the way you go about game ideation and development?
Sam: A lot of the time we think of the art very early on. We’ll get a prototype, and be looking at art simultaneously. Sometimes we’ll look at styles the game could be before even thinking of proper mechanics. We’ve seen videos of how other developers work, and everyone starts at a different point. We start with our strengths first, I think.
Shannon: We’ve had a few games where we had a rough idea, and then saw some art that was inspiring. We would consider, ‘What if we change it to be more like this?’ because the artwork inspired us to go the other way. Because we have an art background, we always try to make the games look good, even early on. We’re never really happy if it doesn’t look good.
Your game repertoire is incredibly diverse - was this a conscious choice to explore all the possibilities you could think of? How do you keep innovating?
Sam: I find a lot of the time we will pivot a game idea really aggressively. We’ll try an idea and get to a point where we find it’s not working, or we’ll find a bug that makes it really different. We might think “Oh, I kind of like that bug” and pivot the game in that direction. We’re not really afraid of breaking the idea or of the game failing, so we’ll just try lots of different, unique ideas.
Shannon: Since it’s usually just the two of us, we can easily pivot or just go with the flow.
We may be like “Oh, we haven’t done a shooter before. Let’s try making a shooter game!”, or “We haven’t played with 3D that much, let’s make a 3D game!”.
Which is more important to you, visual fidelity or gameplay responsiveness?
Shannon: Both, I think. I’ve played some games on itch.io that had really low fidelity graphics, but the gameplay was really good. Then sometimes I think our games tip the other way, where they look really good, but they don’t play so well - and we really want to get them to play well. You need a balance, because like Sam said, if the game doesn’t look good, no one will play it. It needs to be 50/50.
What are the best parts of developing games?
Sam: I quite like the ‘unexpected’ of the game. You can develop a controller for a character and then hit play and it reacts in a completely unexpected way, and you’re like “Wow! That’s actually a lot more fun than I expected!”. Or you make a little AI character to follow you around, and they do it in a strange way and you realise “Actually, I really like how weirdly he follows me”. It’s all of those unexpected things that you don’t really realise are going to happen until you click play.
Shannon: I like the really basic aspect of coding something and the character moves left, right and jumps. To me that continues to be incredibly satisfying - just bringing it to life. It’s the same sort of satisfaction you get from animation, where the still character becomes animated.
What are the worst parts?
Shannon: The worst part for me is fixing bugs that you just don’t know why it’s doing something.
Sam: Some of them you don’t even know how to search for. You try and search how to solve it, there’s no information - you can’t find anything - and you just have to figure it out on your own.
What is the greatest misconception about what you do?
Shannon: There’s a lot more work that goes into a game than you even realise. With Flopfish, just trying to get the controls to work… we’re still actually trying to get them to work properly because it’s using that soft-body physics. It’s like every little thing you do can make or break it, and it’s a lot of time sitting there trying to figure out what makes it work, what makes it not work, and what’s that bug. We play games too, so we also say ‘What the hell, just fix it!’, but we also know now that it’s not as simple as that.
Sam: I think that what can look simple in a game can actually require a lot of work behind the scenes. Even just changing levels sometimes requires scripts, and lots of pre-emptive work.
What advice would you give to someone wanting to enter the industry?
Sam: When we first started, we were planning out this huge game, before we even knew how to make a game! I think it’s better to just start making little ones to get used to creating games before you make your big game. Now, when we look back at our ideas for that ‘big’ game we were going to make, a lot of them don’t make sense, are too hard, or aren’t very interesting.
Shannon: Joining game jams was really good because it gave us a deadline, a theme to start with, and motivation since you knew other people were working on it as well. We’ve had heaps of other ideas where we said 'We'll start it tomorrow!’, but of course you don’t start it tomorrow. Having smaller little projects can help build up the bigger one, and the more you do the more experience and confidence you’ll get.
Anything else you would like to add?
Sam: We’re actually going to revisit and build out some of our game jam demos into larger experiences. We always have players asking for them to be expanded. Currently we are working on a proper release of ‘Mingle’ on iOS and Android.
You can find Cookie Crayon through the following media channels:
Website: https://cookiecrayon.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cookiecrayongames/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/bycookiecrayon
Interview has been edited for length and clarity - a longer version is available at debatemag.com.
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