The Last and Final Word: Bean
Bean is a competition winning, critically acclaimed independent videogame developer who enjoys experimentation within the medium of videogames. It seems he’s had some success.
Bonus link at the end of the interview.
Name?
Michael Molinari, though I more often go by Bean.
Age?
24.
Location?
San Jose, CA.
Development tool(s) of choice?
For the most part, Flash and Photoshop CS4. For music, I use a Korg KP3, various phones, iPod Touch, DSLite, GBA SP, and PC software.
What do you do?
I am currently an artist at Namco Bandai Games America.
You’ve been developing independent videogames since 2001. How did you first get into game development?
I’ve wanted to create in general since I was very young. I was always building strange gadgets and things out of K’NEX, while growing a fondness for single-piece paper pop-ups. I suppose that combination of universal building pieces and a necessity for patience and problem-solving led to the want to make games.
The first game I made was a spin-off to a short webcomic series I did for PlanetFortress.com. I knew next to no coding, so it was more of an interactive movie that would jump to different parts of the timeline based on the player’s actions. Once I took C++ and Java AP courses in highschool, I was hooked.
What are your goals and aspirations as a game developer?
My goals as a game developer are to continue to experiment with gameplay, design, narrative, visuals, and music in ways that are new to me. I enjoy doing something different every time, for both variety’s sake and for the sense of challenge and creativity that stems from a blank canvas.
I have many questions about games that have no answers yet. I’ve been slowly introducing them into my games to see how they work with players. Most have failed, but I learn each time. The key for me is to continue exploring the unknown and see what works. I look at them as baby steps to allowing games to mature from an interactive distraction / display of technology to something meaningful that holds its own merit and place in our lives.
I also hear that most indie developers quit at 35, so I’d like to avoid that if possible. I think it would be awesome to be an indie game grandpa.
At what point did you decide to take your game development more seriously than just a hobby?
I kind of went on hiatus once I attended Ringling College of Art + Design, creating a shoddy Metroid shooter during my Junior year. I really wanted to participate in JayIsGames’ Casual Gameplay Design Competitions, but had no time because of classes. After I graduated, another CGDC competition opened up, this time with the ability for me to not only enter, but to dedicate all of my time to it. That game was How My Grandfather Won The War. Because of how fun it was to make it and how it generated a bit of buzz (albeit because of a brutal difficulty curve), I knew this would be something I would enjoy doing for a long time.
On your about page on your website you mentioned the first videogame you made and how you have come to be embarrassed by it, stating “easily the most violent game I’ve ever made and will ever make.” Firstly, why were you embarrassed by it and do you try and avoid violent themes in your games?
I suppose there’s no need to be embarrassed by it. I was only 14 at the time, simply creating something that mimicked the niche it was for: Team Fortress Classic. Characters get gibbed when you shotgun them, and there’s even some political commentary where you need to prevent a presidential assassination (also a reference to TFC). After showing it to some adults, they started questioning me about my values, presumably viewing the game as a trigger for some kind of psychological outcry. Once I explained to them that I was a pacifist and really wasn’t a fan of violence, I re-thought why I made that game, and started designing thereafter from a different approach.
One of the following games I made back then involved shooting Snuggles the Bear with rubber arrows. It was very bouncy and happy (and ridiculous). I ended up enjoying that feeling a lot more. Another game, Hall Sweep, saw the player controlling a huge broom as it swept down a school hallway to pick up any loose trash and students who were late to class.
This has been carried over into my recent indie games. Grandfather, for instance, has the player shooting liquid out of a plane to reveal an alternate world of brightness and paradise. This was a unique design mechanic that came out of my want to remove bullets and bombs from gameplay (at least for the player).
You mentioned that the games [Together] and …But That Was [Yesterday] were not specifically based on your life but a fusion of your experiences. Is it important to you to convey personal experiences through your videogames?
I think bringing your own life into your work is the key to making something truly unique. As I’ve been making games, I’ve learned that being open and honest is the best way to both enjoy the creative process and for players to get a rich experience. If you lie to your audience, they will know. They also know when you are opening up, and in turn they open up as well.
What do you hope other people will get out of playing [Together] and …But That Was [Yesterday]?
[Together] and [Yesterday] were especially crafted as windows into my life. Certain events were included to which I wanted very specific reactions. It’s a challenge to create something that people can understand, can relate to, is honest, and that I feel is an accurate portrayal of my message. I’ve had successes and failures. It’s an evolving process that I’ve been putting into each game.
Are there any plans for any other games set within the same world as [Together] and [Yesterday]?
I have several games planned to be set within the [bracket] universe, though I’m constantly evolving game ideas in my head as I think about new ways to present them. So while I can’t guarantee they’ll involve familiar characters or locations, their messages and principles will feel familiar. Though to be honest, many games I have planned now are related to past work. For example, the premise for BasketBelle came from the purple nurse seen briefly in [Yesterday]. She was created as a purple person to make it clear she wasn’t related to the main character or friend (blue and green respectively). In drawing her, I asked myself about her family: who they were, what they went through, etc. Thus, BasketBelle was born.
You won 1st place for …But That Was [Yesterday] and 3rd places respectively for How My Grandfather Won the War and [Together] in Jay is Games’ Casual Gameplay Design Competitions. What sort of effect has this had on you? Does it validate that you’re heading in the right direction, development-wise and connecting with an audience?
Placing in these competitions has given me confidence to continue making games. If they weren’t accepted or poorly received, it would have been a hard blow to something I’m so passionate about.
To be honest, the fan mail I’ve received over the years is the most powerful motivator to continue making the kind of games I do. They are few and far between, but when someone sends me a thank you, or tweets about enjoying an experience, or explains how personally touched he or she was by the events in my games, it lets me know I’m helping people out. I mean, complete strangers have let me know that my game made them shed a tear or accept a heavy loss in their life. That feeling of making a difference is way more special to me than the development process or release. It’s also something I never want to abuse as I continue exploring story, narrative, and emotional gameplay.
Now that you’ve placed in those competitions, do you feel that your credibility is established and your confidence as a developer will remain steady or do you feel as if you constantly have to prove yourself to your audience?
I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to release something and have people who love it and people who don’t quite care for it. I’m glad there are people who look forward to my future releases, but the drive behind making these games is to help me express myself. Once I nail that, then I design with players in mind. I have things to say, ask, or show, and games let me do that.
I’m always going to be pushing myself to try new things, whether they’re new to just me, or to all of us. There’s an infinite space of unexplored interactivity out there, and while it’s more comfortable to innovate on past successes, there’s something exciting and scary about trying something new. It doesn’t matter if it grows or fails; it’ll always provide feedback to help us understand what the next step is.
Do you have any plans to enter any other competitions (ranging from Ludum Dare,TIGSource competitions or IGF) and what factors come into play when deciding whether or not to enter a competition?
Timing is key for competitions, especially the longer ones that go for months. My current focus, BasketBelle, was started without any deadline in mind. However, when the IndieCade2011 call for entries was announced, I decided to accelerate my productivity and get a demo together for submission. My main confidence in submitting came from knowing that an experimental Flash game was a finalist in a previous year, Every Day The Same Dream.
Competitions are great for creating and finishing a game, as well as generating the desire to make it the best it possibly can be. They also do a good job of getting games distributed to as many players as possible with little push from developers. I’ll likely be participating again in the Global Game Jam in 2012, though other events are uncertain.
I have a whole sketchbook of game design ideas, many of which I’m simply waiting for the right time to work on. I have a rule that I only work on one major game at a time, to prevent projects from being abandoned.
Do you have an audience in mind when you make a project or do they all come from very personal places?
I would say that everything I make comes from somewhere personal, but I also craft them in a certain way such that other people can get a similar or relatable experience. After the flurry of reactions to the difficulty in Grandfather, I re-thought how important difficulty was, and became more interested in having people actually complete my games.
[Yesterday] was originally going to be a game just for me. However, I have trouble completing things without a deadline, and I didn’t have faith that something made by myself would change my mind about certain subjects. So once a new CGDC was announced with the theme of “friends”, I knew it was the right time to make it, knowing I could share my experience with others.
Do you think there is any other ways you can motivate yourself to finish projects, without having the deadline of a competition looming? How do you provide yourself with a compelling deadline without a competition behind it?
I work the most efficiently under pressure. For instance, I would say 90% of [Yesterday]’s development occurred during the last three weeks of a two month schedule. At that point, I only had the dog sequence finished, with no audio. Everything else happened pretty rapidly after that.
I’ve started a new method of getting things done with BasketBelle. Every day, I dedicate at least one hour to working on it. If I slip one day, then it gets appended to the next day. If I work 10 hours one day, I still need to put in an hour the next. This way, I’ll at least have some progress on a daily basis. I used to work for hours one day and then take a week off from the feeling of accomplishment it brought. That didn’t really get much done.
The longest I’ve spent on one game is 13 months, for TF Larry: Reinstatement. It was a bloated game with 100 rooms, cutscenes, secret areas, boss fights, and mini-games. I worked “until it was done”, which was nice to know I was satisfied, but it also prevented me from working on anything else for a while. While I’m still using the “until it’s done” scheduling for BasketBelle, I’m always happy to cut things to prevent it from bloating. I also have a screenplay that isn’t allowed to grow, so that helps, too.
Do you consider your last few videogames as ‘art games’ or is that not a concept that you believe in?
I feel that since we, as humans, are having trouble figuring out just what “art” or “games” are, it’s probably best to think of my projects as just another form of self-expression.
Personally, I like to follow Duchamp’s ready made bicycle wheel for what can be considered art. On that note, the term “art game” is weird because it implies that the subject is separate from “games”, perhaps to convey some message or look at life and humanity, in exchange for limited or non-existent “gameplay”. But then that implies that mainstream and AAA games don’t do this, which isn’t true. I’ve had fun playing with these broken terms and views in my games, especially in how they’re received by the public.
BasketBelle has just been selected as a finalist in IndieCade 2011. Tell me a little bit about BasketBelle and what it is trying to convey to players.
BasketBelle is kind of different from my recent works, at least in structure. This time around, the story was written for the world and characters and not so much from my life. For instance, I don’t have a sister, so the character Belle is actually based off of my best friend’s little sister. I want to have a strong focus on family ties, not only because of how interconnected we all really are, but because I’ve only dealt with love interests and friends in past games. In addition, there’s the overcoming of personal struggles as well as being able to understand others and the choices they make in life.
There’s also a lot of experimentation going on for me as I try out a bunch of crazy ideas to see how they all work together. This will result in the game significantly changing in feel from level to level, despite carrying the basketball theme throughout. I’m also working on more intricate audio interaction. For example, the bass kicks in the music are generated and synced in realtime as the ball is dribbled. When the ball is shot, the bass drops out and you’re left with just the highs until it lands.
Looks like you’re up against some pretty steep competition from some pretty high profile developers. How do you rate your chances?
The way I see it, I’ve already accomplished something I never thought possible. BasketBelle has made it into the festival. It’ll be displayed alongside the same titles I’ve been waiting years to play. That in itself is something I’m proud of and honored for. As far as the Awards Show goes, I’ll of course hope for the best, but I’m already content with simply being a part of the experience. I’ll be at the festival all weekend to talk with developers and gamers alike. It should be a great experience.
Bonus link: Awesome concept art.
