With E3 coming up, we decided to kick things off with a silent BANG! I had the opportunity to talk with Josh Hughes, Lead Designer of Team KAIZEN, winners of the $50,000 “Game Changer” LittleBigPlanet contest on the PlayStation Blog.
Team KAIZEN is an independent game studio by Add-A-Tudez Entertainment Company and they’ve got some interesting projects up their sleeves. josh discusses these, as well as gives us some insight into the world of an indie developer, the history of Team KAIZEN, and the details of their award-winning LittleBigPlanet level. Check out the interview in its entirety below!
[pullquote_left] The name KAIZEN is Japanese for, ‘Never Stop Improving’[/pullquote_left]
TGF: Tell us a little about yourself.
My name is Josh Hughes, I am Co-Founder and President of Add-A-Tudez Entertainment Company (www.addatudez.com) and Lead Game Designer of Team KAIZEN (www.teamkaizengames.com), the first indie game studio under Add-A-Tudez. I’m 27 years old, live in Great Falls, Montana and have 1 indie title under my belt (back in the early 2000’s I was a member of the XrucifiX Game Studio–then called Two Guys Software–and we released Eternal War: Shadows of Light, for which I helped a little on the writing while learning about game design). Now, here at Add-A-Tudez and Team KAIZEN, we are finishing up our first LittleBigPlanet project (for HASTAC and The MacArthur Foundation), have several potential projects in the pipeline for the next few months and we are making a tech demo to our martial arts brawler, Shattered Soul, in the Unreal 3 engine (this tech demo should be ready to pitch to investors/publishers soon!).
TGF: How did you get into gaming?
When I was in Kindergarten, my teacher suggested games to my mom as a way to improve hand-eye coordination. By the time I was in 3rd grade, I approached my mom and told her my future involved game design 🙂 Through middle school and high school I developed writing ability, and figured I’d go into journalism and write about games. In my Junior year I joined Two Guys Software (now XrucifiX) and helped create the basic plot structure and characters to the game Eternal War: Shadows of Light. After I graduated in 2002, my brother Trevor just entered 6th grade (4 months after my graduation, I’d already planned to take a year off) and a friend pressured him to tryout for football. After failing the physical several times, we got an emergency call from doctors stating Trev needed to be on blood pressure meds and they were scheduling emergency surgery. We found out he had a congenital condition that kinked his ureters (the lines that connect your kidneys to your bladder) and his bladder wasn’t emptying all the way–it backed urine up into his kidneys, which were nearly poisoned to death. The remainder of 2002 was a whirlwind. Our lives were turned upside down as we learned all the care Trevor would need (leading up to an eventual transplant–which hasn’t happened yet as he hasn’t deteriorated enough to qualify yet). On top of that, our father (whom we had somewhat of a strained relationship with anyways) told Trevor to his face, “I don’t want the bills of a sick child.” So, Mom made true on a plan she was thinking of for a long time and divorced our father, and he took the family van and moved out of town. Once he was gone, we found out he refinanced the house several times behind Mom’s back and was $180,000.00 in debt, which fell on our heads now since the companies holding that couldn’t easily get a hold of him. We had to go bankrupt and, by early 2003, we had lost everything: our house (we moved in with Mom’s parents), the car Mom bought to replace the family van and Mom even had to give up her job of 18 years with a group home so she could get Trevor on Medicaid (which saved his life). During the next few years, Trevor would have over 30 surgeries (including one enabling him to urinate out of his belly button–he actually had a group of 50+ kids gathered for a demonstration once!) and I worked a dead end job for 2.5 years at a call center. (Mom worked odd end jobs, but she had to be careful to make sure we stayed in the right economic bracket to keep Trev on Medicaid). Finally, in 2005 I approached Mom with a plan. I told her we were trying to do things the normal way–to work a 9-5 and hope it gets us out of our problems. I didn’t think Trevor could handle that kind of future, and it seemed to be going nowhere for Mom and I. Normal wasn’t working, so we needed to try crazy. We came up with the idea to start a company and take our own lives back. Our ultimate goal was to develop video games, but we started by selling T-Shirts with our iconic and slightly weird sense of humor on them, as well as doing substance-free techno raves for people in our area. Then, the Great Falls Development Authority heard about us and contacted us. They knew of our wishes to do game design (we had previously worked with them to try and build an incentive package to attract game studios to Great Falls) and told us that, if we were willing to work hard, they were willing to train us so we could develop a business plan and become an investment ready business. They took us under their wing and have been amazing in getting us to where we are today! So, the comment I made to my mom in 3rd grade came back full circle and my brother and I are forging ahead in the world of game design!
TGF: Tell us a little about Team Kaizen
Team KAIZEN is the first game studio under Add-A-Tudez Entertainment Company. The reason I word it that way is we want Add-A-Tudez EC to constantly grow and expand into new territories (if people saw our 10 and 20 year plans they’d think we’re insane!). We want to develop this attitude of having several game studios, each one relatively small to medium size, so eventually Add-A-Tudez will have the best combination of corporate muscle and indie soul! The name KAIZEN is Japanese for, ‘Never Stop Improving’. I learned it in High School, I had a psychology teacher senior year who had a childhood friend that wrote a book titled, The Thermodynamics of Success. The teacher had us read part of that book and it covered the story about how the term Kaizen came around at the end of WWII and I knew I wanted to use that word some way in the future. I just didn’t know then that I would end up meeting and working with all these amazing indie artists that have joined our team! I don’t say that to kiss up–I actually mean it–words can’t describe what it’s like to concept ideas with people (in the case of Shattered Soul, Trev and I came up with some of the concepts over 10 years ago) and to work with people who bring their own ideas and vision to the table and see your idea become a group art project and start to come to life–it’s addicting to say the least!
TGF: So the HASTAC grant; tell us about it.
I saw a call for entries into this LittleBigPlanet contest on the PlayStation Blog way back in early 2010. Sony had teamed up with this group called HASTAC (pronounced ‘haystack’ and stands for Humanities, Arts, Science and Technology Advanced Collaboratory), The MacArthur Foundation and the White House to ask people to make LBP levels that could teach Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (referred to as the S.T.E.M. initiative, some people call it S.T.E.A.M. with the ‘a’ meaning Art). I am a huge ride and roller coaster fanatic, and I fell into a niche of building rides and roller coasters in LBP. I had several rides that I had finished, but not published yet. So, I made a pier looking level (the Water Pack for LBP was just recently released–and I needed an excuse for water to be in there so I could get a PSN Trophy!!) an
d, in a straight line, put my new rides with ride attendants in between explaining the different physics and science in play. The park was run by a guy named Planks (so named because I made him out of the ‘Wooden Planks’ material) who was just a caricature with a magic mouth on him (now a fully animated sackbot voiced by Great Falls’ voice actor Richard Dunbar, with an assistant named Roxie voiced by Liz Wallen-Absher). I was sure I bombed, but I had fun. The level (called Discovery Pier) filled the thermometer to the absolute limit (I couldn’t even place more pieces of wood to act as visual supports) and I felt that, at that point, it was a ‘best-of’ of my work and knowledge to that point as it pertained to ride design. Then, a few weeks later, I got an email congratulating me on making it to the semi-finals. 2 weeks after that, I got an email stating I was one of the top winners with a ‘Best In Class’ for Physics and that I needed to be in New York City soon so a member of the Obama Administration (one of his top tech guys, Aneesh Chopra) could introduce all the winners to the world. So, now we are working on a pack that will be coming out soon and it’s still kind of hard to believe even though we are well past half way done! It should also be noted that Sony and HASTAC’s plan is to donate copies of LBP2 as well as PS3’s with our levels installed to low-income libraries and community centers so people can go play them and learn whenever they want!
TGF: Why’d you choose LittleBigPlanet 2?
It was more LBP2 chose us for this project 🙂 The contract originally stated we were to make the levels in LBP1, but that was before LBP2 was even announced. Shortly after the announcement, HASTAC gave the go-ahead for us to transition to LBP2. I’m glad it worked out that way, LBP2 is a massive leap forward and my team and I are doing stuff in LBP2 I never dreamed I would have been able to pull off in the LBP1 days!
TGF: When will your level be launched?
It’s an entire level pack, and our due-by date was July 2011. However, several things are in the pipeline for our studio right now so we are actually crunching to get the pack out by mid-May (or atleast before E3) so we can move on to the projects on the horizon (including more LBP work as well as our Shattered Soul tech demo). Once it’s live, all people will need to do is find our first level, which is an introductory video. The video will link to our ‘park map’, a top-down level where you see the entire Discovery Inc park and run around on scooters to the different sections. When you go to a section, you level-link to that area of the park (whether it’s a flat-ride level –flat-rides mean anything that’s not a roller coaster–or a roller coaster). Once done at that section, you level link back to the park map–so this is why we are pitching Discovery Inc as LittleBigPlanet’s first true amusement park! There is over 10 levels involved, but they operate like one cohesive experience thanks to the level links, and players only have to find that first level to get started! Once it’s up, we’ll post the lbp.me link to that introductory level on our website as well as try to spread it all over the net (follow us on Twitter www.twitter.com/ZookeyTK to know the minute it’s up!).
TGF: And it’s free?
Yup! Completely free to play! On top of that, we have over 50 flat-rides in our pack, almost all of which are given to players as prize bubbles so they can place them in their own levels! We also give them some items such as an un-themed ride they can paint themselves, a wheel housing to make roller coaster type rides and the top-down scooter used on the park map–that way they can start fashioning their own rides by taking what they see on ours and learning from it! Officially, in the pack there is 4 flat ride levels (a new version of Discovery Pier, which includes info on art and themeing as well as carnival games to win the prize bubbles with rides in them; Discovery Spires, which includes info about gravity and uses very tall attractions; Discovery Rush, which is about speed and acceleration and Discovery Lab, which is about using basic engineering techniques in building LBP rides) and 4 roller coasters (Splash Zone, where people learn about Clothoid and Circular loops; Mean Streak, where people learn about different kinds of coasters and angles; Retro Rocket, where players find out the different types of lifts and launches used to get coasters moving; and finally the Barth Family of Germany gave us permission to remake their record holding coaster, The Olympia Looping –the world’s largest traveling coasterhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olympia_Looping –, in LittleBigPlanet 2). However, there is actually more than that there. Sony and Toyota did a competition recently and we created a coaster called The HYBRID for that competition (The HYBRID is inspired by the Toyota commercial at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vfrcv8qZK0) so we also included The HYBRID as secret (there is 4 buttons on the park map, if players hit them all the gate blocking entry to The HYBRID will disappear). We also have a pinball table inspired by Discovery Inc, which when players are on the park map all they have to do is (on the D-Pad) enter UP, UP, DOWN, DOWN, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, RIGHT and jump using the X BUTTON and they’ll be taken to a round of Discovery Pinball! There is also a bonus coaster called Abyss, which to our understanding is LittleBigPlanet’s first true Fourth Dimension Coaster (for those who don’t know, a Fourth Dimension Coaster has cars mounted on the side of the track with a special set up to make the cars rotate at key times http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4th_Dimension_roller_coaster ). Abyss’ level link is on the lower right hand side of the park map hidden under a tree.
TGF: What was the first thing you did after you found out you’d been awarded the grant?
I got the email on my phone first, and the first thing I did was run upstairs to my computer so I could read it on a bigger screen and make sure I wasn’t misreading it hehe! After that it took a while for the shock to set in–I think it finally hit when we were on a plane to New York and it occurred to me, “Dude, I’m on a plane because of LittleBigPlanet!!!!”
TGF: What has receiving the grant done for you and your studio?
A lot! First of all, it was our studio’s first paying gig so it was a mark of pride for our whole studio. Secondly, on a bigger picture scale, it put us in touch with a lot of individuals that are part of educational and social-benefit games. We’ve heard a pretty consistent message from them–that they want more everyday game designers to be a part of their conversation. So, while our focus at Add-A-Tudez is video games in general, we have started working with several groups on educational and social benefit games (we are actually probably going to soon create a new game studio alongside Team KAIZEN, with Team KAIZEN handling normal games and this secondary studio handling educational and social benefit games). At first I thought it was cool. We were getting paid 40K to make LittleBigPlanet levels. I way underestimated what we won! Turns out, the 40K is nice but the bigger prize we won was a new angle for our company–again this new angle does NOT replace our goal of making normal secular games–but it accentuates it. This educational and social benefit market is another place where our talented crew can work with people, learn and come out with products that will amaze people. This has taken off quickly, we’ve been contacted by the US Department of Education an
d asked to fill out 2 requests for funding: one for more LittleBigPlanet levels and the other for a whole new user created content driven IP that would have a focus on S.T.E.A.M. learning (we find out about those requests for funding at some point in May). We are also now working with a group out of Los Angeles to possibly create a proof-of-concept in using LittleBigPlanet 2 in the class room. It’s actually gotten to the point where we brought on a staffer who only has the focus of working in LBP for our crew (you only see a very tiny sliver of his work in our HASTAC pack as he joined on late in that cycle). This is all exciting and crazy at the same time (HA! Crazy IS working!!)–I remember watching the live stream of Sony’s GDC 2007 keynote and how Phil Harrison said that tomorrow’s game design stars would get their first taste of work and recognition in LittleBigPlanet. I remember thinking that was so inspirational, I had no idea my crew would become proof of that–and it’s still hard to take it all in. We’ve gotten fairly popular around here (we even got a call from one of Montana’s senators, Jon Tester, to congratulate us) and, when people ask what we are doing now, I say what I can (without violating confidentiality agreements we may be under) and take toll in my head of how the past few years–especially the past year–have played out and it’s just insane–and I’m honored my crew is being given this chance to rock!
TGF: Where do you see your studio in 2 years?
In 2 years? We hope to have more LittleBigPlanet work, have Shattered Soul (our Unreal 3 powered fighting game) in full development, have hopefully some more work in the pipeline–both secular and educational– and working to show people how amazing and beautiful video games are as both art and information medium. Our company tagline is ‘Inspired Insanity’ and it sums up our goals–we want to rock the world, inspire people and do so through crazy things that work. Walt Disney was crazy to think an orange grove in Florida could become a top tourist destination, and yet that worked–so apparently what the world needs from time to time is some crazy thinking!
TGF: What advice would you give to someone just getting started in pursuing their dreams of running a successful game studio?
I actually wrote an article on that last year! (http://www.teamkaizengames.com/kblog/how-to-make-it-warning-still-very-much-a-wip-for-myself/) . I read that over again–and one thing I would add to that is, especially if you’re younger or for whatever reason a solution like UDK is just to advanced right now–you can cut your teeth in LittleBigPlanet 2. LBP2 simulates the dev process really well–right down to the fact that you’ll put your blood, sweat and tears into a project and post it online–then have to deal with the positive AND negative comments. It’s an essential skill and LBP is a great place to learn it. Other than that my blog post covers the essential ground that we’ve had to learn these past few years!
