Friday the 13th: The Game Interview

By Chris and Tanner Banks
2/6/2016, 7:oo a.m.
Twitter: @Slickster_Mag

Randy Greenback is the Executive Director at Gun Media (http://fearthegun.com). With over 20 years of experience in game development, Randy has accepted the challenge to help create a faithful adaption of the Friday the 13th film franchise into a video game. While every gamer knows that making a video game from a movie is a recipe for self-immolation, Randy and the teams at Gun Media and Illofonic have the brains and brawn to pull off this monumental task. Not only do they have to answer to the wrath of the hardcore legions of fans of the original slasher movies, they also have to create a game that’s seaworthy by modern standards of gaming.

Randy is up for the challenge. We managed to catch up with him and talk about the development of Friday the 13th:  the Game as well as what it takes to be video game developer.

Chris: Before we get started is there anything you would like to say, or is there any misinformation out there on the internet that you want to clear up?

Randy Greenback: Actually, no. Our fans have been kept in the know as much as possible. One of the big things that we’ve been pushing with Friday the 13th is that we want to be transparent and open with our backers & also the fans out there. Whether they are Friday the 13th fans, Kickstarter backers, or just fans of gaming in general, we want them to get an inside look at how games are made. We’ve want to be more open with the process and talk about the challenges so people know what it takes to create a game.

Honestly, we feel that an informed gamer would be a little less toxic and more understanding with the trials and tribulations of game development. So the more open we can be, the better. I mean, Joe Blow out there, who follows games casually, sees an Assassin’s Creed game come out every year, right? So they naturally assume these giant massive games can be churned out yearly.

What they don’t know is that Ubisoft has three or four teams that are staggering releases and rotating out. Every time one game gets ready to be released, they pile on 1,500 hundred developers to push it out the door, and then the next one is in line and already being built as well. Then they roll those people off to the next one to get it out the door. Wash, rinse, repeat.

That works for Ubisoft, but it creates a bit of a conundrum, where players expect more and more every year. Expectations increase and get to be unsustainable. Every game can’t have a 40 million-plus development budget. Indie developers really get screwed out of having a nice release cycle without people over-expecting from a small budget and a short dev cycle.

We feel that by “opening the kimono” and showing gamers, and giving them everyone access to… like, “Hey! Here’s how MO-CAP works. And here’s why we’re doing it. Here’s the process, and what and who is involved. This is how much it costs.” That helps inform people. It helps frame expectations and shine the light on the challenges in getting a game out the door. Hopefully other game development studios will take notice of what we’re doing along with other studios operating this way, and start doing it as well.

Randy, you mentioned in that answer Ubisoft, and I know early in your career you worked for Ubisoft. The reality of the game development world is, it’s harsh. Many people try to get involved with game development but very few have successful careers. What is some advice you can give to a young and upcoming game developer about starting their career? 

Early on in your career, when you are just learning and starting out, you’ve got to be passionate, and you’ve got to work daily on whatever you want to do. I would say, start broad when you’re learning about game development. Learn a little about every discipline whether it’s art, programming, design, and marketing, even! In doing that, you’ll have a base understanding of every aspect of game development… even QA.

Once you have a broader understanding of each discipline, you can better decide what you definitely want to do in your career. Like, do you want to be a designer or an artist? Are you leaning towards one or the other? Do you want to be a producer? The only way to know is to kind of dabble in each and then you pick one to “level up” in. Something has to be your focus, otherwise you’re a generalist, a master of nothing, but you know a little about everything. In game development, especially AAA game development, that’s not really desirable. They want people who are specialists. So, if you’re more of generalist, find that out early. If you want to dabble in everything, maybe indie games with small teams will be more your thing. You’ll be able to wear more hats and touch more aspects of the games you’re involved with.

In general, set aside time every day and be consistent with whatever you’re doing, whatever you’re learning, whatever skills you’re developing. Practice, practice, practice! It’s not enough to just go to school, and get a degree. You can’t just do the coursework and then use that in your portfolio. You’ve gotta actually do work outside of school, or if you’re self-teaching and doing tutorials online, then you need to challenge yourself to go beyond the tutorials.

If you’re not really going to work as hard, then maybe it’s not truly what you want. If you don’t absolutely love what you’re doing and aren’t passionate about becoming better, then you’re probably not going to make it. There are so many people gunning for these few jobs right now. Only the truly passionate, hard-working, and talented are going to succeed and get them. That’s the general advice I would give.

That’s great advice.

Going a step further, early you have to focus on scope control upfront with your early projects. That’s also very important. Like, your first project should never be, “Let’s make an MMO.” (laughs) That’s a recipe for disaster. I hear that a lot when I speak at colleges and community colleges after talking to students. They always over-reach for their first projects. I try to head them off and let them know that they are going to get burned out and likely never get much done. They’ll get disenfranchised, since they won’t have a cycle of completion that is going to fuel them forward.

I always recommend, “Build Pong.” Build a unique take on Pong, or try Space Invaders and put some new art or a new gameplay mechanic into it. Start simple and then slowly take on more complex projects. That’s the winning strategy, and each small project prepares you to take on the challenges of the next one.

As the Executive Director, it’s your job to inspire your team to “produce.” How do you handle that role in day-to-day operations, and keep the team moving in the right direction?

Communication with the team. I kind of leverage my experience. I’ve been in the industry over 20 years now, and I’ve seen where the pitfalls and problems happen.

What are some of these pitfalls?

Lack of adequate planning is one. “Feature creep” is another big problem. If the designer is really passionate and they are going to grow their favorite features, a game can quickly get more complex than it needs to be. So you always have to keep an eye on the overarching design and have an idea of what truly is important. At the end of the day, it’s the core gameplay experience that should be the focus.

When you ensure all that gets to be fun before you start adding on stuff and tacking on other elements that aren’t core to the game, you’ll be in a better place. If the core sucks and it takes a long time to gel, it doesn’t matter how much crap you have surrounding it. You’ve got to make sure the game is fun at its very essence before you build it out any more. That’s the right methodology to use. You keep an eye on the game and make sure everyone is thinking along those same lines… the cool thing is at Illfonic, they are!

Adam Sessler has covered so much of this project with you guys at the round table discussions, but I’d like to drill a little deeper. At the beginning of the interview you did with Kane Hodder, he punched you in the face pretty hard. Did that hurt?

I felt it! The impact was thankfully muffled a little by my beard! (laughs)

He did pull it, but it connected.

He’s a stuntman, you know, so if Kane punched me for real, with full force, I would have been knocked out on the floor. I am certain of this. The dude is tough! I just watched him throw people, like literally throw people around at the MO-CAP shoot last week. We released some video of that on Twitter and the F13Game Facebook page. You can see for yourself, he is a strong dude. So, he pulled that punch, but I still felt it, though. And… I did not know it was coming. I felt a clink in my jaw, and when was looking around like, “WHAT?” That was all real.

I did see some of those videos of Kane at the MO-CAP studio. I think he was breaking through a wall or something.

Yeah, that was an amazing experience, from day one all the way through the end of day five. We had so many kills that Tom Savini designed and came up with that we captured. As we actually got onto the studio floor and started figuring out how we were going to capture them adequately for the game, we started realizing just how brutal many of them really were. We live streamed a lot of it too, so there were a lot of kills that we revealed during that, as well. So if fans were watching, they got a little taste of some things that we hadn’t announced yet.

I know you’re going to do some of the classic kills, like the sleeping bag kill that everyone keeps talking about, but it sounds like Tom Savini has designed all-original, brand-new kills just for the game. Is that correct?

That is 100 percent correct! They call him “The Volcano of the Mind.” He’s the Sultan of Splatter, and he has such an active imagination. He just has idea, after idea, after idea, and they just keep coming. Then, all of a sudden, you have 40 plus kills that no one has ever done before. So you have this giant list, and it’s a lot of work to get that done. It’s going to be amazing. We’re confident that not only are we going to recreate the classic kills… we’ve reimagined some of them. We’re taking them a step further and they’ll be more gory… We also have a ton of surprising new stuff that the fans are going to eat up!

We just interviewed film director Trent Duncan. He has done the “Jason vs. Michael” fan films and we asked him this same question: Why, in your opinion, is Jason Voorhees such a timeless slasher? What contributes to his staying power over all these years?

There is definitely a mystery about him. You can watch all the films and still not fully understand how Jason went from a child who drowned in a lake to where he is today. It has never been fully resolved, so that mystery of his origins helps fuel some of the popularity. There are a lot of fan discussions that arise from not knowing and not having an official answer of what did happen. So, there is a lot of stuff that is exciting and can be filled in by fans. The debates over fan theories that happen are great.

The fans have their own theories as to why Jason… like in Friday the 13th Part VI, Jason starting going a little more undead and had some supernatural elements to him. Because in the early films, Part 2 and Part III, he was kind of running around and bumbling. He could be knocked down and he had more human qualities about him. Then, in Part VI and definitely in Part VII, he’s pretty much unstoppable. (laughs) At that point, it’s on! There is nothing anyone can do to bring him down for any length of time. He always comes back. That is another component that is exciting for everybody. You know you’re pretty much fucked when Jason is coming for you!

The other thing is Jason is very creative in his kills. That is because of actors like Kane Hodder and all the actors who played Jason. It’s because others were involved like Tom Savini and Sean Cunningham, they really liked to have fun with what they were doing in the genre. So, Jason kills with daily household implements that you would never think you could kill with. Somehow he manages to pull off kills in a really exciting and grisly way, surprising the viewer.

I think those are the three things are the biggest components that make Jason the pop culture icon that he is. I mean, he’s everywhere! You can go to Japan and show the Jason mask around and people know. That’s Jason. That’s from Friday the 13th. They know instantly. He’s permeated cultures around the world and has fans everywhere. I’m sure there are more reasons, but those are my top three.

You’ve gone to a lot of pains to make the environments and mimic the original settings. The camp used in the film was Camp No-Be-Bo-Sco. They are notorious about not letting fans on to the campgrounds. Did they grant you access, and if not can you describe the environment modeling process?

Yeah, we have not gone on set. A lot of those areas have changed so much over the years. Things have been rebuilt and torn down, put back or rearranged. A lot of that stuff has just rotted away. Even if we were to go on site somewhere like that, we’re not 100 percent confident that what we’d be seeing would be what was actually shown in the films. That said, we look to the films and we treat them as the ultimate arbiter for any of the decisions we make for how we’re gonna go about showing something off, or what we’re gonna show off.

We go through painstaking process to capture lots of different footage and collect all the reference images from the movies. Pretty much anything that was ever released in the past, like behind the scenes information or blog posts, we scour those as well. Sometimes there are really great behind-the-scenes shots and images of the sets as they existed at the time of the filming. We collect all that stuff and say, for instance, “Now we’re gonna look at the Higgin’s house.” We look at the props, and go frame by frame, pulling out reference images. So, if there was a toy wagon that was in the background or a sawhorse or some other tool in the shed or in the barn… we collect as much of that as possible. It all gets put on a style sheet and then the artists model towards that, so each object has the same look as in the movies.

Recently, we just posted some pictures on Kickstarter. It’s a whole bunch of sheets, like full reference sheets as well as the textures and the materials that was used. We showed the fans exactly what it looks like while we’re building it. The team is going to make sure everything is on point. Even if it’s just a blanket on the ground. It’s going to look right. The folds are going to be right when it’s set up for a picnic. There will be mustard and ketchup containers that are being modeled, and even those are as close as possible to the movies.

Everything, down to even something as small a pile of napkins on the table, we want to capture the look of that. We want everything to look as solid and as real as fans remember from the film. It’s a lot of work and I don’t envy the prop modelers who have to go through all that detail work, it sometimes adds up to a lot of revisions being made to nail the look. For example, if you don’t get Jason’s mask from Part III right, or the color is off, or some of the scuffs and rough marks from the damage to the mask, and the weathering isn’t correct… it goes back and they have to rework it. So there is a lot of iteration and reviews, especially on something as critical as Jason, his clothes, and especially his mask.

Well then, there was a lot of nudity in the original movies, how much nudity can we expect in F13: the Game?

There will be some. I can’t really say too much about where it’s gonna be and how much there is going to be. Yeah, you can definitely expect some. The difference is, you know you’re in the game and Jason is chasing you. You’re not going to stop and have sex when Jason is chasing you!

Fantastic!

Let’s talk about the gameplay mechanics. In the recent video on your YouTube channel you (Adam Sessler) shows how players can call the police to escape Jason. While no time frame is given for the amount of time it will take to locate the phone, repair it, and then dial the police, it does say that it will take a minimum of 10 minutes for the police to arrive. If you add that all up, I would guess a typical match is estimated at around 20 minutes of gameplay. Does this line up with what you’ve found in your testing so far?

Uh, yeah, actually that is pretty close! 20 minutes feels about right for the length of the game. Some go longer, some are shorter. If you have a really good Jason player and noob counselors, Jason can clean up really fast. At least that is what we are finding out from the testing so far, but again, it’s really early. We don’t know exactly where we’re going to end up, but right now it’s feeling pretty good and we want to target an average of 15-20 mins per match.

As far as calling the police, there is no timer that starts at the beginning of the game. All options are open. There are lots of ways that counselors can escape. They can fix a boat or a car and get away. There are two seats on the boat and four seats in the car, so counselors can get out those ways. There are other alternate goals that we haven’t announced yet, that can change the game around and create wildcard scenarios. There are lots of ways that the games could end, and that’s important. We want different user stories and different outcomes. It keeps the game interesting and keeps people talking and sharing stories about their games that they played with their friends.

So the police stuff is really cool, because even after you call police, Jason now knows that the police are arriving. It’s a known thing, so he can get more aggressive at that point. They arrive at a random location on the map, and then the counselors still have to get to them. You still have to survive, and Jason will still be trying to pick people off. Knowing that counselors will try to get to the police, that could be a good place for him to hang out, so it’s never a done deal. Those are the kinds of goals we like. Where you think you’re safe, in the free and clear, but there is another step you have to take. That last step is very dangerous and prone to you getting killed by Jason. That’s tension! That is fun.

Obviously, Jason is killing the counselors and the counselors can either team up and work together or go off on their own. But, can the camp counselors actually kill each other?

Not directly no, but there are elements we talked about where you can set traps for Jason. So, if you set a trap and another counselor happens to stumble into it instead of Jason, well then they get hurt. You can indirectly hurt others. Also, if Jason is chasing after you and a friend, when you’re running side by side you might say something to them so they look behind them. In that moment you get a little further ahead so that Jason captures them instead of you. Stuff like that creates a lot of social tension.

You’re helping each other, and it does help to keep other consolers around you, because another counselor might help keep you alive just by being a distraction. If you can somehow finagle that to happen, then at the end of the day that’s great, because all you care about is your own survival. Games start out with teamwork, but it quickly falls apart once Jason shows up!

Sounds pretty dog-eat-dog. What, if any, plans to do you guys have to punish people who might try to cheat in the game? Is there anything funny or cool you guys are programming in to nerf that?

We’re not that far along, where we have developed all of those strategies yet. We are looking at things to reward players who play better in the game. Rewarding the players who try to create a better experience for everybody else in the match is the goal. You can imagine, if somebody played Jason and just stands in the middle of the map and runs in circles, they are not creating the best experience for anyone. The counselors in that game won’t feel that they achieved anything when they escape, they won’t have any meaningful stories, and it all comes down to the fact that Jason wasn’t doing anything effective.

So, you guys are going to use more positive reinforcement than negative. 

Right. Everybody wants to play as Jason, but everybody can’t play as Jason every match. So, we’re looking into systems that will track how well you do as Jason, how well the matches go with you driving it as the Jason character. You’ll be preferred to be picked more frequently than somebody who does a bad job as Jason and doesn’t create any exciting moments. Also, people who drop out of games or have a bad connections will be dinged against being Jason.

Being Jason is a pivotal role. You are driving the match forward. If you don’t play well, if you’re not creating tension, then players are not having as much fun as they could be… I don’t want to say they’d get bored, because there will always be tension knowing that Jason can come out of nowhere are stab you in the throat! We do want to pick, and prefer to pick, better Jason players. That’s a cool reward for everyone!

Most of the time you’re going to play as a counselor, and that’s a fun experience as well. You’re normally weak, so once when you get to be Jason after being a counselor seven or eight times, it’s like this really cool juxtaposition. You have all this power. You’re almost unstoppable, and you can do whatever you want to all these counselors on the map. So it’s really fun, and creates a compelling and sticky experience. That’s our goal.

I heard the first full track from Harry Manfredini, and it sounds like it’s mostly string samples and synths. Is there any plan to record the OST with live instruments?

All that is in the hands of Harry Manfredini. If he says he needs something, we need to accommodate. If he wants to get an orchestra together to record for this, then we’ll do that. Harry’s also working on something that no one on the franchise has done before, and that’s the sounds that Jason hears in his own head. It’ll be crazy, no doubt.

Randy, thanks for talking with us today. Are there any final thoughts or shout outs you would like to give?

The biggest and most important thing for me is always… I want people to remember that games are made by teams. It takes a huge effort from so many people to make anything of note. I want to make sure that everybody at Gun Media, everybody at Camp Crystal Lake Entertainment, everybody at Illfonic who are toiling away and putting in all sorts of work on various different aspects of the game, that they get a shout out. Illfonic is a very experienced group. Kedhrin (Gonzalez) is the creative director and Chuck (Brungardt) is the studio manager. Everybody on the project at Illfonic has been amazing to work with. They are the real heroes of the game development process. They bring the game to life.

Friday the 13th: the Game: www.F13Game.com

Gun Media: http://fearthegun.com

Illfonic: http://www.illfonic.com