Harvey Pekar doesn’t draw, he just writes. That’s why he needed Robert Crumb, Alison Bechdel, Chester Brown, David Collier, Gary Dumm, Frank Stack, Drew Friedman, Dean Haspiel, Val Mayerik, Josh Neufeld, Brian Bram, Spain Rodriguez, Joe Sacco, Jim Woodring, Joe Zabel, Ed Piskor, and many others to illustrate American Splendor. It’s collaboration, and I’m in love with the idea of it.
I’m a designer. I don’t code. I don’t have the head for the numbers, for the logic of it. Collaboration with a wide array of technically-oriented individuals would be a unique way of surmounting this problem, reaching out to programmers with design documents in hand, offering to work closely with them on the development of something really great (or so I’d hope). I’d be a serial collaborator – now there’s something to put on my business card!
But would serial collaborations be fruitful in game development? Could the styles of the coders be seen in the final products? Would the games I designed with various programmers all feel different?
More importantly, would anyone even agree to do it?
2 replies on “I want it to be like American Splendor.”
Stumbled across your page by accident while compulsively reading about Bonnie’s cakes. I have had the same idea as you, about creative collaboration. Highly technical coders, developers, programmers, whatever, are the only ones with the capacity to create the truly immersive experience. But how frequently are people with this sort of knack for figures and structures also going to have a knack for art direction, story, and creative innovation? Not saying it doesn’t happen, but it’s probably uncommon. As for my part, I know I have great ideas all the time, but I barely even can figure out HTML, let alone real game coding. It would be so cool if there were such a job, a game designer whose job it was to collaborate with the technical people– right brain and left brain, converging on the final product.
I think that would have to be the coolest job ever.
Hey, Leigh. Thanks for reading (even if it is accidental). I think there is a place in the industry for individuals whose focus is strictly game design, and not coding. I was talking with Nick Fortugno at GDC, and he’s had a great deal of success as a designer without a technical background. I think you’ll find more people like that at smaller companies, although the larger ones do tend to have game designers – albeit ones also acting as project managers, but design is design.
No, the problem I’m running into is more at the pre-industry level. For me to build a digital games portfolio, I need to either learn me some code, or find me some coders. And I’m not talking about terribly complex development either. I’m a small games kind of person; I’m not trying to create the next Half-Life (although I am in love with Portal).