Exclusive: Interview with Jason Lee at Pixelmatic

Jason Lee, the new Chief Creative Officer at Pixelmatic took some time to answer a few questions about Pixelmatic’s upcoming space online RTS Infinite Fleet. Patrons got this interview a week early - so check us out on Patreon to help support the site and get early access to content.

Thanks for taking the time to talk to us! We really appreciate it. Here are some questions from our staff and polled from our Discord:

1) What was your earliest experience with designing games? Why did you decide to pursue it as a career?

Jason Lee: When I was around 10 I drew a world map of Hyrule. I placed on the map different groups of monsters that would occupy a sector and where the different levels are hidden. I even played with secret ways to enter the levels just like in Zelda, and I did a dungeon map of each level along with the boss and its mechanics. I was a huge fan of Zelda then. When other kids were out playing catch with their fathers, I was playing Zelda and questioning design with my father.

2) Could you explain what your role is at Pixelmatic? What's a day in your role look like?

JL: I’m the Chief Creative Officer at Pixelmatic. My main role is to oversee the direction of the overall development of Infinite Fleet but we are a startup studio so we all wear many hats. Some days I dabble in some systems design, some days I’m speaking to reporters and investors, work on recruiting, project management, and meetings, meetings and meetings.

Really whatever we need to keep moving the game forward.

3) What's it like going from a large, established game development studio to a smaller one, and how have you found the transition?

JL: In a large development studio, what you do is more specialized and focused. Everyone trusts and depends on each other to do their part and just focus on what they need to do. In a smaller studio, everyone wears a lot of hats. Everyone does have their default role but if you can help in other areas, you do. Whatever you need to do to keep the ball moving, basically.

In a smaller studio, there is definitely more of a feeling that your effort has a bigger impact on the success of the studio than a larger one. This can be both scary or exciting. I’m excited by this - excited to have a voice in every part of the team and studio’s progression. The major difference in adjustment that’s required when moving from a large studio to a smaller studio is how we plan work for the game. In a large studio you generally get the funds you need for your game upfront, so you can plan for the epic experience and build towards it right away. 

In a smaller studio the coffers are a bit tighter and often the company is still raising money - we still need to plan for that epic experience but we need to also plan for how we get to it if we don’t hit our fundraising targets. We need to break up the game based on how we could ship it with the bare minimum funding and up. We see this as a good thing though because it allows us to focus more on the core systems before investing any further time in extra features. It can be very easy to lose focus of what the core game-loop is about when you get lost in all the different cool features you can add.

4) What's the 1-sentence pitch for Infinite Fleet? What has you excited about this MMORTS?

JL: Infinite Fleet is a revolutionary sci fi MMORTS that combines the action strategy elements of RTS with the economic/base-building elements of long strategy, all wrapped in an MMO with its social and cooperative multiplayer elements.

What has me most excited is being able to play an MMO scenario with all my friends and win a battle based on strategy and not flick shots, APM, or muscle memory. Basically, just good old fashioned assessing the situation, making counter plans with allies, and execute.

5) What experiences from your time working on Company of Heroes and Age of Empires IV are you applying to this new project?

JL: There isn't a whole lot I can talk about regarding Age of Empires IV since it hasn't launched yet. But, something Company of Heroes and Age of Empires have in common is their depth of strategy, and that’s what I plan to bring to Infinite Fleet. Some simple examples are combat systems that make unit positioning very important.

Something I feel that strategy games suffer from is the amount of knowledge often required to even play the game. This immediately places a barrier to entry for new players to pick up and enjoy the game. I want Infinite Fleet to have a very low barrier of entry but with a high level of depth, and we plan to do this by introducing control schemes that most players are already familiar with - not just RTS players but gamers in general.

So to answer your question, I will be bringing core elements of strategy and building that both Company of Heroes and Age of Empires IV share but also adding my own learnings for why I feel strategy games have a hard time being adopted by the mainstream audience.

6) Do you know who decided what the cheat codes were for the Age of Empires games and are there any funny stories to go along with them? In particular, the "How do you turn this on?" cheat code?

JL: I wasn’t involved in the previous Age of Empires games so I’m not certain. For AoE IV, it’s still in development so I wouldn’t know what cheat codes they plan to ship with and even if I did it isn't something I can talk about.

7) What advice, suggestions, or tips do you have for up and coming game designers? 

JL: Take the word “fun” out of your vocabulary when describing a system. Get better at describing the fun you are trying to achieve because fun is subjective and it means different things to different people. A good designer needs to be able to describe in detail what he is trying to achieve and have ways to measure their design’s successful and failed components. Also, learn more psychology, it’s very helpful to designers.

8) What's the one thing you wish you knew at the start of your career that you know now?

JL: Don’t get too attached to one studio for too long. I think when any game developer starts in this industry it’s good for them to move around every few years and get as much experience as possible working on different IPs and in different environments. There is always time to settle into a studio at a later date. When you start you need to be like a sponge and absorb as much knowledge as possible.

9) Any last things you want to mention?

JL: Are you a trekky? Are you a fan of anime? The creative vision for Infinite Fleet is to create a colorful nostalgic universe where players can engage in over-the-top anime-esque battles, or friends can simply explore beautiful vistas together while they forge their fleets. Infinite Fleet will have a deep lore rooted in the goals and challenges that the human race are faced with today. We want the world we are creating to spark conversation about technology and what the future holds for us as a species.

10) [from Discord] I’m curious how an experienced designer goes about refining a game loop. Like, say you have a prototype that feels like a good start but it’s just missing some “oomph” in the fun department that something like a juicy feedback won’t be enough to solve.

Great question! I can’t speak for all other experienced designers but I can try to explain a little on what I would look at. Generally, if it’s just something that feels lacking in the fun department then it's usually a problem in either the “challenge, reward, and/or progression” portion of your loop. Just like when a mechanic fixes a car they look for the faulty part(s), a designer needs to do the same. It can usually be fixed quickly through tuning, but maybe a part of that loop needs to be re-evaluated.

The latter case can generally be prevented through extensive evaluation of each component as the system is put together. I would also advise the designer to get someone new to play-test and give feedback on their game. When a designer that knows their system inside out has played the game numerous times and says it’s missing the fun, that might not be the case for a new user playing the game. If a new user finds it very enjoyable but the designer feels it is lacking something, then most likely it's the challenge/difficulty that might be what’s lacking.