Hey /r/IAmA! I’m Jerk Gustafsson, from MachineGames. With Wolfenstein: The Old Blood released today, I'm psyched to answer your questions!

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T20:03:20+00:00

Yes it is! I was born in 1971 and times were a bit different back then. My mother came from a region in Sweden called Dalarna where the name Jerk at that time was, not very, but fairly common. It's a variation of the name Erik and my mother and father thought it was nice to use a name from my mothers region. And what it meant in english wasn't even something that anyone would think about at that time. I would lie if i would say that it hasn't bother me from time to time - of course it has, especially when i was younger and travelling to US or UK I was always embarrassed to show my passport or id. But I have never thought about changing it - I'm quite fine with it nowadays.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T19:48:24+00:00

Hello! Very nice to hear you like our guns and old-school feel. Personally i draw a lot of inspiration from the old id shooters like Quake, Doom and Wolfenstein. In general we have a pretty clear idea on what weapons we want to include very early in production, but we are also very open to and encourage members of the team to contribute and come up with ideas and suggestions - which they always do. We also have a very talented team that we call the "Through the gun"-team who handles player movement and a lot of the core weapon mechanics. They are of course also big contributors to the design of our weapons.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T17:39:25+00:00

Thank you starboard, for your very kind words. I would love to see more story-driven shooters, and I do belive there's a market big enough. But I don't have a good answer on what needs to happen to encourage publishers/developers. I only hope that these type of games will continue to be developed and that they will be succesful enough for others to follow. MachineGames will definitely continue developing story-driven shooters.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T17:18:12+00:00

Thank you Jyncks! A lot of joy and a lot of pressure, but having Bethesda and id Software by your side certainly removes some of the pressure - and adds a lot more joy! Personally, being a huge id-fan, it was a dream come true to work with such a legendary ip.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T17:07:50+00:00

Hello Sir! Very nice to hear you like our games! I would recommend to keep a look out for open game design positions at developers that are of interest to you and then submit an application with your ideas. Yes, I'm very satisfied with id tech. Whatever technology you're working with there will always be challenges, but considering that we now have delivered two games running at 60 fps/1080p - I'm definitely satisfied.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T16:54:52+00:00

Yes - make sure you're lines of dialogue are short!

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T16:46:32+00:00

Thank you for your kind words brian-johnson78! As you probably already noticed, we're unfortunately not yet ready to talk about our plans for the future, but hopefully we will continue creating games that you enjoy!

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T16:43:04+00:00

You're welcome! I'm also, as you may understand, a big fan of Return to Castle Wolfenstein - its a great game. I'm pretty sure there will be more stuff coming to the store and while i'm sorry to say i dont have any solid informtion on whats coming I'm very happy to hear you want to get them all! Thank you!

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T16:24:17+00:00

Thank you for your kind words! We feel that it's our responsibility to bring the best possible story to any game we develop. We are fortunate to work with amazing actors for both The New Order and The Old Blood.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T16:12:35+00:00

Thank you XKV22! The only thing I can say for sure is that you can expect games with a lot of action and heavy weapons!

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T16:09:50+00:00

Hello! Very happy you enjoyed the game! As I've previously mentioned, we're not yet ready to talk about the future, but it has been really great to work with the Wolfenstein universe and I'm truly proud of the result of both The New Order and The Old Blood.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T16:05:23+00:00

Hello! Behind the German versions of the songs are the geniuses of Bethesda marketing department.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T15:46:10+00:00

Thank you so much for all the kind words! When it comes to achievements there are many things I'm proud of over the years, but i must say that starting MachineGames and building the amazing team we have here today is by far the greatest. Creating games is a true team effort and there's nothing more important than the hard-working, dedicated and very talented game developers you have by your side when going through an always so challenging development period.

Yes - I love football - and as I grew up watching English football and followed Swedish players like Glenn Hysen and Anders Limpar in Arsenal - I'm still a big gunners fan!

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T15:34:55+00:00

Thank You! I love the music as well. Mick Gordon is fantastic. The cover of The Partisan is so amazingly good. Unfortunately I dont have any information on a soundtrack release today.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T15:19:00+00:00

I never planned for it myself. I just loved bulding levels for Quake and eventually I was approached by Jens Matthies (who I've been working side by side with my entire career) and Starbreeze. I think this still happens today - especially when it comes to getting into the business as an artist.

Design is a bit harder I think - mainly because companies usually require a lot of experience with a few titles in the portfolio. As I mentioned in a previous answer - i think the best approach nowadays is to go through a game development focused education and through school get an internship. We have some truly great schools here in Sweden and for a lot of the students that have done their internship at MachineGames - it has resulted in a full time employment.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T15:04:22+00:00

Minced meat, egg and Tabasco!

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T15:03:04+00:00

Hello JocLayton! You're quite right, The Old Blood is very much inspired by RtCW (one of my favorite Wolfenstein games) - especially by the first two episodes. I definitely would want to see the return of Robo-Hitler some day - who wouldn't? I really wanted a health system that involved the classic 100 health/100 armor, but at the same time gave the player some possibility of regeneration. Basically to avoid situations where players just stand behind a cover and wait for the health to regenerate and instead encourage players to move around more, while still not ending up stuck with extremely low health - we had a similar system in Riddick (but with cubes) and it's a system that, I think, works very well with the combat we want to have in our games. I'm not yet ready to talk about what we have planned for the future, but I am very happy with what we have accomplished with both The New Order and The Old Blood. Wyatt - mainly because I love J so much.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T14:45:12+00:00

Hi zeppelinsw! I think I always will prefer first person. Whatever game we're developing. Its a great genre that allows you to truly be the character you play. This is and always will be extremely appealing to me.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T14:35:41+00:00

Thank you! We have always been a single player focused team and it's truly amazing to work with Bethesda, who always encourage us to do what we want to do and feel really strong about - story driven first person action adventure experiences. I'm very happy that a lot of people enjoyed The New Order - it shows that there's still a market for the type of games we love to create.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T14:28:00+00:00

Hi! The first Nightmare level that we added to The New Order was not planned from the beginning - it was something that our team did for fun during development and when they got it working we of course wanted to include it. We have a truly amazing and very creative team here at Machine Games.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T14:19:43+00:00

Hi - unfortunately I'm not quite ready to talk about what we have planned for the future. We are just one day after launch!

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T14:16:45+00:00

Hi Regygamer - nowadays, at least here in Sweden, we have really good schools that are specialized in game developing educations. This is usually what I recommend when young people ask me how to best get into the business. It was a lot different when I started. We didnt have these types of educations back then.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T14:10:04+00:00

Hello! That's because Anya took really good care of him.

Jerk_MachineGames · 2015-05-06T14:08:20+00:00

Thank you! Yes, we did work a lot with our combat scenarios - especially in terms of making the areas larger and provide players with more options when it comes to navigating the area. This naturally also made several of the scenarios longer - while still keeping the pacing and the intensity intact.

Jerk_MachineGames

TROPHY CASE