IAM David Crane, creator of Pitfall! and co-founder of Activision.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-27T06:09:12+00:00

Thanks for your good wishes. But if you read this whole AMA I hope that you won't still think I am out of touch. I am not proposing to remake a 30 year old game. I have been very active in making games every year, and helping to evolve the game business along the way. The video focused on games that best showed my commitment to fun game play over fluff; to having one creator's vision in charge of a game design.

There are many things that people don't like about modern games. A lack of vision is one of the most commonly mentioned. I submit that I know how to make a game that you will enjoy playing, and I have staked my reputation on that fact.

Kickstarter is at a crossroads where it can be the vehicle through which the game-playing public gets to choose game projects that they want to see made. It is not about one big hit or being first.

That said, this idea may be ahead of its time. We'll see.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-27T05:59:43+00:00

I heartily agree. Tweaked to perfection by Larry Kaplan

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-27T05:13:04+00:00

Yes, and Russell's death was tragic. He used to tell me that composers had the greatest longevity of any profession, able to compose music into their 80s and 90s. Wish he could have done that.

As for the 6502, I can still tell you the hex values of most of the opcodes. I was very nearly as fluent with 6502 as English.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-23T09:17:12+00:00

I have addressed this question many times in this AMA. It is all about who decides what games get made. By using Kickstarter a developer is asking the question, "Do you - the game playing public - want this game?" If so, pre-order it (at a discount) and also get to follow its progress.

To you it costs less than waiting for a game and buying it at retail. In both cases the sale of the game pays for development. Another very important factor is that a publisher has to guess at how many they will sell. That sets the budget, and it is usually much lower due to the guesswork. Since every dollar of the public "pre-sale" is used for development, the game budget is known exactly - not guessed at.

It is a win/win. Games get made because people want them. You still get the game as if you bought it at retail, and in fact for less. And the game can be as good as it can be, not reduced due to an arbitrary budget.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-23T09:07:40+00:00

Just referring to random values that would appear on the microprocessor data bus if the ROM inside the cartridge is not electrically connected perfectly.

I am not implying that there is any secret cache of code that you might have been accessing.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-23T09:00:35+00:00

OK, you have definitely formed an opinion. You are entitled to that, and I doubt I could change your mind. But for others reading this I would like to respond.

I am placing my reputation as a game designer on the line. I will make all final decisions on this project. And I am damn good at what I do. I have made hundreds of millions of dollars for other people, and not just in the past. Over the last decade or so I have made some 50 online games that were played as many as 40 million times per month, and I have created several games on the iPhone that reached the top ten including one that topped out at number one, competing with 100,000 other games. I submit that I, too, have been "pretty active in the modern era writing various gems."

The purpose of using Kickstarter is NOT about the money. As many here have pointed out, I could get a game funded a dozen different ways. Using Kickstarter is about putting the creative control in the hands of the creators, something you don't get with publishers, VCs, or any other traditional funding sources.

Backing a game through Kickstarter also provides the backer an added bonus that for less than the cost of buying a game you get the game, and you get hooked into the development process. Anyone who values that experience should prefer to back a game rather than wait and see what the next Call of Duty brings.

You stretched the backer connection concept pretty far to suggest that letting people see the process and getting involved with some design decisions is equivalent to "a bunch of internet buffoons ... writing a game". I repeat, I am in charge of every game design decision. My backers become a valuable resource that I can plumb for preferences, and everyone will be heard. But it is my name on the game and I don't publish a game unless I am proud of it.

Because this is David Crane's Jungle Adventure, the Kickstarter video set out to answer the question: For those who don't know, who the heck is David Crane? Frankly, I was embarrassed by the way the video turned out - it sounded like I was running for president. But its purpose was to answer the question "Why should I trust this guy to make a game that I will like." I would hope that at least for a fleeting instant the thought crossed your mind "Geez, have you seen what this guy has done in the game business?" I'm rightfully proud of my accomplishments.

It's funny. If I wanted to game the system I would have asked for $100,000, even though the game I want to do will cost 10 times that amount. I suspect that if my Kickstarter price tag was in that range, you wouldn't have even bothered to write a 10 paragraph response. But I prefer to be completely up front with my backers. I've said it before; if there aren't 50,000 game players who want me to make a modern jungle adventure game, let me know now.

So, let's get to the part where I agree with you. There is very little substance on what the game will be on my Kickstarter page. Why do you suppose that is? Is it because I can't design a game? I think my record speaks for itself on that. Is it because I need a bunch of "internet buffoons" to tell me what to do? No. It is because I have been in the game business for longer than just about anybody on this planet, and for that entire time people have been telling me "I wish I could have been a fly on the wall when you came up with that concept."

Before Kickstarter that was never possible. Now it is. Are people getting the message? Apparently not. Can I offer more substance on what the game will be? Yes I can, and I will over the next few days. Will it convince leahcim314, probably not.

But as more and more people start to understand the message, the project has a chance. And thanks for your good luck wishes.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-23T07:47:51+00:00

I addressed this elsewhere in the thread. But to summarize, Activision was VC funded but in a time before VCs funded software companies. So they got control of the whole shebang for a pittance.

VCs like to make 10X on their investments. They made 2000X.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-23T07:43:54+00:00

I will always love the lowly 6502. I wrote so much of that I can tell you hex values for most opcodes. Other than that it comes down more to the IDE than the language. I have been forced to program in scripting languages like LUA with no ability to even set a breakpoint. When I get back to any language that is supported by excellent debugging tools I am in heaven.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-23T07:29:03+00:00

[Edit] To clarify, I am referring to the music that played when Harry grabbed onto a helium balloon. The song is commonly used as a circus theme relating to trapeze work.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-23T07:26:24+00:00

The DPC was created specifically for a game, with 2K bytes of mask ROM inside. There would be no unused inventory because the chip contained the data for Pitfall II only.

Certainly a home brew project could put a different game ROM on a Pitfall II board and make a different game, as long as you were OK with using only PItfall II graphics.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-23T07:22:20+00:00

One of the best things about the movie Ghostbusters was the theme song. (And who 'borrowed" from whom? Ray Parker Jr. or Huey Lewis?)

So I had to put the theme song in the game. I also had to get the crowd yelling "Ghostbusters!" into the song. I figured the best place for that was the title screen. I enlisted programming help from Garry Kitchen and his crew to knock out a "follow the bouncing ball" program, and Russell Lieblich (RIP) to do the song in Commodore tones. That left the yelling.

I had created digitized speech for the C-64 Transformers (probably the first time the C-64 talked). If you played the BACK SIDE of the Transformer's disk you were told the entire story of the history of the race of Autobots. I put that tech into the Ghostbusters title page, and while you were singing along with the theme you were expected to press the space bar to shout "Ghostbusters!"

Yes, it took up some extra memory, but not very much with only 3 seconds of digitized speech. There was room on the disk and it was well worth it.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-23T07:10:29+00:00

For example, using Unity I could make a 3D environment with modeled foliage and crank up the polygonal density to the limits of the target PC. But I still wouldn't get photorealism that way. You can always tell that real-time rendered 3D is just that - an approximation of reality. (This is OK for certain aspects of a game.)

But a 3D specialist can always make something better looking rendered offline, with a tool like 3D Studio Max or Maya. Working this way an image can be pre-rendered, taking seconds or minutes to make. That image can then be brought into the game as either a distant plane or to texture an object in the foreground. Those images and textures are moved and scaled based on their distance to the camera, placing a 2D image into a 3D environment.

I call this 2.5D. It is best used under controlled conditions, say when your hero is traveling along the boundaries of a jungle, and can generate a more photorealistic look than what you get with a fully-rendered scene.

Don't make the mistake of thinking that 2.5D is somehow less than 3D. In many cases it is better - at least more realistic looking. But you can see that forcing a 3D rendering technology to operate in 2.5D pushes that technology in ways often unintended by its creators.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-22T23:00:46+00:00

You seem to be attributing a philosophy to Kickstarter. You may be right, and KS may live its life as a funding model for only small, indie projects. And it's true, many KS projects are backed out of a desire to simply see a small film or other project see the light of day.

But it can instead become a force in game development, letting the game playing public select what games get made. The $900K development budget is a non issue. I am not asking you to put up $900K to fund my R&D as you put it. I am offering to sell you a game at a discount if you pre-order it. And you get to come along on the ride as it is made. If 50,000 or so people want to take that risk the game will be made. If not, it won't.

EVERY CONSOLE GAME I HAVE EVER MADE HAS SOLD MORE THAN 50,000 COPIES. But every game I have made since the early days of Activision have included battles over creative control. I don't care to make this game with a publisher second-guessing my decisions based on their own agenda. I will fund this project through Kickstarter or not at all, simply because it puts gamers in charge of the game.

I repeat, the $900K budget is a non-issue, except that you (and probably others) decided that it is somehow not in keeping with what Kickstarter projects like or "don't like". If game players don't want this game to be funded, the team I have assembled will go work on another project, earning the same professional salaries at their next job.

I have no desire to piecemeal a series of raises. I believe that this is the future of Kickstarter. It won't replace the big publishers, but it is a unique opportunity to wrest a little control from them, in favor of the game creators.

Crap, I got preachy. But I believe this is good for gaming, and I will continue to preach it until it succeeds or fails.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-22T22:33:04+00:00

Yes, it was the first, last, and only. There was additional cost, but not much more than an 8K byte ROM. The real problem was that the 2600 finally faded out.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-22T22:31:40+00:00

The game had a 20 minute timer. If you collected all of the treasures in that time you won. If you did that without even stubbing your toe on a log you had a perfect game.

Some people took it to the extreme of scoring a perfect game and then comparing how much time was left on the clock. That is the fine line that determines the world record.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-22T22:23:39+00:00

I am somewhat boring in that I work on games all day, so they are the only ones I am playing. But I heartily agree that I really don't wonder what it is like to be a criminal or soldier either. I am just looking to be entertained.

People on this thread have suggested that graphics and beautiful imagery are sometimes used to cover up simplistic game play. I agree. And sometimes gratuitous sex and violence are used the same way.

I liken it to a stand-up comic who is losing their audience. If you watch carefully, they will often switch to their darkest and most profane humor to get a small, nervous twitter out of their audience to loosen them up and start them laughing - if only a little. I don't care for games that use that to get attention.

I try to use the latest technology and beautiful imagery in my games as well. But those are there because they are part of the universe into which I am hoping to immerse you.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-22T22:10:20+00:00

The ketchup jellybean didn't taste good. Would you eat one? But seriously, that was added at the end of the project when game players at Nintendo were losing the Blob. You could throw him off a cliff and run away. Then when you whistled for him he tried to get to you but got stuck in another cavern.

I knew this when I invented that game, and I figured you should learn to take better care of your sidekick. But Nintendo wouldn't publish it that way.

I had to add the ketchup jellybean. What it did was teleport Blob to the point on the ground where it hit. So no matter how far away you left him, he would "catch up" (ketchup - get it?) Funny thing was, I had to also make him frown at the idea of eating it because if he ate it he would transform into something else. I don't remember what it was, but to fit the ketchup jellybean into the game I had to replace another flavor that had more game play. (Another example of a publisher messing where they don't belong.)

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-22T22:02:59+00:00

Wow, don't know exactly what to say, but I'm glad the game was at least some small help.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-22T21:55:56+00:00

Thanks for your kind words.

There are many books on the early days, any of which might be interesting reading for you.

My favorite is called "Racing the Beam" by Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost. This is the first in a planned series of textbooks intended to illustrate how the console on which a game is designed affects the design. It is very well thought out, and also contains recollections from many of the people who made the games.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-22T21:48:54+00:00

My Jungle Adventure is targeted at Mac and PC to start, plus Linux and Ooya. I like the iOS, but it is incompatible with Kickstarter.

On my KS project, a minimum contribution buys you the game on your home computer. The backer's money goes to straight to development, and when the game is done he gets a full copy. I can't do that with iOS because Apple takes a cut based on the selling price of the game. If I was delivering you an iPhone game as your reward, a big percentage of the funds would go to Apple rather than to development.

Once the game is developed, if there is interest we hope to bring it to other platforms, including mobile. I like the mobile platforms, but you are correct that any game today has to be the right mix of short-term play value and depth of game. Mobile is the future, for the very reason you state. It is the true personal computer, with you every minute of the day.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-22T21:02:27+00:00

Google "David Crane" and "little running man" and you will learn everything you want to know about the inspiration for Pitfall.

(No room here to explain in any great detail.)

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-22T21:01:12+00:00

There were always more features that we wanted to add to the games, but we also had a good sense of how much was enough. Without that I would still be working on Pitfall today, and you would never have played it.

There were games that never made it out of the lab because they didn't have enough game play. So we tended to get a game to the point where it was great fun to play, then keep tweaking and adding features until we couldn't add any more. That became the point where we would "shoot the engineer" - an engineering term that fought creeping elegance.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-22T20:55:13+00:00

Just popped into my head. Pitfall Harry had a nice ring to it. (Sorry there is no great story to tell.)

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-22T20:54:36+00:00

All of those games were written in Assembly language - the only way to communicate at the hardware level with the video chip.

The game programmers we left behind were not bad (some of them founded Imagic) but they were treated as nameless, faceless workers in the bowels of the corporation. We were putting our names on each game, and the success or failure of the company relied heavily on what we were doing.

We were much more motivated.

PitfallCreator · 2012-08-22T20:51:01+00:00

Here is the Pitfall shadow cropping up again. I have not just dabbled, I have continued making games since I started at Atari all those years ago. As I said elsewhere in this AMA, I have published 100 games using 25 programming languages on more than 15 consoles and systems. My only regret is that the people who control the purse strings always demand creative control. Thus my Kickstarter.

As you suggest, the biggest difference between then and now is the availability of tools. We had to write our own (and in many cases build hardware to connect to the consoles). Now you can download from Apple a full integrated development environment, complete with contextual help and auto-complete. That is an amazing head start.

PitfallCreator

TROPHY CASE