Spiders Interview
Here is the second part of my interview with Jehanne Rousseau, CEO and co-founder of Spiders. This time we talk about her studio, and daily life.
The first part part can be found here.
Couchpotato: Can you give all of our members a brief introduction about about yourself, and what your daily job at Spiders is like?
Jehanne Rousseau: Sure, I'm Jehanne Rousseau, CEO and co-founder of Spiders. I began working in the industry in 1998 as 2D artist working on Gameboy games, then I worked for different companies as a game designer. Finally, I became a project manager for Monte Cristo where I met the team that became Spiders and worked on my first released RPG.
Today, as a CEO, my job is mainly to manage the development team and the studio itself, I usually play the creative director on our projects (alas I have to spend some time to do administrative tasks too) and I also often write parts of the scenario and dialogs for our games. I love to see a simple idea becoming a game, and being there with all the team, from the very beginning to the end. Even now, after more than 15 years in the industry it's still magic.
Couchpotato: Can you share what your top five RPG games are, and if you could, what are your top three game-play elements in CRPGs?
Jehanne Rousseau: It's a difficult question: some old RPGs really amazed me like, for example, Might and Magic 6 and 7, Daggerfall, or even Eyes of the Beholder, but of course saying that they are my favorites today would sound strange. I spent hours on the Baldur's Gates, Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment, and I think the Baldur's Gate series are probably one of my best video game memories. I would also add Kotor 2, Morrowind, The Witcher (the first one even if the second was incredible) and probably Fallout: New Vegas (even if I'm really found of the old ones).
I like to have a deep story, with choices that will really matter and change the course of the game. For me it's a must have in a CRPG. Of course an interesting combat system is key to spend hours on that game, and a good character evolution would be my last point. You could add plenty of other elements (I like to have companions that will really be part of my adventures for example) but I think these three points are my top.
Couchpotato: What is your opinion on the state of the game industry and RPG games in general today?
Jehanne Rousseau: Wow, this is not an easy question! The industry is actually changing a lot. Well it has always changed quickly, as our technology changed, but in the last few years we've seen mobile and Facebook games take a major place, the growing importance of the digital distribution and, of course, the new generation of consoles arriving. We're still at a corner and facing some surprises (like rise of retrogaming thanks to Kickstarter), and the industry will probably look very different in the coming years. But actually, waiting for tomorrow, we have the unique opportunity to play a wide variety of games: from Wasteland to Dragon Age: Inquisition, whatever their merits, we can experience very different things. And it sounds easier now than it was five years ago to sell CRPGs set in some very different universes (I mean other than the usual fantasy or space opera settings). I find it refreshing really.
Couchpotato: Since we're on the topic of the game industry, one big change in the last few years was the arrival of crowd-funding. It has allowed developers to make games the way they want without the need for publishers. So, can you share you opinion on crowd-funding, and if you ever thought of doing one yourself?
Jehanne Rousseau: Crowd-funding can be an incredible tool and, as a gamer, I'm really happy to see some games like Wasteland 2 finally released. Of course the system itself can be used in bad ways, but I'm confident that in the end it will mostly be a benefit to the industry and gamers. Concerning Spiders, even if it would be fantastic for us to be able to create the CRPG of our dreams with the help and advice of our players, I'm afraid it's not very easy for a French studio to do so. We can't create a Kickstarter project without having an office in the US or UK (and for a small studio like ours of course it's impossible). And even if some other crowd-funding platforms exist in France, they're very small, and video games usually don't meet their expectations there.
So maybe one day, but not for now!
Couchpotato: I was wondering if you could you describe your usual pre-production design process? Is there one leading creative person (designer) who has a strong vision about story and game-play? Do the others only help him with details, or is it always cooperation of more people?
Jehanne Rousseau: In most cases we work as a team even during the pre-production process. I come up with a story, Stephane and Sebastien come up with new gameplay elements, Wilfried with new engine features, Camille creates fantastic artworks and off we go! Of course, as the team manager, my role is to keep a global vision of the future game, and to help everyone work together, but all of our games come from cooperation.
Couchpotato: Based on your past games, I noticed that you personally write dialogues for your games with a few of your colleagues (like Fabrice Colin). You are probably one of the few bosses in the world who writes for games. Could you tell us something about your writing experience, inspiration, or education? What do you like about it?
Jehanne Rousseau: I've got an old story about writing. I studied literature at the Sorbonne, and since childhood I can't stop myself from reading all the books I found. I wrote for pen and paper RPGs and magazines even before I did it for CRPGs. I really enjoy writing for games. I like creating universes, thinking into the different ways to go through the events, into choices that would matter to the player and change the ends of the game. Inventing characters of course. To be honest it's really the part of my job that I enjoy the most, and I'm not sure I would continue as a studio boss if I couldn't write anymore.
My inspirations are plenty, and of course depend on the universe we're working on!
Couchpotato: How much effort do you put into characters in order to make them more unique? Because, generally speaking, you often see peasants, rulers, warrior-types, harsh or oppressed or crazy… but you rarely see compassion in games, for example. Or a brave diplomat-type who is neither warrior nor corrupted politician.
Jehanne Rousseau: In an ideal world I would really love to spend the same time on every character of the game. But of course we need the basic merchant, the simple guard, the random peasant. And we can't always write a whole unique background story for each guy. But we try, and in each game we're doing, we're trying to go a little deeper into our characters. There's still some cliché, it's very difficult to get rid of them all at once, but bit by bit we're trying to improve our characters, to make them more real; even if the players themselves like to find back some old archetypes, because they love them.
I'm happy to have been able to develop Mathras for example: having a millenary undead as a companion was something unusual and the character himself (should I say itself?) was really fun to write. And I really hope I'll be able to develop some more like that!
Couchpotato: How do you revise your writing? What if your colleagues have very different opinions, like, "This NPC is too cheesy", "No, he is ok", "We need more intelligent NPCs in this area, write it again from scratch", "He should make a joke, this text is boring…" etc.?
Jehanne Rousseau: A big part of the revisions come from our publisher (as in the book edition finally) and from time to time from colleagues too, depending if they have time to spend reading all the texts! But I'm often worse than they are! Of course sometimes they tell me they don't like a character or a dialog. I will not lie to you and tell you that I'm overjoyed with their comments, but I try to listen and to fix the problem, as anyone else in the company.
Of course we're speaking about the French version of the dialogs, as we're not doing the translation internally. My English is far too poor to write directly in English.
Couchpotato: For Mars, you employed a few specialist writers in order to enhance the English translation. Do you cooperate with them regularly now?
Jehanne Rousseau: Yes, even if we mostly have changed our way to do the translation. We're working with another translation studio now who is already working with US writers. There is a first translation done, then it's written again by writers, then it's proofread and enhanced by the writers we worked with on Mars. So it's a long process, but I hope the results we get will be even better.
Couchpotato: Usually, the challenge for RPG developers is to make quests interesting, avoiding too many generic kill/fedex quests. How do you cope with this challenge?
Jehanne Rousseau: When we write a quest, we try to link it to the story of the universe itself, or to the background of an important character, or of course to the main scenario. It gives better results than trying to create a quest from nowhere that won't sound inappropriate. And of course when we write the quest with the quest designers the watchword is: no mushroom or wolf pelts quests! I could add no flag quests now too!
Couchpotato: This question is partially related to the previous one. Could we expect more useful items (aside from weapons/armors/rings/amulets), more interactive objects in the game world, or maybe even small puzzles in your future games?
Jehanne Rousseau: Until now, we were not focused into creating useful objects other than equipment parts, doors, levers, chests and lore points (could be screens or books for example). And it's true that we don't have small puzzles here and there in our dungeons. In fact we have not thought that much about creating new useful items. It's a good idea anyway; I'll keep it in mind for future games!
Couchpotato: There is a general trend in the gaming industry for dark games. But sometimes it feels like popcorn darkness, heroes showing off, etc. What's your opinion about it?
Jehanne Rousseau: In fact it seems that actually if you're not using a dark setting everyone will consider your game as a game for children. It's true that the gaming public is now older, and actual gamers are used to dark settings (in the TV shows, cinema etc). All the culture is painted black in a way, a part of the comedies of course, but it's very difficult to have humor and heroism in the same game. It's quite difficult to get out of this fashion actually, but I'm quite sure that it will change in the coming years - we can't stand eternal darkness!
Couchpotato: You once said in one interview that you like bizarre worlds, perhaps something like Torment: Tides of Numenera settings (or even more bizzare?). Do you plan a game in such a world, especially considering the success of the new game, Torment, on Kickstarter?
Jehanne Rousseau: I really like the world of Torment and was a master for pen and papers tables in that universe for years. So, yes, I would really like to be able to create more games in bizarre universes. In fact I've got plenty of ideas: a twisted western universe (inspired by the RPG Deadlands), another one where the humanity is just a product of dragon dreams (inspired by a French RPG called Rêve de Dragon) and others, but the question is: will I be able to sell these ideas to a publisher? Maybe, but maybe not. And of course, if not, these games will never be developed. Nevermind, I will continue to imagine strange settings, and hopefully some will become games.
Don't forget to check out the developer's website!
Link - http://www.spiders-games.com/
And we also covered every game on our website.
Link - http://www.rpgwatch.com/developers/spiders-335/games.html
