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<\/article>\nAssembling The Talent<\/h2>\n
Sometimes the stars align, bringing us together with the right people at the right time. When Supergiant co-founder and studio director Amir Rao took a job at Electronic Arts, it led him to meeting two key players on the Supergiant Games roster: Gavin Simon and Greg Kasavin. The trio worked together on the Command & Conquer franchise, quickly forming close friendships and learning each other\u2019s talents and how they complement one another.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Around 2008, they all were playing games like World of Goo, Braid, Castle Crashers, and Plants vs. Zombies. \u201cIt was really inspiring,\u201d says creative director Greg Kasavin. \u201cThese games were made by just a handful of people, but they\u2019re really well-crafted and just more interesting in a lot of ways than what was happening then in the big triple-A space. That\u2019s when we started thinking, \u2018What would we do if we could ever do something like this?\u2019<\/p>\n
As ideas percolated, Rao turned to his dad for guidance. \u201cMy dad was encouraging me to start a company as well, because he felt I was young enough that if it didn\u2019t work out, I could always try to find a job again,\u201d he says. \u201cAnd so, he let us work out of his house and we formed Supergiant Games in 2009.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
Their primary office? The living room, which is where they made the entirety of Bastion, Supergiant\u2019s debut game. Both Rao and Simon quit their jobs at EA and got to work, officially becoming co-founders of Supergiant Games. \u201cI didn\u2019t really even sit down and think about or weigh the pros and cons about, \u2018Is this a good idea or not?\u201d says development director Gavin Simon. \u201cIt\u2019s just like, \u2018This is what\u2019s going to happen and I\u2019ve no idea how it will go.\u2019 [Making my own game] is just what I always wanted to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The duo soon recruited their third member through another friend connection. Alex Ahad, best known for his work on Skullgirls, knew Rao\u2019s best friend from high school. When Rao said they were looking for an artist, \u00a0Ahad thought of his co-worker who he happened to sit in the cubicle across from: Jen Zee \u00a0<\/p>\n
Zee, who knew she wanted to be an artist ever since seeing Tetsuya Nomura\u2019s character art for Final Fantasy VII<\/a> in a video game magazine, calls the timing \u201cserendipitous\u201d as she was starting to think more about where she could grow as an artist. Gaia Online was her professional gig and she was mostly focusing on environmental work. She was ready for a change of pace and more responsibility.\u00a0<\/p>\n Before landing as Supergiant\u2019s art director, Zee came on as a three-month contractor while she continued her day job. \u201cThe first thing she drew was the Bastion,\u201d Rao recalls. \u201cAnd it was so good that we immediately asked if she would quit her job and join us.\u201d Zee knew it was a risk, but she was willing to take it. \u201cWe all know the statistics around the failures of startups,\u201d Zee says. \u201cI was young and didn\u2019t have children. I remember calling my dad and he said, \u2018You don\u2019t really have a lot to lose right now.\u2019\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n From there, Rao\u2019s connections only brought in more talent. He went back to Kasavin for the role of creative director. Kasavin was now at 2K Games, but was ready to quit his job there for his dream position \u2013 even if it meant asking his family for financial help for the first time since high school. \u201cI’d never written a story for a game before \u2026 but I wanted to do it for so long,\u201d Kasavin says. \u201cIt took Amir [Rao] and Gavin [Simon] knowing me and believing in me to fill that role on the team. But that’s not a job I ever could have applied for and gotten at another studio; I just would have had nothing much to show for myself. And that’s one of the catch 22s of the game industry. Every position requires having prior experience, so how do you get the prior experience until you have the job?\u201d<\/p>\n Rao continued to believe in his friends\u2019 abilities to fill the essential roles. Next, he went to his former roommate Andrew Wang, who he interned with at EA Orlando, for the role of technical director. At the time, Wang was working at Infinity Ward on the Call of Duty franchise, but he was ready to move on. \u201cI\u2019ve always wanted to do something with some of the more autonomy and responsibility that comes with the smaller company,\u201d he says. \u201cThat was one of the big things that drove me in that direction from the beginning. I always knew that my stay at Infinity Ward was going to be limited and I wasn’t going to be like a lifer on the Call of Duty series.\u201d<\/p>\n Most of Supergiant\u2019s team members came from Rao\u2019s industry contacts, but the last two were his childhood friends; Darren Korb and Logan Cunningham do music and voice work, respectively. Rao met Cunningham in youth soccer, and Rao had been playing Dungeons & Dragons with Korb since elementary school. Fun fact: they still play together to this day.<\/p>\n Neither Korb nor Cunningham had ever worked in games, but Rao wasn\u2019t worried about their experience. \u201cI would say, at the time, it did not seem like a leap of faith,\u201d Rao says. \u201cFor me, it was a no-brainer to call Darren [Korb] when I needed music and sound on a game, partially because I actually worked on some projects in college and Darren and Logan provided voiceover and music. So, when I ran into the same problem again with music and sound, I called Darren.\u201d<\/p>\n There\u2019s an old adage that you shouldn\u2019t work with friends, but Rao says it\u2019s part of what makes Supergiant work: \u201cWhen things get hard, and they will get hard, having a friend there is really amazing, right?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n These seven original members who helped bring Bastion to life are still with the studio today, and have worked together to shape all four of its games. But back when Bastion was in development, none of them knew if Supergiant would have the opportunity to make more games. \u201cWe gave Bastion everything we had,\u201d Kasavin says. \u201cWe were able to make this personal experience and put ourselves into our work.\u201d In Bastion, your journey as the Kid is narrated as you attempt to rebuild a world reeling from the apocalyptic Calamity.\u00a0<\/p>\n The team recalls having an exciting energy around doing something new and on their own \u2013 even if they knew it was a risky venture. \u201cEverything felt like it came together so fast,\u201d Rao says. \u00a0\u201cThe game was made in less than two years, but the first year was just like, \u2018What the hell are we even doing?\u2019\u201d adds Kasavin.<\/p>\n Bastion started with Rao and Simon just passing ideas back and forth and taking scans out of D&D books to use as placeholders. Rao was a huge Diablo II fan<\/a> and Simon loved The Legend of Zelda series, so the pair wanted to make something that was a cross between their favorite games. \u201cWe just talked about games and games we loved,\u201d Simon says. \u201cWe just seemed to have a lot of the same thoughts and interests about everything and it rolled forward from there.\u201d<\/p>\n Things really picked up when Zee joined and got straight to producing assets. \u201cThere was no pre-production on Bastion,\u201d Kasavin says. \u201cIt was ironic to us, because it was a game that was celebrated for its artwork, and people would be like, \u2018Oh, do you have an art book? I\u2019d love to see an early concept of all this stuff.\u2019 But almost everything [Zee] did went straight into the game.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n After working at a company where she needed constant approvals, Zee welcomed the challenge. \u201cThe feeling that you have ownership and accountability over the entire process is super empowering,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s also very scary, but right off the bat, I was given so much ownership. It was just really nice, and it was very clear we just needed to get stuff done.\u201d<\/p>\n For composer and audio director Darren Korb, learning the process took some time. \u201cFor me, an effective way to learn something is to just jump in,\u201d he says. \u201cIt quickly became apparent that what I thought might work [wouldn\u2019t]. For instance, I was trying to do something ultra-realistic at first. It\u2019s just like, \u2018Well, what does it sound like when you hit a box with a hammer?\u2019 And it\u2019s like, \u2018Oh, it\u2019s not the thing you want it to sound like in a video game.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n When Korb finally got down to creating the music, one thing that Rao said really informed his direction. \u201cSomething that stuck with me early was when Amir mentioned what the tone of the game was going to be and said, \u2018What if Cormac McCarthy made a fantasy video game?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n From there, details would trickle in about the atmosphere and the different areas the game would include, like ruined societies and frontiers, and Korb would go off those few details to create a soundtrack that pulled you into the world. Korb says he thinks it helped that from the beginning, Supergiant put equal emphasis on music as a vital component of the game and its role in driving the experience. \u201cI don’t believe a lot of studios have that same approach,\u201d Korb says. \u201cBut it doesn’t seem totally outlandish that all of the different aspects of [game development] are of equal importance to create the sum total of the thing. I think the fact we feel that [the soundtrack] is a critical part of the experience [helps].\u201d<\/p>\n After a fantastic unveiling at PAX 2010 (where the team literally only had 20 minutes of the game made), Bastion debuted on Xbox Live Arcade in July 2011. The action\/RPG was met with good reviews and sold decently. Our own Matt Miller noted in this review how all the parts come together to create a memorable experience: \u00a0\u201cAs the well-written narration, excellent music, and bright visuals draw you in, the game feels like a storybook in which you control the outcome,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n While the game received plenty of praise, it took time to gain momentum. \u201cI feel like people tend to forget Bastion was not a hit immediately,\u201d says principal voice actor Logan Cunningham. \u201cIt took some time for people to take notice. But it was huge for me immediately, because it allowed me to leave my day job at a movie theater. I could just focus 100-percent on being an actor.\u201d<\/p>\n Bastion hit PC the following month, but Kasavin said its success \u201ccrept up\u201d on the team and only became clear toward the end of the year. \u201cWe figured, it\u2019s a single-player game,\u201d he says. \u201cIt\u2019ll maybe get talked about for a couple of weeks, and then it will just fall by the wayside. But people kept talking about it.\u201d<\/p>\n Successful sales and end-of-year award nominations brought Bastion to a new level of profitability. \u201cIt was really unexpected, and went against the common wisdom where you take your first month\u2019s sales and multiply it by three and that\u2019s how you estimate your lifetime sales,\u201d Kasavin says. \u201cNevertheless, it did become fairly clear we\u2019re going to be able to stick around with a small team and start paying ourselves livable wages.\u201d<\/p>\n It also allowed the team to move out of Rao\u2019s living room. Bastion proved the team had a special creative synergy, and Supergiant wanted to see what else it could do with that. Their newfound success also brought unexpected challenges. The studio never planned beyond Bastion, and figuring out the next steps took time, especially with more at stake than ever before. \u201cWe had nothing to lose [with Bastion],\u201d Rao says. \u201cBut suddenly we had a team that was worth keeping, a studio, and a lease.\u201d<\/p>\n Tune in Tuesday (April 20) for the story behind Transistor <\/a>and how it challenged the team in more ways than they were expecting.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/arcader.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/the-story-behind-supergiant-games-bastion-63.jpg\")
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<\/article>\nWe All Got Stories Worth Tellin\u2019<\/h2>\n
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