Dynamighty

Hello friends!

We have been operating fairly deep undercover on the Dynamighty front recently and we thought it past due that we share an update on what we have been doing.

Well the good news is, we are starting to emerge from the covert phase of the game’s development and you will start to see a steady flow of information, starting with a weekly blog post update from the team here.

Every week, a different person on the team will be sharing a bit about their part of the project, so you can get a taste of what it takes for a small team like us to make a game like CounterSpy.

When John and I started Dynamighty, one of the most important values we held dear for the studio, was to build a sustainable, awesome place where everyone who was part of the team, loved what they do, looked forward to coming to work every day, and felt like true collaborators on the project.

When we signed the partnership deal with Sony back at the beginning of 2013, Dynamighty was still just David Nottingham (Creative Director), John Elliot (Tech Director), Mark Holmes (Art Director) & Mark Erman (BizMarkie because he handles the business side).

It’s crazy to look back and see how far we’ve come since then.  We are now a team of 10 full-time people and some amazing key contractors that have all come together to help us make our first game.

We want to give a little roll-call shoutout here to some of the amazing people that you will be hearing more from in the weeks ahead.  These are the people that make it all work and its thanks to them that we are starting to get close to releasing CounterSpy.

Bob Archibald/Environment Artist - Bob was someone at LucasArts that John and Dave had not worked with, but was so talented & passionate yet with such a sweet disposition, We were determined to one day work with him.  Bob is our 3D Environment Artist and as such has been responsible for taking all the grey box level design from us designers, and the amazing visual development from Mark, and turning it into the levels you see in the game.

Grace Morales-Lingad/Designer - Grace was another former LucasArts alum. She came to us as a designer that had worked most recently on the Sly Cooper game that came out last year. Grace is a multi-purpose designer that does level design, systems, scripting and helped me keep my sanity on the project when things seem like they are about to tip over.

Chris MaGovern/Animator - All the kick ass moves of our spy, all the enemy moves, as well as the various humorous animations we have ‘hidden’ in the game, all thanks to Chris!

Devin Kelly-Sneed/Lead Gameplay Engineer - John and I had worked with Devin at LucasArts and was one of the people that I had always hoped to work with again.  What engineers do in coding is like a mystical art to me. Devin has been a major force on the coding side and along with David Swift has been largely responsible for all the gameplay systems and code that supports the game.

David Swift/Gameplay Programmer (Japan Division) - David was another member of the old LucasArts family. David is based in Japan and spends his time rewriting animation systems when we break them.

We’ve also made a few key more recent hires to round out our crack squad here at Dynamighty.

One that has really helped me, was Ed Kay, who joined us as Lead Designer.  Ed filled a huge gap in my own design background. My strength is being a big vision guy. I’m super optimistic and excited about the possibilities of what a game can be.  Someone like me needs the balance of a design partner that loves the details and compliments those big ideas with the technical and system design chops to go right to the metal of the games design.  That person is Ed. I love working with him because we can really balance each other out. Just the right amount of ambition paired with the rational implementation for how to make something work.

If you are at GDC this year Ed will be giving a talk on the design process for CounterSpy (which he joined midway) called ‘Designing within Constraints on CounterSpy’

We have also brought on Jeff Morris as a Producer.  Jeff is a shipaholic.  He loves the challenge of getting games through that final few months to finish!  He has brought structure, detail and taken over a lot of the day to day responsibilities that John and I had been grappling with in addition to our own project tasks.  If there is one lesson I would pass on to any other developer of 10 people or above, definitely hire a good Producer!  Because you need to free up your own time as much as possible to be doing what you are best at, which is whatever your core speciality is. You know, the thing you loved to do that got you into games in the first place!

We’ve also added some coding heavyweights in Ryan Medeiros, Jamie Culpon, Chris Georges, who have all joined us more recently and we are excited for what their future contributions will bring to the project.

Finally I have to give mad shoutout to some of the various contractors that have helped bring the game to life.

Jesse Harlin, for all the incredible music composed for the game. We wanted CounterSpy to have the feel of a 60s espionage TV show and the music is SUCH a signature part of that. I had worked with Jesse at LucasArts where he created the beautiful music for Lucidity.  I knew he was the person to nail that cool espionage vibe we wanted.  Watch this space for a future post from Jesse on his process composing for CounterSpy.

Jean Moreno, who has created all the VFX for the game. Jean was someone we found via him selling his own VFX assets in the Unity Store.  Jean has been kicking ass on the project, its his first major commercial project to be involved in but he has the work ethic and talent of an experienced pro (without the grizzled curmudgeonly of the rest of us!)

Thanks for your support!  Going forward, we will be updating here with a series of weekly posts.  Next week Mark Holmes is going to share a bit about his process on the Art side, and how he brought 16 years of experience from Pixar to the visual development process at Dynamighty.

In the mean-time, we hope you enjoy this new screenshot of the game just to show you we have not been sitting idle!  Making this game is a life’s dream for all of us at Dynamighty. Lots more info will be coming soon and we can’t wait to start sharing more :)

Your friend

David Nottingham

Creative Director (CounterSpy)