KickStarter INSOMNIA: The Ark - dieselpunk sci-fi action-RPG set on a decaying space station

[Jacov]

Watching it now.

I'll take notes as I watch.

 

[Jacov]

There is a lot of stuff. I'll just write down everything.
Sorry for potential typos and such.

At the start of the interview they talk about how they happened to be in gamedev.
Anatoliy Nekrasov (Guyduk, team lead, 3D tech lead and the guy who posted here initially) initially went to medical university, then abandoned it and decided to study enviroment design and art.
Anton Altunian (lead 3D artist) studied architecture it the same place. Said it was boring, but then he met Guyduk.
Before gamedev Guyduk with a company of like-minded artist students organized art exhibitions. Some of these people later became museum workers and exhibition curators. As a student he also had a part-time job as storyboarder and animator in SkyRiver Studios. Was his first taste of gamedev.

Guyduk found financing to «buy two computers and start doing something» (he said he won't drop any names). But «serious development» started only after Kickstarter. Then they understood that they can do it full-time and hire more people. It took Guyduk about one year to go from idea to finding money.

Before starting a full-time development, Guyduk taught art and was a freelance artist/designer.
Anton was a «practicing architect» and «probably even built something». He also said before Mono he was working as a freelancer in gamedev (as a hobby, I think: he had a full-time job teaching architecture). He was doing 3D models and various 2D icons. He was initially brought into team to make some parts of the interface, and he went out of curiousity, because he «didn't believe someone in Samara (their city) is making a game of this scope». Gradually, he grew into a lead 3D artist.

Guyduk said that initially he didn't fully realize how much technical work it would take to create such game, and that he just loved making «audio-visual installations» (typical art guy ). He wanted to make art, but found himself having to deal with shit in the lead position (classic).

They didn't have a designated game design specialist. Everyone at the studio was doing little bit of everything.

 

[Jacov]

First Kickstarter campaign failed: they've stopped it after 7 days. After that campaign Guyduk found a bunch of gamedev acquaintances from abroad that gave him advice. Some of those people were from PR studio PR Hound. He invited them, and with their help the second Kickstarter campaign turned a success.

Then he is asked, how they managed to involve such big names like Brian Fargo, Chris Avellone, etc. Guyduk says that they themselves showed interest in the game. He mentions that it was time when Kickstarted didn't have a lot of projects, and «everyone was interested in who was doing what». He thinks that Fargo's and MCA's tweets and comments helped them to gain some sort of public trust (makes sense).

Both laugh when they remember how Guyduk assembled one of the game locations for the second Kick campaign in a fucking notepad file. Both say switching to Unreal Engine was a good thing.

Guyduk says they didn't have a proper experience with what they can and cannot promise to potential backers in a Kick campaign. And they've made a bunch of mistakes. They've gathered about 90k US dollars (in the second Kickstarter?), but recieved only about 70k due to taxes and Kick's share. They had lots of problems with Russian banks, because for them the concept of crowdfunding seemed wild.

Game concept and its genre changed over time as they gained more experience. Guyduk admits that they've failed in the gameplay department and says that he «would change everything [about gameplay]». Over time Guyduk understood that he doesn't want to create «Fallout clones» anymore and that he would like to create something unique.

 

[Jacov]

Black people were added to the game «at the last minute»

 

[Jacov]

Guyduk says that he have only read R. A. Heinlein and S. H. Lem (some of their biggest inspirations) for the first time in the middle of development. He only started reading sci-fi fantasy at the time. Says he came up with the story, but then turned out someone in the past already did something like that and «it was like a 25th interpretation of that».

He is asked about how they built their team. Says people sometimes just showed up and wanted to make a game. A lot of them eventually left (after finally understanding that gamedev is hard), but some stayed. Says they barely had anyone with prior gamedev experience. Guyduk's previous job at SkyRiver helped him to find few devs with experience.

They didn't use any development methodology (like Agile or Scrum): they tried, didn't work for them. Guyduk says they just used Trello and that their programmers had «some other task tracker».
They were hiring «cheap and talented people who wanted to create something», since they didn't have the opportunity to hire some experienced specialists. Usual stuff: young devs burn twice as bright. Newcomers liked their concepts and ideas, and were very motivated.

Engine-vise they started developing with OGRE engine (they didn't know a lot about engines, and their programmer wanted to write his own). Spent about 4 years with it before switching to Unreal. Props to Anton for convincing their programmers to stop suffering and finally switch. Anton fucked around with CryEngine, Unity and UNIGINE. Says he decided on Unreal because it was good-looking, comforable and had good licensing. He says it was open-source, but I'm conflicted on that: was it ever completely open-source?

They had a lot of problems porting stuff from OGRE to Unreal due to software architecture and constant updates to Unreal at that time, but it was worth it. They used Blender for modelling, since it's free.
Anton likewise wanted to make art, but mainly dealt with managing stuff.

 

[Jacov]

Then they talk about easter eggs.
They've added a reference to this statue from their home city of Samara.
Guyduk says that this statue is connected with his interest in Art Deco. Says it (and the square it's on) fits the game well.

There is also a secret room in the game with skeletons of some of the developers. About 30+ skeletons, but not every developer got their own. Some people only worked a few weeks, and they didn't even had an opportunity to get acquainted with others.

 

[toro]

Thanks dude. You are awesome

Anything about the future? Did they left gamedev forever?

 

[Jacov]

Still watching.

Have to take a pause for a brief time.

 

[Abu Antar]

No wonder the game ended up as it did.

They needed someone who can keep things in check. Lack of leadership can do that to a project. It's not hard to understand why the game becomes more buggy the further you play.

 

[Jacov]

About Kickstarter and working with community.

Guyduk thinks that you should go to Kickstarter when you have experience and clear vision of your project. They've failed with that: didn't have experience and didn't truly understood what they wanted to achieve. There is a lot of work with community, and you HAVE to hire a community manager, because «if you will do community management that will be the only thing you will be able to do»: it's a full-time job.
«You have to be honest with your community and with yourself. Weight all pros and cons, and try to understand if you can actually promise something like this».

He says that you should not be afraing to talk to people and be «community friendly». He says that talking to other developers and asking their advice helped them.

Guyduk wanted to make art, and he made it. Has no regrets.
Talks about that maybe in the future he will be making more audio and visual oriented games (whatever that means).

Then he is asked if they could re-release the game as sort of an early access kind of deal. The whole question is stupid, and I think Guyduk didn't understand fully what interviewer has meant. What I got from his answer is that they were really tired and umotivated after the release. They wanted to polish the game post-release, but didn't have resources to do that.

The game was a failure commercially. But Guyduk thinks that the fact that a bunch of dudes without experience gathered together and created a game is a success.

 

[Sòren]

people might not agree with me (apparently not even the developers when they say they would change everything about the gamplay), but i still believe the game is pretty great as it is. amusing gameplay, hell lot of content, highly interesting concept and ideas all over the place, good writing, story, great atmosphere and sound and art design etc etc.

but i didn't have a lot of bugs either. so that's that.

 

[Jacov]

They didn't agree on the «product vision» with their publisher Herocraft. At first Guyduk talked with one producer from Herocraft — someone who he was able to connect with, but that person left the company almost immediately after they signed the papers, and other person took his place. Guyduk and that guy had disagreements, but he doesn't blame him: publisher did a lot.
Contract with the publisher has expired, Guyduk retains IP rights.

He says that he has motivation to do things, but this interview is before war in Ukraine. I wonder how motivated he is nowadays...

Interviewer then asks Anton if they were making the game primarily for money or as a form of art. Anton answers that InSomnia was primarily an art-project from day one. He thinks art is the game's strongest side. «It has atmosphere and a bunch of bugs». Says the idea was to make something good-looking and only then to think about money.

Guyduk thinks that «the bigger the project — the bigger the audience, and the bigger the risks that people will not like your stuff». Basically, he says you need to find your own niche.

Anton likes Quake III and Postal 2. Thinks that they are «simple games and that makes them good». Says that he doesn't like freedom of choice because «it doesn't exist». Mentions Cyberpunk as an example. He also thinks that My Friend Pedro is one of the best games «in the last few years». Man... He should really try more good RPGs.
Says that gamedev is «the only thing that doesn't make him puke». Would have liked to be a part of development team for a Borderlands game because they have good art design pipeline.
Interesting thing: at that moment in time (Jan 2022) he was working at Dark Crystal Games who created Encased — a pretty good Fallout-style CRPG. As far as I know the game wasn't all that successful and the studio mostly disintegrated. Before that he also worked on Mutant Year Zero, Corruption 2029 and even Fortnite for some time, also some mobile games.

Guyduk likes This War of Mine. Played Battle Brothers, really liked it. Says he would have liked to be a developer on some «historical game» (mentions Mount&Blade and Total War) because he loves history.

In Jan 2022 most of InSomnia developers worked in Moscow «on various projects». Now we can only speculate on what happened to them after the war started.
Guyduk himself worked on some big PC game as an art director. I looked up his ArtStation and LinkedIn, haven't found anything.

 

[Jacov]

That's the whole interview, phew.

Guyduk made an impression of a pretty chill dude. He was a typical art guy who just wanted to create good art, but didn't know the ropes. What differentiates him from other typical art guys is that he managed to gather a team, find financing and create a game. It was a mess, but it was an accomplishment.

Can't say a lot about Anton: the interviewer haven't asked him many questions. However, I think it's odd that the dude who makes art for RPGs doesn't really like them.

The interviewer could have been better prepared (he thought that they used Unreal to create 3D models, wtf), but the interview itself was okay.