Child of Light dev talks about working on a smaller game within Ubisoft's big-budget mentality
A portion of a Gamasutra interview with Ubisoft's Jeffrey Yohalem...
GS: This is the first time I've seen Ubisoft Montreal field a small team. What's it been like to work in that environment, after serving on larger teams? Do you think you or Ubisoft will continue to work this way going forward?
JY: I think that, at least in terms of the process that we went through with Child of Light, it’s been wonderful and it’s just the tip of the iceberg of what we could do. Partially because I’m so used to working in big teams, and so I’m just getting a sense of the new scale.
GS: Given your history, how did development of this game differ from larger Ubisoft productions, like Far Cry or Assassin's Creed?
JY: Pat is a great game director. He’s like Hitchcock, in some ways -- he really understands the system of how large companies work, and at the same time wants to dance within that system. He doesn’t want to destroy it or do something that attacks it -- he knows how to use the system to make beautiful things.
He finished Far Cry 3 while I was still editing it, and he started exploring the paintings of John Bauer and other early 20th century fairytale artists. They have a very distinctive mood, it’s very melancholy and beautiful, and he decided he wanted to create something like that. So he started listening to music -- from Amelie, from Final Fantasy, and more -- and tried to create a fake album of what the game’s soundtrack should be like.
GS: This is the first time I've seen Ubisoft Montreal field a small team. What's it been like to work in that environment, after serving on larger teams? Do you think you or Ubisoft will continue to work this way going forward?
JY: I think that, at least in terms of the process that we went through with Child of Light, it’s been wonderful and it’s just the tip of the iceberg of what we could do. Partially because I’m so used to working in big teams, and so I’m just getting a sense of the new scale.
GS: Given your history, how did development of this game differ from larger Ubisoft productions, like Far Cry or Assassin's Creed?
JY: Pat is a great game director. He’s like Hitchcock, in some ways -- he really understands the system of how large companies work, and at the same time wants to dance within that system. He doesn’t want to destroy it or do something that attacks it -- he knows how to use the system to make beautiful things.
He finished Far Cry 3 while I was still editing it, and he started exploring the paintings of John Bauer and other early 20th century fairytale artists. They have a very distinctive mood, it’s very melancholy and beautiful, and he decided he wanted to create something like that. So he started listening to music -- from Amelie, from Final Fantasy, and more -- and tried to create a fake album of what the game’s soundtrack should be like.
