David Hellman

This week I shot the breeze with a few friends for a couple hours, and then we uploaded the results to the internet with the certainty that our words would broaden the minds and fill the hearts of the multitudes.

David Ellis. Scott Sharkey. Ryan O’Donnel. Good men.

We discuss indie games (like Spelunky, Canabalt and Super Meat Boy), the IGF, and childhood fixations that have failed us in adulthood.

Direct download (55.4 MB) - Length: 2:00:58

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While in Chicago last month, I recorded an interview with Columbia College’s gaming podcast, Critical Hit. This a well-made show which I whole-heartedly recommend. The interview was very well-prepared, and even later on, when the conversation becomes more freeform and casual, it remains a worthwhile listen. Hopefully my perception isn’t skewed because I enjoyed myself! We talked so much, they got two episodes out of it.

The show begins with an interview about Braid and indie game development. Later on the guys asked me about my career path (if you will) from art school through Braid and (conceivably) beyond. Then we talk about upcoming games and games of the past. The tone progresses linearly from polished professionalism (credit to Joe Locastro) towards irreverent improvisation (Anthony Sixto), finally into audience-insulting profanity (me). John Gosling accompanies throughout in a low register.

Direct Download for Part 1
Direct Download for Part 2

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Visit the Critical Hit homepage (and stream the show from your browser).

Thanks to the Critical Hit team for an enjoyable conversation.

This year I’ve been working with a couple friends on an animation project. It will be released free online as a series of shorts. It’s dialog-oriented, with the art supporting the voice acting in economical ways. The closest thing to compare it to is Dr. Katz.

We’re looking for someone to help with part of the art production, so I can move into a more direction/planning/supervisory role, and we can crank out a 4-minute episode every other week. I will be doing storyboards, painting the backgrounds, and drawing some guide character poses, and you will be drawing many of the characters, and arranging assets on the timeline.

Drawing: As you can see, the style of the characters is not elaborate, but please be able to imitate this look, and have a good sense of humor and comic timing. The characters switch from pose to pose, so you don’t need to be an expert at animating fluid, lifelike motion. It’s more important to be able to listen to some dialog and come up with a pose or gesture, often something simple and understated, that makes it a little more real. Like I said, I’ll be doing the backgrounds.

Timeline: Are you familiar with layers, keyframes, tweening, and stuff like that? Under my jealous and domineering supervision, you will be tasked with combining all the assets in Toon Boom Animate (if you have experience with Flash, it’s broadly similar to that).

Big points if you’re in the San Francisco Bay Area, like me! That way we can meet up in person. Smaller points if you’re in Seattle or Kirkland, WA (where Jeff and Casey are).

It’s a paid position. More info available over e-mail.

Please send us a link to your portfolio: jobs “at” jeffandcaseytime.com. Or attach a couple reasonably-sized graphics.

David Hellman Industries proudly announces its long awaited gardening sequel, Hedge Master: Gardener’s Pledge, Volume 5: Edging. All the pledgeful promises and hardening appendages you recall from Gardener’s Den: Gate of Ardin: Co-Ed Dorm Edition returns, refueled and faintly flavored with intelligent restraint.

Indolent upon the lawn, your hardy gardener detects danger and springs into dangerous attire. Follow him through seventeen layers of redolent foliage, enslave the world!

Related:
Fez becomes Fedge
Eliss follow-up Edgeliss
Closure becomes Closure on the Edge of Reality
Ledge Dismount
Edward McEdgington
Critter Crunch becomes Critter Credge
Canabalt becomes Canabedge
Edgeform: On the Edge of Insanity
And Yet it Moves becomes And Edge It Moves
Edgeless
Space Edge: Edge of Space
EeeEEEEeeEeEEEEeeeEdge!
Aztedge
and,

An explanation may be warranted:
Overview by Boing Boing
More background by TIG Source
And more from Chaos Edge

This Thursday, October 22, I’ll be at Columbia College in Chicago, giving a lecture about my work on Braid. They say it’s open to the public!

The info is this: 916 S. Wabash Ave, Room 150. 6:00 pm.

Here is Columbia College’s page about it.

TIG Jam has run its course and I’m back in San Francisco. (The weather is blessedly gray and cool.) The jam was terrific, such a great creative shot in the arm. The indie community is truly talented and supportive.

On the last night, some of us gave 5-minute talks about whatever happened to be on our minds, indie-wise. Matthew Wegner, CEO of Flashbang (who hosts the jam) encouraged us to eschew the angry ranting format and talk about constructive things. A video of the talks has just been posted, presumably by Matthew. Keep in mind these are highly informal and somewhat off-the-cuff, coming at the end of 3 days of 30 people hanging out together in a medium-sized room.

I come in at 21:00. Other speakers include Danny Baranowsky, Derek Yu, Chris DeLeon, Adam Saltzman, Alec Holowka, and Tommy Refenes.

Update: Here’s the video of everyone showing their projects, later in the evening. Unfortunately, for much of the running time there’s no view of the screen where the work is actually displayed…

I’m at TIG Jam at the Flashbang Office in Tempe, Arizona, with about 29 other indie developers. Everyone is working on various cool-looking projects. The TIG Jam website is updating live with graphics from the event, including a web cam. I’ll be posting concept art there over the next few days.

Alice in Bomberland is an upcoming game for iPhone and iPod Touch, developed by Chris DeLeon. Chris designed and programmed Topple, and worked prominently on Boom Blox. He’s also a teacher of game design and all-around profond penseur. One time, he made a game a day for 219 days!

We met at a bar and before you know it I was drawing the main character sprite for his new game. We turned her into a simplified, Mario-like game hero, designed to read well at a small scale. Other prominent art is by Mark Meyers. The game itself is an old school survival challenge where you jump around frantically avoiding deadly explosives. In keeping with the source material, it diverges frequently into the surreal, here taking the form of fantastic, disorienting special effects.

Now that Alice is done, Chris and I are in preproduction on another game on which I’m the design lead. At this point, it could take virtually any form, although we’re targeting the iPhone/iPod Touch platforms. I’m excited about sharing more information about that at the right time!

Oh, I forgot to mention that I did a painting for the Darkstalkers Tribute book that came out recently. We weren’t supposed to talk about it, and then we were, and I wasn’t sure when it was okay, and I just forgot about it.

But here it is:

For those who don’t know, this is a character from a popular series of fighting games. Pretty sure he’s a vampire. The book has a lot of vampires, as well as mummies. There are also a lot of sexy girls, because undead things are sexy.

Also! When the poster shop opens in the near future, a limited run of these will be available for purchase!

To make this blog post slightly more interesting, I thought I’d share some of the rough drafts. In the original sketch, the guy was more weird looking:

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