ULTRAKILL Dev Interview: Hakita (ULTRACHARITY 2023)

all right all right welcome everybody to another Ultra charity Dev interview uh for this interview we have uh the big man himself hakita hi hello hakita um so I I mean your name's your name's right on right in the start of the game so I'd be surprised if somehow people miss that um but but could you just tell tell us all what you do for Ultra kill well I'm the lead developer so um I do the directing and game design level design sound design music writing animation basically if if there's something like I say in my credit Museum thing um if there's something that's in the game then I had my finger in that pie cool yeah so yep everything pretty much to to some extent at least yeah just uh very limited in terms of 2D and 3D art but I do still do a little bit of both for the game as well MH and uh from what other everyone else will hear from the other interviews too is that you're you you give a lot of Direction on those things and you know you're there for the iterative process and all that yeah one of the um great things about working with a small team is uh there's a much greater feeling of like having a consistent feeling of Direction and like a consistent style and such and if it was like a big team it would be a lot harder to be able to make the whole thing feel so like directed but with a small team like this I get to really do keep keep up with everyone and keep with like a oneon-one um like make sure that uh we're all on the same page at all times yeah and it uh definitely is felt I mean I I can you know definitely tell especially from hearing all of the other interviews at this point cuz you're the in the timeline of doing these interviews you're the last one but like just from what everyone else has said like everyone's on the same page and it's super awesome to hear that except in terms of story I basically never tell anyone about the future of the story and it's it's not it's not that I don't like trust people it's just that it's one of those things that's like uh when I try to explain any of my ideas they sound so much worse than if than once when they're actually done and in the game and such so I usually just don't even bother yeah which is fair um so kind of moving on um if you if you're comfortable um just giving kind of your your game gev history and and kind of your media history in general cuz I know that you you've dabbled in you know some different Medias so if you want to talk about all that kind of stuff yeah so uh for for me uh I've always been a sort of General artist so for me games are really just uh another art form that I can use to express myself and put my ideas out there and such so so uh uh fairly like I used to dabble in game development when I was a kid using Game maker and like FPS Creator and stu stuff and making custom levels in like Little Big Planet and whatever uh but I never really considered it like an actual thing for me to do uh as a focus in my life until until um I was looking for uh um where to go for like higher education I was I tried to get into a music school and then a uh film school and I failed both entrance exams so then my mom was like well there's this there's this game design school uh that's that's open and you could try going there I was like yeah sure why not and then then I did uh so that's kind of uh the general gist of how I really started to focus on game development and luckily I get to also do other art stuff on the side mostly music cuz that's kind of my biggest passion but I do some writing as well and I used to do when I was a kid I used to do a lot of like uh short films with my friends but that I haven't done that in a very long time yeah that's that's awesome so you have a a a much more diverse media history than than than I thought so that that's really interesting to hear just your whole kind of Journey and story and the the culmination of your experience and how it's kind of gotten you here that's that was that was great yeah one of those things uh is that people might not realize is like everything that you learn in like uh one art form is transferable to all other art forms because most most of like a lot of people ask like why like how can Ultra kill be such a quality game if it's my first attempt at a commercial product and it's it's because I'm applying a lot of what I learned while making music and I've been making music for like easily over a decade at this point yeah and I've I've listened to some of your older albums and they're I like them I can hear bits of uh the ultra kill soundtrack or at least the older part of the soundtrack and in them still a little bit here and there kind of interesting especially during like during like um cuz where originally I wrote all my music in midia and then around like uh 2016 2015 or something like that I started trying to like get into um recording actual instruments and stuff so uh that changed my process of writing music a lot so that's sort of what you hear in in the in the praylo is that process where instead of writing music down like beforehand I usually just like doodled around with an instrument and then I was like oh I like this idea and then I recorded it and then I started recording the other instruments on top and I just instead of writing anything anything beforehand it's just like basically like section to improvisation MH so that's why prel is so simple uh compositionally and then as I sort of started to find my stride in terms of the direction of the music uh it started getting a lot more complex compositionally yeah and that's now like now that you mention it because of course you know when I'm when I'm playing the game I'm I'm just playing the game but now that you mentioned that like I can definitely hear it and like especially like just I mean I'm sure everyone can tell kind of the evolution of the the soundtrack of the game and just how it how how it evolves from Prelude even to just like layer two or three how much it evolves and yeah that's that's that's one of those things that I um I mentioned earlier like a lot of the lessons that I learned from making music that I'm applying to game development one of the things I learned is uh that my process works best when I make everything like fully chronologically so I start at the beginning and I work further from there because um that gives that always gives the uh the whole thing like a feeling of organic progression as both both I improve in in terms of skill and I gain a clear understanding of what I want to do do with the project then that also sort of that still feels like a natural um sort of Journey in a way uh instead of it just being like uh sort of going back and forth of like oh this is now this and then it's a different thing and then back because you sort of you sort of understand what what the thing is doing at the same Pace that I understand it yeah that that's that's really cool insight to hear thank you thank you for all that um so kind of moving on um sorry uh yeah kind of just moving on I I'm trying to like maybe rearrange questions on the flight here but I I don't think I need to but um because I guess yeah because this is kind of part of your you know your your history at this point um but how how long would you say Ultra kill development has been going on like maybe maybe to like give you like a concrete starting point like when you're when when Ultra kill was like the the idea like you kind of had the goal for Ultra kill the like the very general idea um I don't remember the exact time when it happened but it was um it was for a school assignment we were designing uh like a main menu for a game that we like came up with ourselves and that the idea was sort of to try to impart the like the general Vibe and idea of the game through just the main menu and my I named mine Ultra kill and it was like a horror action FPS kind of painkiller Vibe so that was like the sort of you could consider that the first yeah the the the seed yeah but the actual development didn't really start until uh what we consider the start of development is like February 1st of 2018 so that's almost 60 years ago wow that's wild it's a very very slow a very slow and long process but that's a big part of why it is the level of quality that it is is that I've just been able to develop it gradually instead of having to worry about like deadlines and such so I never really had to rush any of it yeah you don't got to worry about deadlines or like existing in general um yeah that's super cool to to hear that Ultra kill Ultra kill just kind of started as a title screen mhm and it's a it was a very different vibe and main menu than what the actual game ended up being but that's that's where the um title came from yeah I mean I feel like with all things you know how how it starts off is uh generally not exactly how it ends up anyways so um so the next uh I guess almost almost the rest of the questions honestly cuz that a lot of that was you know the the the long farb past and kind of just like a to get people caught up with who you are and and what you do for the game so and to just kind of you know put a put a personality and history to the game I guess I don't know I'm kind of rambling but the the rest of the questions um are are going to be similar to questions I asked uh the the first Ultra charity around but um I'm going to I I want you to try to focus on the past two years of development I know that's so much time and I'm sure it's you know who knows how it's been for you I mean past two years for me have been I feel like a blur just yeah but um yeah so there a lot of these are kind of most more tailored to um these past two years of development um and and a lot of them all specified too so mhm uh for this first one um are there any big challenges you faced in the past two years terms of development it's nothing but challenges at this point but um I I think the biggest one is a constant which is that because the game is so old and I started making it when I was so um wasn't very good at doing like programming and stuff it's it's a it's a big complex building built on very F faulty foundations which is just a constant pain in the ass of like if you if you change something that you think would be harmless to change then it can have massive Ripple effects and you you'd have to like play through the entire game again to make sure that everything works properly and that's like even though we have a great QA team there's like limits to what human beings can do yeah but outside of that also um it's something that I'm make a conscious effort of is like trying to M make sure that the development team is always like a little bit challenged in terms of what we're doing because that that's like how you grow as an artist and as a Creator is by being challenged so I'm always trying to push us a little bit outside of our comfort zone to make sure that we're always always pushing into some directions instead of getting uh complacent and and feeling to like uh working by the numbers so I think I think the big reason one was um 74 the boss fight with the earth mover was a big challenge not just because of the scale and the intricacy of the level itself but also because we had to basically do a completely different process for it where I had to do like back and for forth work with Victoria instead of just doing the level by myself uh which I usually did or honestly always did but in this case it was very much like we uh we started with um big rock making the concept art for the earth mover and then Victoria made a block out of that which is just like the simple basic shap so so that we can sort of get the general idea of the scale and proportions and stuff and then based on that or like using that block out I then planned out like the level progression and all the like different little moments that would happen and I made like a basic version of that and then Victoria would make the rest of the model using that that block out of the level to make sure that it's like it functions well and then we had to do a lot of back and forth um afterwards I started sort of putting all the functionality in of like the boss fights and stuff but like it it's a lot usually I had always done all the levels by myself with like the big exceptions being like the sandbox and 5s being by Peter and then uh the credit museum being by a wizard who who we picked up as like a temporary worker uh to make that uh but outside of those it's like just entirely me so having to do this like constant back and forth was a very uh new and refreshing way to work on the level and I think and I think it also shows in terms of like how different it feels and all this little um how like there's a lot more like quote unquote bespoke material to it where it's a lot more organic feeling and there's much more uh all all these little details that that are like specifically made by an artist specifically for that one moment instead of being more like I ask for a general asset and then I use it as I see fit kind of thing yeah awesome yeah thank you um you did couple little cool things you threw in there too I I had no idea Peter was was the one behind the 5S either so that's a fun little fact that that's really cool to learn he did basically everything for 5S uh I when I did my pass on it afterwards I basically just did like um some iteration I did like the lighting and the mood and the uh effects and like General atmospheric stuff and the music but like in terms of all the functionality and the actual geometry of the level that's all Peter that's that's so cool that's really that yeah I didn't know that so that's really that's really fun for me to to learn I'm sure it's fun for a lot of people to learn too hopefully so I'm glad he got he got Peter gets his his shout out here shout outs to Peter yeah big shout outs um so uh moving on and it it sounds you kind of touched on it here and there um but are there any like major things you've learned in the past two years while developing um I think probably the biggest thing that at least comes to mind is um so one of the things I didn't mention uh in terms of challenges is that making the second prime sanctum P2 was like a massive [ __ ] challenge for me in terms of in terms of like work motivation and stuff because I had been working on the game for like five years so I was really starting to feel uh just [ __ ] done with it so that single level took like half a year to make just because I was getting so like both both because I was just getting so tired of having to do the same thing but also that was then further aggravated by the fact that it's such a difficult level so even just like testing it uh was really exhausting mhm but then um something I tried with Peter uh initially while I was working on that was a new process where we would hop into uh voice chat and basically would stream our screens to each other as we work so it would be like we would be it's it's kind of like a game development equivalent of like parallel play where basically just the fact that seeing someone else work as you're working sort of helps motivate you to work more so I I I didn't do that much with Peter we did a couple times but um sort of the then I we made a like a Discord Channel specifically for that and that's uh when me and salad uh who also Drew yilo mhm um me and him started really doing that uh a lot and that was like that's such a like we basically started doing it every day almost and that was such a huge like Improvement in terms of both uh making development more fun and making like improving the flow that like 71 took like 3 months to make mhm and then I started doing that with salad afterwards and 72 only took like one month wow it's it's a huge huge Improvement in stuff terms so of like yeah the pace and motivation and stuff so that's been a really big change for me in terms of the process of making making the game mhm so I think the big thing I learned was that like working alongside other people like actively and not just in terms of like just checking in each other occasionally is like even if it's just like being in each other's presence kind of thing mhm and and it also give helps like a lot in terms of like um if if you're working on something and then you're not 100% sure of like if if this is the good way of doing it then you can easily just like talk back and forth with another person sort of shoot shoot like bounce ideas of each other and sort of just discuss like how it might feel and look and stuff yeah for sure yeah that's really cool and I mean I'm sure that like I'm sure people are going to hear that and be like oh that is a really good idea cuz yeah that does it does sound like that really really helped your mental which you working on something for so long yeah it's um obviously uh Different Strokes of different folks so it might not work for everyone but if if you're if there's game developers Ling this right now who have issues in terms of like of like just like when they boot up their programs or like even not just game developers but artists and stuff in general is like if you have that problem often where you just either never boot the program up or you just boot it up and then stare at it for a bit and then close it like it might be worth trying out like having a artist friend or something like that uh that you can do uh sort of parallel working with might be very helpful for [Music] motivation oh thank you thank you like like I said it's always just so interesting hearing all of your processes and how especially everyone I've talked to before just how things have kind of how how they've all grown and their their processes have evolved so it's really it's really fun learning and there there is so funny um anecdote to that where I when we were like wrapping up on the violence layer um one of the things salad was saying cuz he was there for almost the entire development of the violence Slayer is one of the things he said to me and Victoria was like like he already knew that we don't really plan much ahead in terms of the game but like he was still really surprised by how much we just make up on the Fly of let us like oh here's a here's a thing we could do can we put that in can we work that out and then just go back and forth and and then sort of work stuff out that way where it's it's very um Ultra G development is very improvisational it's very organic yeah and I mean the the crazy thing is like from my point of view and I'm sure for a lot of people's point of view like it feels all planned like that's the that's the really great thing like all these interesting organic ideas are like just coming out of the air and then you all are kind of working together as a team to to make them feel like it's been the plan all along yeah there there there's definitely a lot of like gen there's a lot of like General ideas of like the framework of like here is I want to do this kind of thing with this part but then all the like the actual execution of it and the all the details and stuff are basically sort of just like as made up as we go and as we figure out as like oh this is a cool thing that we could do and then we notice a little thing and it's like oh maybe we could do something with this and that sort of make sure that it has like that we're rather than being sort of held to a predetermined like plan we we basically just like if we know there something that would be better then we can do that instead of being basically Shackled to the original plan mhm oh that's great great everything great to hear it makes me super happy to hear that you know it it sounds like motivation is is high as of late so it's it's super I don't know not I don't know the words I'm looking for but it makes me happy it's a very feel-good kind of thing to hear yeah it's definitely um the processing is improve improving and it's definitely even the even though the the uh expectations are obviously getting higher and higher I'm pretty pretty confident about at least the near future of development yeah um so kind of kind of going off of it very conveniently um you know it it sounds like the entire process for for everyone has been getting better and stronger and all of that um how how would you say the entire team like as a unit has grown um over the past couple years in kind of what way do you mean uh so maybe just like like of course you touched on like the um the kind of workflow but uh maybe things like you know communication or just the going off a bit more on um you know people throwing out ideas and things like that like do you feel that people have have gotten more comfortable throwing out their ideas and that there's a lot more of kind of a um an open room to kind of bounce ideas off and Implement things and all that I think it's most of the same uh we've always been pretty open in terms of um like ideas and such and um I I for I forget who it was but someone at one point said that one of the things they really liked about the development of ultra kill is that very it's it's very much like like um they can be they can just be like oh I had this thing that I would like to add to the game and then I'm just like okay yeah go for it but in terms of like just um for most of the team things have stayed pretty similar um lately especially with 74 um Victoria has sort of become uh more active in sort of the i h how would I put it like maybe not in terms of Direction but at least in terms of execution where we sort of go back and forth uh on on the ideas and how like how how we're going to put it together more yeah than just being like she asks me what she should do and then I tell her and stuff like that yeah yeah and and we talked about me and Victoria talked about that as well kind of the uh a lot of the process of 74 so wherever this inter I think this interview is probably going to fall pretty early in the event so people at least have that to look forward to because we do talk about that a lot of the process of how 74 was made which is very interesting yeah and I think she has more to say about that than I do because it was like for I've been making levels so for so long that like for me it was it it was like different but it wasn't like different enough that I was like that I would have that much to say about it whereas that was sort of her first for into actual like making a level for Ultra kill yeah yeah and we had we had a big big part of our conversation was about that so make sure you stick around and to listen to that for the next 15 hours or how long this stream is gonna be pleas please don't say that I have to work after the event I don't oh god um all right uh so yeah it it sounds like there there really wasn't much growing to do it sounds like the team has just stayed strong it it really sound in terms of like in terms of like physical growth um we added hect Tech as a stable team member because originally we had them do um iteration on the style system um yeah while we were working on the second act in in like the Wrath layer and stuff and then we added them as a staple team member like I think earlier this year so that they're they're an active programmer with um all the stuff now and um the next layer is going to have some big stuff from that hect Tech's been working on so look forward to that yeah he he briefly very very briefly mentioned that I was like oh maybe we could talk about it next year and he's like oh we'll see te ghes by ghes by they them oh my bad they but yeah we talked about that a bit and they were like oh yeah maybe next year your words not mine we'll see um things happen when they happen so we'll see yeah exactly exactly um is so so this is this is kind of encompassing um all of uh Ultra kill development uh not necessarily just the past two years but of course if there if it is related to Something in the past two years um of course that's that's fine um but is there anything that uh you've become especially proud of for Ultra kill uh I think honestly the the the one thing that's currently on my mind is the fact that I feel like I've been improving in terms of writing uh both in terms of like having the sort of General ideas tie together well and in terms of actually like putting the words on paper CU especially uh earlier on I was doing a lot more uh back and forth with uh Jacob who who did a lot of that like PR writing for like and dialogue for Gabrielle and the inter Mission stuff and then um during act two I I wrote CU I write all the terminals and stuff myself and then I write all the dialogue and stuff in the in the prime San myself but like the books that you found in the game the Act One were mostly I was just like explaining ideas that I want wanted to have to him and then he would be the one writing them and in act two we had more of like a 50/50 Spate on those things where like for example the layer four book about the Insurrection that was like it's almost like one paragraph is mine then one paragraph is his and the one paragraph is mine and stuff like that mhm we're doing a lot of like I was a lot more involved in terms of like the actual wording and phrasing and stuff and that's also very much present in like the gab dialogue and the the second intermission text and then um everything in layer 7even was written just by me so far and personally I think my favorite thing that I've just written what in terms of like how how well I think it succeeded what is the uh secret book in 74 MH I think that's my my best work in terms of just like putting words to paper and and one of the things that like really helped um Ultra kills writing is the fact that I decided very early on to keep to like not set anything in stone until it's necessary to do so and that has very much helped me because I've gotten so much like at least in my opinion I've gotten so much better at writing that because I didn't make those decisions early on of like this is this and this is this and this is how this works that means that now there's so much like blank space that I can now fill up in a way that's a lot more satisfying than if I had just made decisions early on and then try to work around those decisions yeah that's that's that's that's super cool to hear like it's again kind of like that whole uh the like what I mentioned earlier where you know a lot of a lot of ultra kill stuff is kind of just out of pulled out of the air but it you you just tie it together so well and thank you yeah no it it yeah it's a whole whole wholeheartedly a compliment like for sure but yeah um it's it's really interesting to hear the especially your whole writing process because I I do I I personally really love all the the logs and stuff you know I'm not one of the the lore experts by any means but just the way they're all written is it it very very much fits the tone of the game and they're yeah they're they're good they're good and and something I try to really um focus on is making sure that like um different texts that are different that are written by different characters have a sort of different voice to them so the terminals have like um all the like enemy logs and stuff have have a very like objective and uh clear and like informational tone whereas then if you look at the prime santing terminals that are like very very clearly written by a person instead of being like um inform informational it's like you you can sort of you get a different vibe from that especially with like the little side notes and anecdotes and edits and stuff that you have in those and then I think especially um the what what I'll what I'll for uh spoiler reasons I'll just call Red text is particularly like strong in terms of characterization and I'm very very happy with how I how I been able to get that across and and it there's like an interesting aspect to that where I had already like these little bits and pieces of that character MH but then I sort of and then I S of didn't really have a clear picture of that character in my head in terms of their motivation and goals and stuff and so instead I had to sort of because I had all these pieces and I felt that they fit the same character so instead I had to sort of start to look at it from an audience perspective so instead of being like trying to figure out what the characters should be in as a writer I was like trying to figure out what the character is as a reader so I'm like trying to tie these things together and try to make a coherent ho of like picture of like who could have written these things and then and that sort of made it click into place of like why these things work together even though there's some aspects that seem so like almost contrary yeah yeah that's that's very cool insight and you know like I said I'm no I am the furthest thing from a lore expert with ultra kill I I just play game and shoot funny coin but yeah it's it's all that stuff is definitely things I've picked up like just that's a that's a very conscious decision um was very early on in alra kills development was that I wanted to make it sure that like even though I want to focus on the story myself um I wanted to make sure that it's in a way where if you don't really care about it you you can very easily ignore it and just play the game for the game play itself yeah for sure and it does strike that really nice balance too and and because it's like um one of one of the things I was thinking about like when I was deciding these things uh was I was thinking about like audience expectations for like FPS games and such mhm and one of the things that's very a very constant like um through lineing especially retro FPS is like nobody really cares about the story almost always their story is just like window dressing is like a basic premise or something and then it's just like ah just go shoot stuff and so that sort of got me um thinking about like okay but that means that if I want to really commit to like writing a story and stuff then worst case scenario is it sucks and then people go yeah but this yeah the story sucks but like who cares it's a retro FPS mhm so that's that that's very liberating in terms of like expectations and not not worrying about like if I'm a good writer or not yeah well I would say it's definitely not something you have to worry about in the slightest thank you cuz yeah like I'm not a lore expert but you know I read all the books and I read all the log I read all the stuff that's in there so I experience Ultra kill in its entirety and you know the very um and and of course I don't mean this in a bad way because it's a good consistent it's a very consistent package like all across the board everything's very high quality and and just a joy to experience and in my opinion thank you of course um so kind of kind of moving on um and and it's it's kind I don't know maybe not the same exact question cuz yeah but I'll just I'll just ask it um and of course we could focus on more recent content of course over the past two years um but the uh favorite thing that you've made for Ultra kill at this point I don't know it's kind of as a Creator it's difficult to like point out individual aspects that that I would be more [Music] um more partial to I guess but uh obviously in terms of the game as a whole [Music] um the probably my favorite things are like how like even though it's so mechanically focused like in terms of gameplay and stuff it still has so much room for atmospheric sections and the sort of tone and feel of it instead of just being purely mechanical and then in terms of mechanical success obviously I think it goes without saying that the Marksman revolver is like the big thing yeah like in terms of recent things my favorites have been very small things uh like whenever I look at gameplay now one of my one of the things that always sticks out to me as a thing I'm glad I did was for this update I updated how the uh explosions look so now they have um they have some improved particle effects in terms of like coloring and stuff and they have a Sprite that sort of fills out the center more so it doesn't really feel like a hollow sphere anymore and then there's a sort of scrolling texture um that's very subtle to it but that adds a little bit of emotion to it and a very small thing as well is that like for the first couple of frames of the explosions existence the explosion is like fully like blank white and then it only gets texture after a couple frames so it sort of gives it that like um initial like sort of explosiveness I guess yeah yeah yeah no for sure and like that that's kind of exactly the answer I was looking for like even if it's those little things like they're such cool things that a lot of people are not going to notice and now you pointed them out they will see it yeah and that's absolutely a result of the new process because that like the reason I started um reason I started iterating on the explosion visuals is because salad was making explosions for his game hair trigger check it out uh Twitter at real hair trigger I think I don't remember yeah just just go look it up you'll find it but um he he was working on the explosions for his game and then he was doing like that kind of texture scrolling and he did the like blank white frames the start and I was like oh that's that's really cool I should do that as well and that's like that's it's not something something I would have done if not for the fact that we were in a voice chat and he was doing doing it on his end mhm and for that for that that is it is um real hair trigger on Twitter and that's hair as in rabbit h a r e it's going to be very cool you should definitely keep track of it I'll give it a follow right now all right um yeah no that's that's super cool to hear like cuz you know of course people the general players is going to have um you know their favorite levels or fights or whatever but it's it's I don't know to me especially it's super cool hearing like oh yeah I really like the particle effects on the explosion like coming from you like it's just such an interesting little thing I love it um and then kind of going off with the uh the atmosphere like the atmosphere the game can bring like people the whole time this interview is going to be playing people are just going to be like essentially watching atmospheric shots of ultra kill because that's what I am going that's what I'm using as filler footage for the background so they'll get to see a lot of those just really cool like corridors and areas especially I'm I'm really partial partial to to layer five just cuz of I like water and just that kind of color palette in general so there's there's at least like four or five different shots of just like caves with water dropping super super comfy locations I I loveed it um thank you yeah of course um so the next few the next few questions I don't know maybe maybe not so much like negative like feelings of of things you've done but um I I think I have the okay so yeah um kind of well not maybe okay well I I missed one question here but yeah just kind of kind of how feelings have changed over time on certain things um so starting off is there anything that you know may you you kind of made it first and maybe weren't feeling it at first but over time you started to like it more and more no not really uh for me it's uh I often hear from other artists that it's like uh when they make something that initially they don't really like it but then they sort of grow once they grow distant from it that they start liking it for more but for me usually the like during during the process of making it I'll ping pong back and forth very much of like a I love it I hate it it sucks it's great but you once it's actually done uh I I usually like it start it starts at that high point of like this is the best thing I've ever done because it's the most recent thing and then it sort of uh sort of just Fades further out as as as I get better at making things that I start noticing these little little things that could have been improved mhm yeah and then uh kind of on the opposite side of that um is there anything that that over time you you feel like maybe needed you wanted to touch up a bit more or you just something about it rubbed you the wrong way that you feel the need to change um we want to do at some point when we once we get a bit more time which is I don't know when but we want to do a visual pass on at least the limbo layer cuz I feel like that could use a little facelift mhm cuz I think the Prelude looks good and I think uh lust looks fine and then everything after that uh well maybe GL n pass as well but everything after that is like I think it's good in terms of like the visual quality and such but limbo and Glutton you could use a another second PA of like um we're not going to change I'm probably not going to change the functionality of it but just like in terms of like a visual pass of like improving inconsistencies and making things look a bit more up to par to yeah what the later levels are going to be like are yeah I know one thing uh Victoria mentioned the trees when I asked her this question the first thing that came to her mind were the trees in limbo yeah because um I just made those in like Pro Builder myself so you can see why generally we have a 3D artist on the team but it's uh the trees are definitely one of those things where I think we can do it in a better way that also like just just on a visual consistency basis but also to make it in a way where it gets its idea across better cuz the idea is that those are supposed to be fake trees so we can do it in a way where when when you when you see them you can be like oh those are trees and then when you look closer you can see oh these aren't real trees interesting yeah that's cool cool yeah awesome thank you for that um I'm trying to think if I want to maybe ask this question in a slightly different way but I don't think I will um is what is is there any particular thing that's taken you the longest to finish at this P2 absolutely cuz yeah that was half a year on a single level M and it was a pretty a pretty grueling yeah oh I'm sure especially like like you said earlier it's a a pretty hard level so play testing that's uh not going to be the easiest thing in the world yeah and because my process is so dependent on that where it's like when I start the game like when I start the like the program like Unity after like at the start of a uh session I always play through it and whenever it's been a like whenever I change anything I play through it and whenever it's been a moment that I've been doing like I've been like [ __ ] browsing online or something then I play through it again to refreshing myself so there's a lot of constant playing that that's a very very big part of why ill feels as like dense as it is uh but also in in specifically in terms of P2 that was very compounding f back like um compounding factor of why it was so exhausting to work on why it took so long yeah for sure cool um yeah I mean thinking about your your process in general it makes a lot of sense why P2 would would be what took the longest cuz what it's like I think my fastest clear time on it's like five six minutes like that so playing it who knows how many times that you played through it that's a lot of time yeah and there's a lot of cases of like making things slightly easier not because I felt they were too hard but just because they made them not flow very well so just like remove a little enemy here or place this a little differently or so there's a lot of like it was even though it's already exhausting to play as is it was even more exhausting during development yeah I'm sure um I so this is a question I kind of struggle and struggling with to to word better I don't know I feel like the way I typed it out is worded fine but um you know as as layers have gone on um things have gotten more and more complex and of course everyone's in improved more and more um though is the kind of the constantly upping of complexity of the layers um completely intentional or is it more of a side effect of everyone improving and wanting to push themselves and kind of keep getting in in the kind of personal desire to go further and further with each layer that comes out it's uh it's both basically because um like I mentioned at the start of the interview uh like it's very much a something I learned during while making albums that like it's a um it's a good idea for me at least to make them chronologically so that I started the beginning and stuff because that means that there's like a constant up uphill climb instead of in Terms of quality and such uh so that was very much something that that I've learned to leaning into in terms of like it it's not like a conscious choice of like oh we we're going to make this level more complex and intricate than the previous levels but it happens naturally and then by making sure that we do things chronologically that means that it the sort of uphill climb in terms of quality and complexity is a organic process for the player as well mhm yeah awesome um cuz yeah I I I kind of did bring that up uh with others as well and they're like yeah I mean you know it helps that the as the player keeps going they're like wow this game just keeps getting better and better and um I don't remember that's also one of the one of the factors of why I don't want to go back and like um iterate too much on Old content yeah and one of the thing like for an example um uh the prelude only has two songs despite having four levels not counting the boss level MH and like occasionally I thought about like should I should I go back and make unique songs for uh 03 and 04 but if I go do that now then those songs are going to be so out of place because they would probably be a lot more intricate and like and I guess more wellmade that it would it would not only stick out in terms of like feeling like it doesn't belong but also it would make the like the upcoming things like the limbo and such would make them feel worse in comparison yeah they would be I I guess the word you could use is overproduced for for what is everything around it and that's also why I I want to be careful when we do like a second pass on some of the early visuals to make make sure that we don't do too much that it starts to feel out of place but that just like we can find a marriage of like that Simplicity with like making it a bit more fluent into like to fit with um future things yeah um all right uh so just moving on and for this question I think I definitely want to um um kind of isolate it to the last two years of work so so essentially um uh layer five and onward um but is there anything that's um majorly influence those specific layers it's a complicated uh problem because for me like what influences I think is like specifically what I was just like experiencing around that time like you can you can if when you play the game you can tell that there was a moment where I read through a house of leaves and you can isolate that period of time and like things like that where it's very there's there isn't like a specific of like I'll use this as basis for this section or whatever it's just this was what I was into at the time of leaks into it but recently um during our development sessions we have a habit of like if cuz we basically just sit in voice chat for the entire day so when we like eat and stuff we either watch Slob on YouTube like how how how many apples can you spawn in Minecraft before the game crashes or something uh or Five Nights at Freddy's uh lore dump Gage or something thing uh we either do that or we watch a show and first we went through Columbo and now we're working through the80s um Grenada Sherlock Holmes TV show uh because those are both like completely episodic yeah which means they're perfect for that kind of thing where it's like oh well Victor isn't here today but we can still continue watching because it doesn't matter what happens in this episode yeah but one of the things uh we also watched or I rewatched and solid saw for the first time was a OVA series called giant Robo The Day the Earth Stood Still oh I have a friend that talks about that nonstop for for good reason and I hadn't seen it in a very long time but watching it I was like man this like I didn't realize how much this influenced my writing not just not just specifically for Ultra kill but in terms of like also just like things that I like to focus on and in terms of like like if you were to watch it and you didn't know you probably wouldn't notice but like there's some certain themes and ideas that are sort of like parallel to what I ended up doing with ultra kill story as well mhm and that's like I had completely forgotten about how how much that story had affected me but then watching it again I was like oh oh boy that's your that's that's all these things that I thought were my ideas like evolv from a little bit of a uh oh moment there nothing to the point of like playism or anything but just like in terms of like oh this is where I got this from and this is where this is this is the point that started my journey into this like idea or theme yeah that's kind of that's like actually super cool though cuz like you know kind of kind of seeing where where you got these ideas from even if it was just so subconscious ly that you you essentially forgot about it and then just kind of had it buried in your subconscious for all this time that's super cool to hear kind of kind of shows that you know we never really know what we're influenced by yeah because it's such a especially nowadays when media is so easy to find and consume that like if you don't specifically have like a sort of database or logging system it's very easy to forget what you've even seen or experienced cool yeah no that was a that was like like like with all of these questions pretty much exactly the kind of answer I was looking for so thank you for that again um it's a good thing we it's a good thing we pre-screened this question so I had a moment to think about them yeah when you mention like uhoh hopefully there's no big long awkward pauses I was like uhoh I have a question and that might cause a big awkward bu yeah and and just in general it's like it it usually takes me a moment to not just articulate a thing but like try to remember it because sure there's just so much going on not not just with my life but in the world in general nowadays that it's like uh what what what did I do two weeks ago I don't remember oh I feel that I feel that for sure all right um so then that's that's pretty much it for the uh Ultra kill that is it for any Ultra kill related questions um the next things um are mostly uh things for people for people that want to um you know do things that you do whether that be you know the music aspect of it or the Game Dev aspect of it or are really anything or just are interested in the things you do or and want to start for themselves um this is mostly for for those people at this um so are there any uh tools or programs you would recommend no it's I I get this question a lot in yeah uh where people ask me like oh what what program do you use to make music because you know they they hear my music and they like it and they want to make music like that mhm and I could answer them but usually I don't because um the process I use is a really terrible uh process that has gotten so much baggage over 10 years that I've used it that it's like it's a Frankenstein process of using guess what I do is I use a guitar tab program to write the mides then I um process the meds in a program to give them sound fonts and then um now I now I added an additional step where I do the drums in um Easy Drummer 3 uh and then I put that all in audacity where I do additional recording and mixing and stuff so it's like you could do all that I guess or also so cursed though yeah and or you could just just pick up qbase or or app Studio or something like that and just do all that and learn the process in a single program yeah you started listing off so many things that I haven't heard of or would never want to use and yeah yeah if if anyone has a incredibly cursed process like mine I can recommend synth phone 2 as being an amazing piece of software for an incredibly Niche purpose that nobody uses anymore but I I had a funny thing um recently when I was doing the music for layer 7even where um I had a bug with the software and I and I sent an email to the guy who who's making who's uh updating the program and stuff and it it's been around like 10 years or something now and I sent him an email like hey I have this bug do you have any ideas of what what that might be about and then he was like oh I'll I'll take a look at it and then I went to sleep and by the time I work woke up it was like hey here's the here's a version of the program with the bug fixed I I remember you posting that on Twitter and you're like wow this is this is great yeah the what I call like old head programmers are just built different yeah like those are the those are the people who who who the modern society has has is built on yeah seriously and half of them are FES it's just the way it's just the way it goes sometimes all right um yeah one one thing I can say just real quickly about tools and programs and such is um especially when it comes to making music but honestly anything is nowadays everything is so easy to pick up and easy to use that it really doesn't matter which program you use cuz like as proof of that like the music that I make has such a cursed process but it's still like generally considered pretty good music I think so it's like the program isn't what what makes it good it's just that your skills uh make it good so you can use absolutely any kind of process like like um I forget the guy's name but there was this Japanese electronic music composer who um didn't have uh any like electronic devices when he started making it so instead instead of having like syns and drum machines and stuff he would just use a microphone to record sounds and then would use those sounds to make the music so it would be like it would go out in nature and like knock on trees and stuff and that would be the kick drum it's like if it works it works you can yeah and it gives it such a unique interesting flavor of like organic um feeling and it's like because of that weird process like the end result is so unique and interesting that that just in general like you it's really you can do amazing things with any kind of piece of [ __ ] garbage so just Google like good music making programs or good G game development engines or whatever and just look up videos on what those programs look like and how they work and then from those pick up the one that seems most appealing to you and just get started because the most important thing is just that you do something and not trying to over prepare for things thank you and that you kind of kind of covered the next question too I mean maybe not so much a question if you want to add anything on uh do you have any uh parting words or advice for everyone listening I have like a billion zillion things I want to say to people uh who are getting into game development but I think uh two of the really important things that I use as my sort of go-to when people ask is um number one is fun isn't an automatic thing fun is a thing that you have to design into a game so just because a game is cool doesn't necessarily mean it's going to be fun and you have to actually put that in the process of making a game that you have to figure out how can I make this fun how is this fun like what what it even means for a game to be fun how a game is fun those are things that you have to consciously do and put in and the other main thing is a problem I see very often with independent developers who are starting off is they leave the sound for later and you should never don't ever leave the sound for later when you add a mechanic that's going to use a sound you do the sound right now because that is such an important factor of how it informs how the mechanic feels and how it should feel that you really need to do it as soon as possible like even honestly I would say the sound of a thing is more important than the visuals of the thing so those are the two things that I usually go to in terms of advice is make sure you know that you make sure that you're consciously putting in the effort to make something fun instead of it just being interesting or cool and make sure that you do sound as soon as possible whenever possible awesome yeah great advice great super great advice um and if for people if who don't know where to go for sound stuff there's the GDC sound effect packs that are free uh you can use those sound effects and you'll probably know you when you start digging into them you'll probably hear a lot of very familiar sound effects there because most of ultra kill sounds come from those and I just did Ed them somewhat sometimes barely even rather editing them because they're just solid as is and then obviously there's like free sound.com but when you use that I think it's maybe it's.org but when you use that you have to make sure that you whenever you search for a sound you have to make sure that you either either do creative common zero which is public domain which is you can use the sound however you want whenever you want you don't need to createit any one or creatives common 3 which is basically the same except you have to credit the um person who made the sound so you have to think and keep those things in mind when you use other people's sound effects all right and it is a freesound.org okay for anyone wondering yeah um all right that that really wraps up all of our Quest all of all of my questions um for this this year's interview uh where can uh where where can people people follow you or Ultra kill whatever whatever you want to say um uh well I'm on YouTube uh Haka I have gotten verified and stuff now so it should be easy to find and that's a very easy safe place to like cuz every everyone has a [ __ ] YouTube account so you easy way to subscribe and then that'll keep you up to date on both my music and my game development uh if you want terrible lowquality posts and fumo and JPEG and if you use the for you page then a lot of gay [ __ ] uh you can follow hakita Dev on Twitter or rex or whatever the [ __ ] you call it now or two weeks from now uh or Ultra game if you just want to hear updates about skill specifically and I'm also on band camp as Heaven Pierce her so that's Heaven Pierce her. bandcamp.com and you can also follow there if you want like emails whenever I release a new piece of music but I think those are sort of the primary primary places to follow awesome thank you thank you so much for for for everything again this year um well thank you thank you and especially thank you for doing this amazing charity event again oh yeah of course donate to charity donate to charity yeah donate to gay people again yeah um but yeah thank you thank you so much um you know it means a lot to me of course that to have all of you uh participate and just to get your voices out there and you know really really to the best of my ability show that it's not John New Blood making this game and that there's a whole whole big group of people working on it and it's not just me making the game that's that especially like there's it's it's a it's a nice big team of people and I'm really glad I can well not very big but definitely a team of people yeah true not super big but it's not you know I I want everyone to to to have [Music] their I don't know the words I'm looking for I want everyone to know that who's working on this game cuz you know it's a great game tons of people enjoy it and I want everyone remember to check out the credits credits Museum in alj too see more of like who who did what and sort of get individual messages from people yeah but that should be it for this interview thank you again so much Hita for all of it and let's get back to the charity event wow

Channel: ULTRASWERVE

Views: 54,598

Keywords: ultrakill, video games, videogames, speedrun

Id: X78f7g6RZac

Length: 72min 54sec (4374 seconds)

Published: Sat Jan 06 2024