The Indie Scene returns in a special way. Instead of hitting some I indie games (that will be coming up next time), I’m instead going to give you the highlights from my recent interview with a few of the guys behind The Odd Gentlemen, the development team behind the upcoming and deliciously titled The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom.
The Odd Gentlemen Creative Director and Lead Designer Matt Korba (top), and Producer (and sometimes janitor) Paul Bellezza took some time to talk to me about the rise of their student project at the University of Southern California’s Interactive Media MFA program to an upcoming Xbox Live Arcade game from 2K (due in early 2010).
The game, which focuses on the titular P.B. Winterbottom, follows his time-warping and clone-utilizing adventures as he hunts down pie.
Korba and Bellezza dish on what’s the deal with Winterbottom’s pie obsession, who would win in a leading-puzzle-character showdown, what’s the best part of a chicken, and the influence of Back to the Future II. With all that in mind, let’s get this talk rolling.
Bitmob: First off, what’s with the obsession with pies?
Paul Bellezza: Well, pie is one of the most delicious pastries that the world knows, and we love it.
Matt Korba: I mean, pie is delicious. Who doesn’t love pie?
PB: When we were first trying to figure out what P.B. Winterbottom’s motivation was, we were delirious and we were getting this presentation ready to present at school about the game. We were like, “I like pie.” We were going to start the presentation off with “90 percent of Americans love pie. It’s a fact.” And we were like, “Winterbottom loves pie, too.”
MK: Basically, we wanted the motivation to be really simple, so we looked at a lot of Pixar shorts and the scratch shorts Blue Sky does. We wanted to give Winterbottom something that you can constantly know that was your goal, constantly chase after, and anything else we threw at you constantly got in the way of you getting your ultimate goal — that’s kind of why we chose pie since it’s simple.
On one level there’s a lot of meaning behind it, but on the other level it’s just delicious pie.
Bitmob: Keeping on the food theme for a bit, everything I read about you guys mentions that you have an office above a fried-chicken restaurant. So what I want to know from each of you is, what is the best part of the chicken?
MK: Well right now, we’re basically not fans of chicken at all because of the restaurant downstairs. [Laughs] It’s a wing stop — they fry all their chicken.
At the end of the month when milestones are due and everyone’s stressed out and trying to get all the content in, suddenly this mysterious chicken sewery smell starts creeping in the office, so we have to call down there and yell at them and have them try to — whatever it is they do down there — unclog their pipes or drain their oil. So it’s really hard, at this point in my life, to talk about my love for chicken.
But usually I like the legs.
PB: I’m a breast man myself.
Bitmob: When shopping the game to developers, what were some of the oddball requests you received?
MK: We got a lot of weird stuff. When we took it around, everyone was really interested in it. Everyone really liked the idea. But some people thought it might sell better if it had space marines in it, or if it was in color…
PB: …If he could run through other movies, like, he would start in the silent film era and work his way through the ’50s and eventually Jurassic Park. [Laughs]
MK: There’s also: “He should talk, Winterbottom should really have a voice,” which was just ridiculous because it’s a silent film.
Bitmob: Were any of those ideas inspiring to you? The one going through different movies sounds like it has some merit.
MK: Yeah, maybe. But we just didn’t want to get in a position where we were basically throwing him into licensed content.
PB: We want it to be his world. Not running through Total Recall or something.
Bitmob: That wouldn’t be so bad.
[Laughs]
PB: That would be interesting, for sure, but we wanted to start with his world first.
MK: And I can’t remember if we actually got this, but some people wanted us to take out the character and put their own licensed character in the game. Like with the same mechanics but their licensed content.
Bitmob: Right, so they’d actually attach it to a good game instead of some crappy, generic platformer.
MK: Yeah, exactly. But we set out to make the game we had in our minds and our prototypes. Luckily, we stuck by our guns and ended up in a position where we were going to be able to do that.
PB: And 2K was very much like, “We’re not going to change anything. We just want to work with you.” And that was good.
Bitmob: OK, speaking of that character, P.B. Winterbottom seems like quite a nice guy, a dapper fellow, but I have to wonder: Who’d win in a showdown of puzzle-game leading men, among P.B. Winterbottom, Tim (that dandy fellow from Braid), or good ol’ Professor Layton?
MK: Is this showdown for pie? Because then we all know the answer.
Bitmob: No, it’s not for pie, amazingly.
MK: Winterbottom’s got an umbrella, which he’s pretty handy with. He can be pretty dastardly with that. And also he’s a very motivated dude. If you give him a goal, he’s pretty blindsided. He’s going to achieve that no matter what’s in his way.
Bitmob: Yeah, but Prof. Layton can solve puzzles. What more do you need?
PB: Yeah, but he can’t swing an umbrella and knock the shit out of your ass!
MK: Winterbottom solves some pretty ridiculous puzzles as well, and he uses himself for everything. Winterbottom can also clone himself, and smack himself around, and launch his clones at Prof. Layton.
Bitmob: So he could just overwhelm them with many many clones? It would be like attack of the clones?
MK: Yeah, I mean I wouldn’t want 20 smacking Winterbottoms coming after me, with a thirst for blood or pie or whatever.
PB: Yeah, exactly. If you change his motivation to murder, that’s bad. [Laughs]
Bitmob: You’re winning an awful lot of awards before your game even comes out (Independent Games Festival Student Showcase winner, lots of E3 awards, etc.). That’s so not the indie way… What do you think of that? What happened to starting at the bottom and working your way up?
MK: Well, we did [work our way up], and I think with all the festivals now you’re seeing more and more of this. Braid, for example, had won at GDC. Fez has won an award. You submit them to these festivals, which are meant for independent games, and then you get awards or you don’t get awards.
I think the thing that’s different with us…is we were lucky enough to be placed at E3 two years ago through Indiecade and surprisingly we were getting nominated for these awards that huge games were getting nominated for, like Spore and Prince of Persia. … And us, being a little student Flash game, to even compete with these guys was an honor and just sort of ridiculous.
But I think that you’ll see more and more indies going down this path, and I’ve seen it already.
Bitmob: Was it getting this recognition that got publishers interested in you?
MK: It definitely helped. We were in talks even before going to the IGF, because we had shown it around at school and had garnered up some interest, but I think the more attention and the more merit you get, obviously more and more publishers kind of raise an eyebrow, “What’s this? What’s going on over here?”
A lot of publishers too, at the time we were going around, weren’t in the Xbox Live space yet, or they didn’t really know what to do with us because these guys are students. There wasn’t exactly a roadmap laid out, and I think it’s happening more and more, and publishers are getting more used to the idea of, “Hey, let’s give these guys this shot. We’re not going to give them $20 million to make the next Halo, but let’s set them up, see what they can do, and see how we can grow them.”
Bitmob: Do you feel there’s a point where getting this funding from a publisher somehow change the definition? Is it no longer an indie game at that point? Is there a distinction there in the indie game scene?
MK: There’s always a huge argument as to what “independent” means. I try to stay out of it. Some people think independent means any creative idea, that Katamari’s an independent game. Other people think it means you had to make the game in a basement with one person. Some other definition is like, we’re an independent company because 2K doesn’t own us; we could do whatever we want.
So we try not to worry about that and just try to make a great game, keep our independent values, do what we want to do, and try to break out of the mold and not make games already out there.
Bitmob: You’ve said Back to the Future II is an influence on this game, so what I want to know is, if you could go back in time, what would you do?
PB: That’s a loaded question.
MK: Well the first thing I would do is probably get the lotto numbers.
Bitmob: Ah, smart man. I was wondering if one of you would say that.
MK: I would want to hit on every girl who I didn’t…and see how that went. Or just be a jerk, you know, because I could just erase everything.
PB: I was gonna say something lame, like “Wow, wouldn’t it have been really cool if I had gotten a minor in literature? That would have been nice.” [Laughs]
Or, there’s one moment in particular in high school that I remember. I was about to ask this girl out that I had been wanting to ask out for weeks. I had finally mustered up the courage, and a friend of mine — at the moment I was going to ask her out — said, “Hey, dude, I need Duke Nukem codes. What’s the cheats?” and totally blew my chances with the girl.
I blew my own chances because I gave up, and I stopped playing videogames for three years because I was so buggered about it. Then I picked it up again — this was the end of high school and I started again in college. But [with that power] I would not care and just brush that off, say whatever, and play it cool. So that’s just one example.
Bitmob: That’s deep.
MK: That belongs on a 20/20 special.
PB: I would just have kept playing video games. Why did I have to stop for three years? I missed the N64. That was bad.
Bitmob: Right. The staple of any college dorm
PB: Yeah, that’s my biggest regret: missing N64.
Bitmob: Was there anything else you guys wanted to say about the game?
MK: We’re just lucky to have the opportunity and look forward to making other weird experiences.
PB: Yeah, when you look at it every day, I’m just so grateful that we were able to [do this]. We never really anticipated doing anything else than just making a cool game. Just holding onto that idea and being passionate about it has gotten us this far, and that’s really cool.
I forget it a lot because it’s hard work. It’s not easy doing game development. I’ve learned to appreciate it so much more. And every day you just take a step back and say, “Wow, I have the best job in the world and I should just be thankful.”