Some of us succumb to copying the habits of friends by playing the same games or watching the same TV show. Harvey Smith is another developer giving in to a different pressure.
Harvey Smith, developer of a full range of games, from Deus Ex to Blacksite 51 is another developer not terribly in love with long development cycles.
So he made a game in four months. An iPhone game of course. It's called Karma Star, which took a team of five four months to make.
He made an iPhone game, as he told G4TV's Patrick Klepek, because that's what developers do...
"I have so many friends now that have shipped apps or games, where they're just like 'dude, download my app, I made it in three months,'" he said. "So I go check it out and I'm like 'it's interesting' and instead of being a team of 100, I know my friend so-and-so made this and then he moved onto something else. That's cool. And, really, if you're a game developer, you spend X number of years before you go insane and burn out, right? I've been doing this for over 15 years now, which even saying that number to me sounds…it's like, really? It's like when you hear two of your friends have been married for twenty years and you're like, what? No way. That's what it feels like a little bit."
Smith has always been a great guy to talk to about game design. Whatever he's working on at Arkane — he won't tell interviewer Klepek — he's into it. But he's also the latest developer to try the trend of the year.
Harvey Smith made an iPhone game. Who isn't?
Plenty more interesting stuff from Smith in the full story.
Harvey Smith Explains Why Every Developer Should Make An iPhone Game [G4tv.com]