|
The Making of Kelman to the Rescue
Compared to playstation, xbox or full blown PC games, making an
online game is a nimble affair.
The costs are much lower, which means it's easier for one person,
or a small group to have an idea and make it, without needing the
millions of dollars that are spent making a console game.
Kelman to the Rescue is the twisted brain child of a fella
called Nathan Jurevicius, with programming by Ash Ringrose. The
character voices are by Dylan Lewis (ex ABC-TV's Recovery) and the
music is by Spiderbait.
Where the idea came from:
From the desk of Nathan:
The character of Kelman came first, before I decided I wanted to
do a game. I always look at little sketches or characters I've done
for other illustrations and think that some of the characters would
be great as a main character for a story or animation.
The face and concept of the bugs came from an editorial illustration
I did to accompany an article for Computer Arts in the UK (above,
click the image for a bigger version). I was always wanting to develop
the image into something else. The wheelchair bit was a thought
that came later; why was he on a bug/how did he get so small.
I also wanted Kelman to be as sad as possible...the contrast from
skater to being wheelbound was as sad as I could think at the time.
The rest of the ideas usually come while sketching...sometimes I
don't have any preconceived ideas...they come out of little shapes
and scribbles on paper.
Coming up with the GamePlay:
Most of the movement in the games and the scoring is made by
programmers. In the case of Kelman the code is cut by Ash Ringrose.
Nathan:
Ash is a cool guy who's always keen to try something on a game.
He has lots of good ideas. We work via email mostly - luckily we
both have cable/isdn so sending files is pretty easy.
Both of us come up with the game ideas. Sometimes we have a little
concept and Ash will suggest going in a certain direction. I tend
to ask for a lot but have no idea if it's technically possible.
Combining the character sketches and the gaming:
Nathan:
All the sketches are scanned into illustrator and worked up in vector
format. When these are finished I export them as swf's and import
them into flash.
I create little movieclips for Ash (though he usually fixes them
up for me) and also send him backgrounds. Then Ash works his magic
- initally he sends me a dummy game with rough graphics just to
see the game play.
Once we're happy with the direction Ash puts in the finished art
and then tweaks things to fit.
The story-telling scenes:
Nathan:
The cut scenes are worked out before hand. This constricted the
games slightly as they had to fit in with how the flow of the story
went (e.g - we couldn't have Kelman wearing grasshopper legs in
the cut scene but have him flying in the game that would follow).
The Music:
Nathan:
Contrary to popular belief I didn't choose spiderbait because I
was doing a game about bugs. I wanted to find a Melbourne based
band that would suit the feel of the animation and games. The
full story and spiderbait photos »
The Character Voices:
Nathan:
Dylan Lewis helped me out a lot by doing all the voices. We recorded
them all in less than 2 hours at the ABC studio. His range of personalities
was brilliant (especially the bug guru which he made by pulling
his cheeks apart and doing a sort of starwarsy alien).
I brought my 3 year old son into see him perform and all he can
do is talk
about how he saw Dylan do bug voices and that he's funny.
See those zany faces »
By Nathan Jurevicius & Ash Ringrose, Music by Spiderbait (geddit?)
 |
