Sean Murray I had a cat with three legs when I was growing up. I’m not quite sure how it was removed in the first place, but Tripsy never really understood her limb was gone. She would still try to catch flies and give a confused look of longing at where her other paw should be. Around this time last year, Ryan, our Technical Guru, developed the same look, staring longingly at where his development kit should be. He admitted later that he’d been compiling a 360 version in his spare time, but he never was able to check whether it actually worked. All he wanted for Christmas was a development kit.
To develop a 360 or PS3 game you need a licence, which gives you access to the super secret development gadgetry. To get that you need to be a 'reputable' developer, part of which is having console experience, which you can’t get without a dev kit, for which you need a licence... and so on.
We’d applied to be a licensee six months earlier and constantly pestered contacts by phone and email, but things moved slowly. Other developers tell me our predicament isn’t uncommon, and download games like ours have suddenly led to many similar small developers needing approval. One experienced friend offered a couple of pieces of advice. Firstly try to meet the account managers in person and second try to play Sony off against Microsoft.
We weren't exactly in a place to do the latter, but I’d been trying for months to arrange the former. Account managers are extremely busy and overworked people and we’d already had three months of last minute cancellations and missed opportunities when I flew to Game Connection Lyon last November to try to ambush them.
We met with Microsoft first and they were actually very understanding and helpful, but could make no promises. Sony's meeting had similar results. Then as we were finishing up, rather than my own, I accidentally handed Sony's representative Microsoft’s business card from the last meeting. We laughed it off awkwardly, but it felt like it made them take us more seriously. It at least gave us the opportunity to sit back down again and talk further. Two weeks later, our dev kit was ordered.
With a PS3 kit on the way, we suddenly had to decide. Were we making a Sony game, or a Microsoft one? Because until then, we'd been working on PC, waiting to see what happened. We knew we couldn't afford to do both: it can take thousands of hours to port a game to console. Besides, we probably wouldn’t be allowed to. People assume that exclusivity deals are done for huge wads of cash, and I guess for the big boys they are, but the harsh reality for a small indie like us is it’s often a necessity of getting approval.
When I was a kid, I was a total Sony fan. PlayStation took me through uni and I queued all night to get a launch PS2. When you become a developer, you leave that behind, or rather, develop a new set of favouritisms. Console development is hard. It takes talent and experience. Sony development in particular is a killing ground. It’s where programmers come to prove their manhood – you normally spend your first week just getting the kit to switch on. Unforgiving and brutal, but deeply satisfying.
We argued for days before deciding we have to play it safe and port to the easier 360 – if we could get one. When the PS3 arrived, we should let it sit unopened for a while.
So when I got an email from our account manager saying he has the PS3 ready for delivery the following day, I shouldn’t have been excited. I certainly shouldn’t have arranged to drive to his house to pick it up at gone midnight. But then, I’m that guy who queued all night for the PS2 launch.
I texted the team that night from the office with a picture of me looking like a kid at Christmas, surrounded by boxing and cabling and hugging the kit. I was just turning it on when Ryan arrived. He just wanted to see, you know, if he could get it compiling. David arrived an hour later, having driven in from London. Grant came in on his way home from the pub. He thought we might need a cup of tea.
By the next morning there was very basic wireframe PS3 version of Joe Danger, totally playable, physics, audio, controls and three very proud coders sharing their machine. Grant took a photo of us looking delirious and in a moment of uncontrolled excitement I emailed it to Microsoft with the subject, “Wish you were here!” Then instantly tried and failed to recall it. We stumbled out into the light of the next morning to our nearest greasy cafe for a huge fry up. While we were eating I got a call – we could get a 360 kit by the end of the week.
It arrived on a Friday. But having done a few all-nighters, we took the weekend off. And yet on the following Monday, Ryan was uncharacteristically giddy. Of course he started on the 360 version without us.
For us, choosing a platform isn't a logical decision. It isn't even one borne out of love for a particular console. We doubt we’ll be able to bring both versions out, but not using these kits is like asking kids not to play with their toys at Christmas.
Hello Games contributes a fortnightly column to Edge and is a small, new independent game developer based in southern England. Its first game, Joe Danger, aimed at XBLA, PSN and PC, will be released just as soon as it feels right. Let’s say spring next year.