While I’ve got 2 passion project games I’ve been working on forever, I DID actually finish a game once upon a time… for Carbon Black!
I think a lot of people had fun playing with it at RSA Conference in 2018. I think… well, I hope.
Eh, who cares: it was really fun to make!
Anyway, I had a fantastic opportunity afforded to me by Catalyst Exhibits (where I Creative direct as a day-job), where I was able to apply years of working on Unreal Engine to building out a small playable game called “Carbon Fighter”… a two-player fighting game that was supposed to be 95% fun, and maybe 5% informative or educational.
Really, the goal of it was to be a marketing tool. Grab attendees attention fast with loud noises and explosive fighting action and maybe they’ll stick around for a bit to win a T-shirt and then EVENTUALLY listen to what the company offers in terms of tech and security solutions. Carbon Black was recently aquired by VMWare to the tune of a few billion (yep, I said billion) dollars, and while I know it’s a bold statement to make, I HAVE TO ASSUME the aquisition was MOSTLY due to my game-dev skills. ;)
The game was actually cranked out in a ridiculously small time frame too. From general concept to working version on the Showhall floor, it was about 10 weeks. Which is completely crazy. Luckily I had the help of an Unreal Blueprint genius, Michaell Backalars of Sprout Concepts (a local creative team I’ve known for a while) as I couldn’t have done it without him. But still… 0 weeks to build out even a simple game is nutzo.
The finished product though turned out pretty nicely, and it incorporated a lot of back and forth with the client to make sure that it was “feeling right” as we went along, and brought some of their key market-values to light in subtle but fun ways. Characters and level-environments were named after product features or at least hinted at them, and the game always emphasized a simple, recognizable concept: the battle between the hackers and the security-professionals is never ending.
How it sort of started… a screen grab from the original simple demo shown to Carbon Black, before we worked out style and characters it was a bit more cartoony.
HexBot. One of the “good guys” the player can select. A mish-mash of kit-bashed parts and pieces.
Which is why the idea of a “fighting game” made such an incredible amount of sense for this particular client. It checked a ton of boxes off:
1: The client wanted an exciting game that would draw people to their space fast
2: This genre of games is ULTRA accessible. Basically everyone has been to an arcade, and really fighting games are all about button-smashing anyway… you don’t necessarily need to have skills to have fun!
3: Head-to-head competition and leader-boards make it something you can enjoy playing with fellow employees you’re traveling with, OR you can easily meet new people you never would have talked to before!
4: It made people loosen up. There’s nothing worse than smashing attendees over the head with marketing jargon and overly-pushy sales techniques. You have to make people feel comfortable!
All this said, I think the thing was a success. It sort of gave two faces to the Carbon Black exhibit, and a tn of people were lighting up Twitter about it.
Most of all, I can’t thank the guys running Catalyst enough… not just for believing in me that I oculd pull it off, but that they dedicated a CD’s time to building and amazing experience. That was really cool of them. Can’t thank them enough!
