Paul Greasley’s personal projects have consistently been thrust into the spotlight, due to placing and winning competitions with My First Skydiving Academy, Edmund (which also created some expected controversy) and Under the Garden. You might assume that a game developer with this much talent would be hitting home runs with his commercial projects. It’s easy to make false assumptions.

Age?



I’m 27.



Location?

New Zealand and Australia.



Development tool(s) of choice?



Flash if possible.



What do you do?

Well I guess I make indie games.



How did you become interested and get involved in game development?

Long story short, my family didn’t have a computer and I didn’t really get into the programming / digital art / music thing until my teens, though all my friends had consoles and the like, which sort of spiked my interest in making computer games.



What are your goals and aspirations as a game developer? What does game development mean to you?



I’m not sure what game development means to me. The truth is I’m not good at anything much but this. I think my goals are the same as most game developers: I want to make awesome games / experiences for people.



You made a little game for the TIGSource Adult / Educational Comp called Edmund, which subsequently won. Tell me a little bit about where the initial spark came from and what you were trying to get across to the player with the game?



Even to this day when I get asked, this is actually a really hard question for me to answer (why make a game about a rapist?) It’s a personal question that I’ve never been quite comfortable answering in such an open way. The spark sort of stems from the lifestyle I was living at the time (calling it self destructive might have been about right). Drugs, alcohol, really cheap whores, and when your living this for months on end, day to day you start to run into people that have experienced things that make Edmund’s content seem rather insignificant. In particular a girl I knew back then was the particular “spark”, although not the only one. I really wanted to make the whole experience very confronting, and communicate the mental good / evil struggle that happens in Edmund’s / Michael’s mind every time he commits an act of rape, in a sort of way to humanize such a horrible character in the bounds of the game.

How did you feel during its development? Was it hard game to complete?



Well to be honest, I didn’t really care much (didn’t really matter if I finished it or not). I just needed to channel my negativity in a positive way… if that makes any sense. Every hour I was making Edmund was an hour I wasn’t out hammered or fucking up my life. I didn’t even have internet at my unit at the time.

Were you nervous about how people would react to it?

I wasn’t really thinking what people on the internet thought about it.



It was pretty obvious there was going to be some knee-jerk negative reaction to it (probably even more so, since it was thrust into the spotlight by winning the competition). There are people that think you were just trying to be controversial for the sake of controversy. What was your response to that at the time?



I think people are free to think what they want about it.

Did Edmund ultimately help you get out of the self destructive stage of your life?

Making games in general did that. It’s a nice break away from real life.

Do you think enough people ‘got’ what you were trying to get across with Edmund to make it a worthwhile experience for you?

I think some people did, some people didn’t. I was expecting that though. It’s not a big issue to me what other people thought. Every game I make is a worthwhile experience. For now they are all just stepping stones to getting better at making games.

There seems to be a lot of resistance from a large portion of gamers with games that tackle serious subject matter. Do you think this is slowly changing?



There is no reason games can’t tackle serious subject matter, although if it ever reaches the mainstream is another thing entirely.



You won a couple of TIGSource competitions (with Edmund and Under the Garden) and placed second (with My First Skydiving Academy) in another. These are voted on by many people. Are you a competitive person? Has winning and placing in these increased your confidence as a game developer?



I don’t think I’m a competitive person, although I’m definitely feeling like I’m doing the right thing with my life. Although it’s flattering to think that people like what I make, it’s not the reason I make it. I mostly make games for mostly selfish reasons sadly…

What sort of selfish reasons?

Well, sometimes it’s personal curiosity that drives me to make things. Other times making games just serves as a distraction from what’s happening in my life, although more recently it’s because I’m broke…

Do you think that winning competitions is an important step in making a name for yourself? Did it have any effect on you in terms of job offers or other developers offering to work alongside you on projects?

Not so much, but it was a great first step to showing other people that I can finish small projects. I guess it all helps in the long run.

So are you successfully making a comfortable living from the indie thing?



Well I don’t think comfortable would be the right word. I’ve been hammering away over at Big Block Games for some time now and with some success, but it’s far from a comfortable living. I sold almost everything I owned before we started to fund the venture, and have been living very bare-bones ever since (don’t own a bed or a TV or anything extravagant). It’s just about making a hit game that will pay the rent. For now that’s my focus.

Does this situation create a lot of pressure? Does it increase or decrease your motivational levels, as far as game development is concerned?

I’ve never really had a problem with motivation, especially when it comes to making games, although it definitely limits the options of the sort of games I could be making. More often than not I’ll take the safer of the choices on game concepts because making money becomes more important than trying to do something different.

What lessons have you learnt, regarding game development and finishing off projects, in your time spent so far?