Developer Spotlight: Tom Kitchen, Blind Sky Studios

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Somewhere - here in the UK - there is a small development studio fuelled entirely on coffee where three chaps are currently working on a melancholy and beautiful game called { adam }.

Blind Sky Studios are fairly fresh on the scene but a full version of their debut title - Biolith - is on the way to iOS and Android devices, while development for their new project. { adam }, is currently underway. Today, we’re chatting to Tom Kitchen, artist at Blind Sky Studios to learn about what his work entails.

Tom is a fine art graduate with a deep love for visual communication and “sharing what it means to be human through the abstract and limitless world of video games.”


What does your work with Blind Sky Studios entail?

I take care of the art and design side of things at Blind Sky Studios, as well as some music and sound. We tend to develop ideas and concepts collaboratively as a team, then split off. I can be developing the visual style while our programmer locks in core mechanics. Then, it’s just a case of implementing assets while refining final gameplay.

What was it that drove you to game development?

Well, my background is in fine art, illustration, design, web development… stuff like that. But the work I was doing was very fragmented. It finally clicked that video game development brought all those separate aspects together; art, design, programming, as well as the music I was making on the side. All these different disciplines fitting together organically to produce a solid product.

As well as this, video games have been a constant in my life; I grew up with them and became an adult with them. This indie renaissance we find ourselves in right now is a testimony to how capable a medium games are for expression and communication, on a very human level.

What has been your favourite project to work on; personal or professional?

[This question was answered by both Tom and Blind Sky Studio’s programmer, Lee Russell, whose interview is coming next week.]

We’re pretty new to this as a team, so we’ve not worked on many projects yet but so far it’s all been a blast! Biolith was our debut project, so that was great to really learn the trade, every day was something new, you know? Poking our heads into our local game dev community and finding such a wealth of creative and inspiring people has been incredible!

But with the full version of Biolith on the cusp of being released we’ve begun work on our next project, { adam }. This is a very exciting project for us, we’ve created an art style I’m very happy with and I’ve just begun to work our story into the game world.

Writing on this scale and for a video game is brand new to me and I’m really enjoying being out of my depth. I can’t wait to show people what we’ve been working on!

What hardware/software do you usually use?

All the Adobes for visual stuff, Blender for 3D, Ableton Live as well as other bits and bobs for music/sound. Of course, Unity is our engine of choice for putting it all together.

What misconceptions do people have about your job?

That it’s easy. In the fallout of things like Indie Game: The Movie, you have people assuming that you and your buddy can bash out a game and be millionaires. But nothing is that simple. It’s a long hard slog. You’ve gotta earn your stripes. Nothing happens by accident and luck has nothing to do with it!

What do you love most about your work?

Seeing people play our games is the best! The indie game community has been flourishing over the past few years with some incredible work coming out; it’s awesome to be a part of that community and to give back to it as well!

Do you have any advice for budding game developers?

Don’t lose momentum on projects. Live and breathe what you do, play the games you work on, have your friends play them, talk about your games to anyone who will listen. I guess the most important thing is never forget why you started making games; there will come times where you’ll have nothing apart from your own passion to carry you through development. It’s important not to lose that passion!

If you could’ve worked on any game in the past, what feature would you have added?

Oh there’re so many games I would have loved to be involved with! But in most of those instances the games that come to mind were already perfect! Kula World, Shadow of the Colossus, Abe’s Oddysee. I could go on all day long. When I try to think of games that were just shy of perfect, one of the first that comes to mind is Silent Hill 4: The Room.

That game did a lot right, some of the most interesting level and creature design I’d seen from the series. It also diverted from the series in a refreshing way here and there! But oh that inventory system, what a nightmare!

Add to that the awkward escort missions, all those ghosts filling out rooms and over-egging the tone, Walter Sullivan with his not so subtle chainsaw, repeating all the levels. Not to mention unforgivable use of very stock sound effects! It would be great to go back in time to cut at least one or two of those foibles!

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