Ghost of Yotei animator Jean Nguyen says Sony studio Sucker Punch was "very supportive" of him making his own game, the hit Steam release Dinoblade, at a time when "most game studios don't let you do that."
Dinoblade, a dinosaur action RPG, is the work of Nguyen and a few supporters, including his own brother. Nguyen still works at Sucker Punch – and he still really likes working there – so it was a little surprising that he was allowed to make his own game at all.
"I had to go through legal, just make sure that I got approval to work on my side project. And I still own the IP 100%," Nguyen tells me. "They're very supportive, and they have supported other employees before. It's a really good position I was in, because most game studios don't let you do that. So I was very lucky to be there and to have Sucker Punch's support."
Just this week, Game Developer published a report on how side work clauses in game dev contracts, which restrict or prohibit what projects employees are allowed to make on their own time, can create "undue burden" on devs and deny them creative outlets that often lead to better performance in their main job.
"As long as I'm doing well and you can see that I'm not slacking off on the quality of work," Nguyen says Sucker Punch doesn't mind at all.
In his case, learning to make a whole game largely on his own was a big shift that taught him a lot about game dev, even after years in the industry. He started with animation work in mobile games at Glu Mobile, later working on some bizarre Britney Spears and Nicki Minaj games, and eventually went to larger studios before winding up at Sucker Punch about three years ago.
"With a big studio, it's important to work with the team, to have everyone come together and have a vision," he explains. But as an indie, he was suddenly flooded with freedom.
"I don't have to do a lot of meetings with people," he continues. "I kind of just go in and do what I want. I have the vision myself. I get to go as unique or crazy as I want without worrying about what my teammate thinks, so I get to try new things and unique things that are more risky that could have a good reward.
"And that's important because it's a way to differentiate Dinoblade from AAA games. What can I do to have players want to play my game when it's, like, low quality? What's unique about it? They could play a high-polish AAA game, so I'm trying out risky stuff, anything I could think of that's fun that I could put in the game. I get that freedom."
Shifting from an animation focus to an everything focus meant, you guessed it, watching a bunch of Unreal Engine tutorials. Over roughly three years, putting in 5 to 15 hours a week, Nguyen slowly cobbled together a real, breathing game based on the viral sword-wielding spinosaurus animation demo that not only put a lot of eyes on the project, but also pushed Nguyen to make this game at all.
The maker of Combat Fury, an Unreal Engine combat system framework, was hugely helpful early on, Nguyen says. He also hired contractors to make models for some of Dinoblade's key story bosses so they'd stand out from the ready-made assets available on the Unreal shop, and he commissioned some music to round things out. But the majority of the work boiled down to his nights and weekends, with some animation and QA help from his brother.
With 83,000 copies sold in a week and a 90% positive score across 1,700 Steam user reviews, Dinoblade is a certified success. Encouraged by its launch, Nguyen plans to continue supporting the game. He says he'll also consider a direct sequel or indirect follow-up once things have calmed down a bit.
"Maybe in the future there's potential that I would like to start my own studio, go full-time on it," he explains. "I want to dream big. I enjoy seeing people play my game. It's really rewarding, so I just want to keep doing that. But it's more of a hobby to me than a career, I would say."
