spqx

saving her the trouble of answering this one -- crazy eyes / suzanne is a great and surprisingly interesting character that I hope sees further development, but as far as anyone can tell she is not based on anyone from the memoir. You'd have to ask the showrunners, then, what the inspiration was for her character.

Do you worry that Chapman is a bit dumbed-down or irresponsible compared to yourself? I get that the show writers need to create engaging scenarios for the camera, but there are a lot of decisions that "book Piper" not only didn't make, but I get the feeling wouldn't have made under similar circumstances.

Would you rather see her take a more responsible and less confrontational line, or do you think that "show Piper" makes for better television, despite her deeply exaggerated flaws?

Thanks for the reply!

I asked for more time (a month or two) in order to trim and polish. That request was denied. I think if we'd been given the time we could have made the game an 80+.

You've been doing this AMA for a long time now and I appreciate one response more than a bit. If I were to ask a follow-up though, it would be whether you had any structure in place to combat feature-creep? My experience has been that even when extensions are granted, people often use it as an excuse to start in on all the things they wanted to do before but didn't think they had time for, and then a few weeks later the issues are twice as numerous and patience wears thin.

I can't honestly blame EA for denying a request related to our team's failure to deliver what we'd promised in the time we'd been given.

A forgivable sin if I ever heard one. The joke I've heard is to take a "realistic" timeline, double it to get the deadline you should actually set, and triple it to find how long it would have taken to actually accomplish everything to your own standards if you hadn't been forced to turn in the build.

So, we built our team up from 35 to nearly 80 internal

I didn't realize things had ramped up so quickly, which only adds another dimension to things.

THAT, if you ask me, is an insane accomplishment

I'm inclined to agree!

And no one takes that kind of thing into account when writing reviews ;)

Then at a final note, I'm grateful that you chose to do an AMA !

The "Alice" games were definitely edgy and stylish, but with Madness Returns, there are a lot of places where elements felt phoned in or restrained. This is especially true with the graphics, which were stunning in places, but definitely chop suey on the whole. It was a B+/A- game that had the spirit and direction of an A+ game, which is always interesting.

Was there a lot of pressure from EA to reign things in a bit, or to trim down and repeat elements to make deadlines? Was the budget or man-hours restrictive? Did you find that others invovled, whether on the publishing side or the asset production side, didn't always understand or jive with your direction?

I'm listing example issues, but I guess the question is more open an best phrased as "what were your biggest challenges, how did you solve them, and what did you learn in the process?

context/biases : I'm a visual designer and artist for games that's been called in several times to clean up after outsourcing has failed to produce consistent work, and with also a few personal reasons to be frustrated with the way EA handles smaller studios and contractors. Short of doing 99% of the work in-house with a big heap of starter capital, I'm not exactly sure how small studios can thrive.

Edit: to be clear, this is also not intended to come across as disrespectful. My list of top 10 games for overall direction has you, Tim Schafer (grim fandango, psychonauts), and Fumito Ueda (ico, sotc) each appearing twice (the others are Eric Chahi for Another World, Hideki Kamiya for Okami, David Perry for Earthworm Jim, and Hideki Kamiya for Viewtiful Joe). The question is just about the realities of moving a concept to market.

Double edit: shit, I guess Kamiya is on there twice as well. Looks like I have limited tastes!

I shouldn't be too surprised seeing as you're someone whose name I recognized without the rest of the headline, but I admit I still wasn't expecting three very solid reasons plus an open minded leadout.

Cheers mate, and thanks for taking the time!

PS my girlfriend loves Sushi Cat, and every time she plays it she asks "you like cute fun things, how come the games you make aren't like this??" So you get an extra thanks -- for making my relationship both more enjoyable and more difficult.