Chapter 306: The Game Plan I

With Tetris more or less introduced to the general public and on its way to growing the influence of Creed Games, all Alexander had to think about was what to do next.

Without a doubt, there is a lot to do actually but it had long been laid out for a while now.

As mentioned, it wasn’t just Tetris that had been worked on in the background… Alexander had been facilitating other video games as well.

What was the next Creed Game going to be?

What notable video game franchise is it going to be exactly?

Then again, questions such as who, when, and how do come up.

Who exactly are the people working on these video games?

When will it be made available? Or better yet… when did these game developments actually?

After all, Tetris seems to have really come out of nowhere and Creed’s focus seems to have been on Comic-Con, animation, film, costumes, toys, comic books, and a bit of music for the whole year of 1985.

Of course, last but not least is the how. This is the broadest type of questioning with the least specifics but that makes ‘how’ questions all the more encompassing.

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Well, thinking back on it, Creed Games had been operating in the background for a while now.

If one were to really think back on it… it had been conceptualized when Alexander was debating on whether he wanted to focus on games or music.

Music did win out on that one but games weren’t exactly left to be frozen and thawed for later.

As a matter of fact, ever since Tetris was unveiled, Alexander has always allotted most of his HQ time to work by Creed Games’ base of operations.And to Milla’s surprise, Creed Games was just actually alongside Creed Comics.

In fact, it was pretty hard for the Comics and Games employees to be distinguishable from one another.

Since Alexander was actually just employing comic book artists to make games.

At least, that answers the ‘who’ but not yet on the ‘how’.

“I didn’t know that all comic book artists are also able to work on making video games.” If people with common sense were perplexed at this, little Milla was all the more so. “I thought that only applied to someone like you, Alex.”

“Don’t underestimate other people.” Alexander reminded and also explained. “Of course, do not that these comic bookers may be working on my next video games but they are just technically bordering the profession of game development.”

Milla thought about it and said. “They are game developers but not really. How does that work?”

“Well, do you see them working on computers and codes?”

“No.” She pointed out. “They’re just drawing on paper like usual.”

“There you have it.” Alexander said. “They may be developing games via drawings and layout but full-fledged game development is about coding and programming for the most part.”

“So they were actually making games this whole time.” Milla only knew this now. “Since they were drawing characters and backgrounds, I thought they were working on your comic book stories.”

This Creed Games’ base is on the second floor of the HQ, after all. The second floor was undisputedly a place for comic book making in her mind.

“Do remember that my grand idea of having 12 serializing Creed Comics’ titles for last year had been spoiled.”

Alexander had ambitiously increased the Creed Comics’ staff to 120 people… but the whole legal attack appeared and stopped everything.

“Instead of letting go of the excess employees due to their lack of comic projects to work on, I decided to make use of their art skills and creativity for the different set of projects that I opened up… and its the video game kind.”

It’s a simple case of workforce recycling. This wasn’t the first time that the Creeds had done this.

Troy-jan and its animation wannabes are what make up the original Creed Comic-makers, so why not have the unexpectedly excess Creed Comic-makers be Creed Game-makers?

These people could also jump into other Creed industries like being design heads for Creed Toys, designing for Creed Costumes, and even be frame artists for Creed Animations if they want.

Artsy types of people may be overlooked but they are quite versatile. This was Alexander’s takeaway from all of this.

Of course, specific skill sets and art processes are what separate the different fields from one another.

Milla, on the other hand, had her own takeaways and enlightenment from all of this revelation as well.

She looked at the 12 ten-man teams on this Creed Comics floor and realized something. “If some groups are the ones responsible for the regular comic book issue releases, then that means that the other groups are working on video games.”

“Yep, that is generally what has been happening on this drawing-filled floor for many months now.” Alexander explained. “Instead of having them work on characters, backgrounds, panels, speech bubbles, and pacing both action and story in limited paged issues of comic books… video game planning is different in many ways.”

“How different?” Milla was a self-proclaimed observing professional of comic book making due to her time in this place.

It was only now that she realized that she had been looking at game development as well and had been blindsided all this time. She didn't want it to happen again.

She was wondering why people didn’t tell her about this before but she also knew that what she’ll get from Alex is something like ‘you didn’t ask’. He was callous that way.

Anyways, both of them were discussing these things right between a comic-making team and game developing team, so Alexander could pull up a visual example. “Take the charts of these two spiky-haired characters in blue for example. Do you see the difference?”

“Mhm.” Milla thought about it and answered. “One is a monkey boy from his first arc and the other is a hedgehog. It is cool that they will change their hair color in the future but they have different methods of getting to that goldness.”

She added. “One will use anger while the other one will use gems, and it’s totally not at a salon like how blonde Courteney did it.”

“That's right and all but that’s not exactly the difference I want you to spot.” Alexander went more specific this time. “Look at the art style. Better yet, look at the type of paper they're drawn in”

“Oh.” She got it right away. “One is smooth and while the other seems to be made of dots and squares. As for papers, one is drawn in normal paper while the other is drawn in graphs.”

“That’s it.” Alexander affirmed. “While both papers on my hands are drawn character guides… the other is actually much more than that since it's a sprite guide.”

“Sprite guide?” The girl was intrigued.

“Just take sprites as characters drawn using a computer.” Sprites are much more than that but he simplified. “Its bit-like and grid-like nature is what makes it conducive for video game animation.”

That got Milla into thinking as she backtracked on all the square art-style characters she had seen in this area.

“So that Peter Pan guy is also for a video game like the hedgehog?”

Well, that character did look like Peter Pan so. “Yep.”

“What are those weird-looking creatures with weird names like Tektites, Octoroks, Peehats, and Leevers then." Milla could still enumerate but that should be more than enough.

“Those are the “Peter Pan” guy’s exploring obstacles.” He affirmed.

“What about that weird jellyfish?”

“That weird jellyfish’s name is actually the title for a separate game.”

“What about the military characters that look a lot like the two big actors you talked to during the BttF premiere?”

“They’re for a run-and-gun video game like the jellyfish one but more linear.”

Milla listed out a whole lot more characters with grid-style art from there and got many video games from it.

It was only now that she realized that Alex had been making video games all this while.

As much as she felt blind and ignorant of the whole thing, she was just excited and looking forward to playing all the games that she has been told.

Unaware of her thoughts, Alexander went on with explaining the game development structure that he formed from a recycled workforce.

“Of course, aside from having the game-making team draw grid-like character sprites to serve as a guide for true computer rendering, I also had them draw platforms, backgrounds, projectiles, and just general level designing for the video games I had in mind.”

Game development isn’t just about conceptualizing characters and their obstacles after all. Level design, maps, and world-building are needed as well.

“That was just utilizing their art skills though and I also made use of their creativity to develop the in-game story and elevate the entertainment value of the whole gameplay.”

Just like how Alexander just gives out the story outline for a comic story and has his assigned team expand or solidify it further… the game-developing team had that task as well.

He gave them the whole gist of the game and its gameplay but its mutual exchange of ideas and concepts as they developed the whole thing from there.

This had to be done to ensure the self-sufficiency of Creed Games and to truly make it into the progressive game development giant he envisioned.

Suffice to say, Alexander had given her the whole who, what, when, and how with all that he’s divulged.

If anything, he had laid out the whole grand plan that had been overlooked amid the other productive and highlighted operations that had been done by Creed Entertainment.

It was finally Creed Games' time to shine though… and a glimpse of its prior operations should be more than enough to know of the projected greatness that it was all heading for.

Recycling comic bookers to be game developers isn’t that solid of a strategy when you think about it… but it’s a game plan nonetheless.