During the production process of Budget Cuts we’ve worked with several awesome contractors, bringing their skills to the table and helping us out with everything from 3D-models to concept art, programming, writing and PR.
Today we’d like to introduce you to some of the contractors working on the game! Please meet Jenny, Amelia, Laura and Johanna.
Hello guys! Can you please introduce yourselves?
Jenny: My name is Jenny Holmér and I'm a Character Artist here in Stockholm, Sweden.
Amelia: Hey there! My name is Amelia, I’m a writer and occasional illustrator from the UK.
Laura: Hi! I'm Laura and I am a 3D generalist and an animator! I also draw comics and illustrations when I have time.
Johanna: Hello! I'm Johanna and I do PR/marketing things. I am also a Twitch streamer under the name Ciwiel.
What do you do on Budget Cuts/Neat Corp.?
Jenny: At Neat I had the privilege of designing and concepting the robots you find in game.
Amelia:I’m a Game Writer. For the uninitiated, this means I work with the team to flesh out the story of the game, create characters, write dialogue and guide voice actors with readings.
Laura: I worked as an contractor, mostly doing general 3D stuff! Creating new props and objects and updating old things they had in the game. I also taught the team how to use the coffee machine and spin milk for their cappuccinos. ;)
Johanna: I handle things like social media posts, responding to your Steam questions, planning and executing marketing/PR plans and so on!
What’s your background with games?
Jenny: I've been working in the games industry for 8 years now as a character artist. It stemmed from the desire to combine the two loves of my life, art and games.
Amelia: I’ve worked for Minecraft and freelanced for other VR game companies too!
Laura: Started with the cliché of "I've always loved games and played a lot when I was a kid", after that I went a long way around to finally realize that making games was not just an option, but a possibility. I went to school and tried creating my first game and fell in love! While designing and planning a game is fun I realized quickly that my favourite part was the visuals, creating 3D models, menus and animations.
Johanna: I've been in the games industry for two years working mostly with marketing, community management and graphics design. I love to interact with the people who play the games!
What does a normal work day look like for you?
Jenny: In the beginning I got design descriptions and some inspiration guidelines to what direction we wanted to characters to go, then it was just a feedback loop from there until we had reached a design that we were all happy with. It's a really collaborative and fun process!
Amelia: Being a writer involves a lot of solo work, trying to preempt what material people will need before they need it. I’ll talk to the designers throughout the day to check on level design and try to imagine what it will feel like for the player. It’s always super important to have the player in mind at all times when writing. There’s no point writing some elegant long passage if you all you need to do is guide the player to a nearby objective. There’s no typical day in my job - some days you’re writing short barks or enemy chatter, other days you’re dipping into lore and helping to guide a voice actor on how to best read the lines you’ve written. It’s a very varied job.
What’s the most challenging part of your work?
Jenny: Designing characters for VR! Not because it's necessarily harder than for "standard" games, but that it's a different design process. I had to take other things into consideration that I usually don't have to in my regular work. But this made it a really challenging and fun learning process as well.
Laura: Making everything work! There are more elements that goes into 3D that are not visual, but need to work correctly to not break the game immersion. But it's of course part of the fun and an important part of game making.
What’s the most rewarding part of your work?
Amelia: ‘Finishing it’ isn’t the most inspired answer, but there’s nothing quite like getting to the end of a first draft. Very satisfying! I also really love working with the voice actors and talking about the character. Seeing your work come to life is really special!
Johanna: Seeing all the awesome responses to what we put out! Getting to work with an amazing team of people is a huge plus as well.
How do you hope Budget Cuts will be received?
Jenny: I hope that when people play it, they have as fun as we had making it~
Amelia: Everyone on the team has worked so hard on it and cares so much about it so I hope it does fantastically well.
What’s it like to work at a small studio like Neat Corp.?
Jenny: There's the freedom to be different, and as an artist there is nothing more inspiring.
Amelia: The team is small so everything is changing and agile, which is an exciting environment to work in. It’s so easy to talk to the different team members and discuss new ideas.
How can we spot the work you’ve done in-game?
Jenny: When you play the game and run into a quirky looking robot that our amazing 3D artist and animator Christoffer has made, you know I had a part in the design. ^^
Amelia: Any time you hear a voice, I wrote it :D
Laura: You can spot a lot of my work just looking around in the game! I worked mostly with props and environments, so most things will be displayed throughout the game. I think my favourites where computer props and the elevator. But I made some smaller items as well that I hope people will appreciate.
Johanna: You can’t! You can spot my work on our Facebook, Twitter and the Steam page. :)
Where can we follow your work?
Jenny: @NeedleFork
Amelia: I use amelialkd for all my social media stuff, so feel free to say hi!
Laura: If you are curious of my art you can follow my instagram, but I have to warn that I am bad at updating regularly.
Johanna: Feel free to follow me @Ciwiel. I also stream a bunch on my Twitch channel.
That’s it for this time. Thanks to all of our lovely contractors that have had a hand in creating Budget Cuts!