Interview: Matt Hammill
by Steve Cook, November 26th, 2007 (Edited by Derek Yu)
Matt Hammill is one-man-show behind the beautiful action/puzzle game Gesundheit!, Comic Dice, and other fun, nifty things. Recently, Steve “moshboy” Cook took the opportunity to ask this talented Canadian illustrator/game developer a few questions about life and the pursuit of gaming.
Introduce yourself…
Matt: I’m Matt Hammill and I live in a suburb of Toronto, Canada. I’m doing a post-grad in computer animation right now and I’ve been doing freelance illustration (for magazines and things) on the side for the last few years. Oh and I’m 25. I started Gesundheit! in summer 2006 and turned it into an independent project in one of my undergrad illustration classes in fall 2006 and continued working on it after finishing illustration. In April 2007, I released what I had up to that point as a “demo.”
When did you become interested in game development and why?
I always thought it would be cool to make games. When I was a kid I’d draw out Mega Man levels on big sheets of white paper taped together. And I’d invent enemies and write down their powers and stuff on cards. Capcom totally ripped me off with Gravity Man.
Why do I like it? Maybe it’s the idea of being in charge of everything. Heh.
What development tools have you had experience with?
Haha, experience is exactly what I don’t have. I did a bit of Quake 1 stuff back in high school and I’ve done a bit of work in Flash. But when I had the idea for Gesundheit!, I had already tinkered with AGS a bit and found it to be a good balance of easiness and powerfulness.
Of course, I knew nothing about the indie game scene back then, so I had no idea what my other options were… but oh well. I like AGS. If I do another game after this, I’ll look at other dev tools but I’m not worrying about that for now.
Aside from Gesundheit!, what other projects have you worked on?
Like I was saying, I did some Quake 1 stuff in high school that didn’t go anywhere. One of my friends was a bit of a programmer so he and I worked on a few never-to-be-finished mods. That’s when I did my first bit of animation and learned what a walk cycle was and what a palette was and all that. One of our brilliant ideas was to bring Mario to Quake (in FULL 3D!!!) and we were on Blue’s News back in the day and it was very exciting. If I recall correctly, we even got an email from a guy who said he worked for Nintendo, asking us to stop, so we were thinking of changing it into a Mario-ESQUE game… but then we saw Mario 64 and impossibly, it was even better than what we had thrown together. And probably less infringing on other people’s copyrights too. So that was the end of that.
The other game stuff I’ve done has been a few AGS adventure games that never got off the ground (but which would have been totally epic) and a few teeny tiny AGS things for friends. Also, I went to the very fun TOJAM (Toronto Indie Game Development Jam) in May 2007 and over an insane three days made crappy art for several different dev teams’ games.
Since it is designed to develop point’n’click adventure games, why use AGS for Gesundheit!? (Even though it does have a point and click interface.)
Because it was the one bit of software I had some experience with (working on those doomed adventure games). But also, it’s good for static-background 2D stuff, it’s really easy to use and it’s got a nice pathfinder for when I want my monsters not to walk through walls.
How did you come to tinker with AGS? Was it something you just stumbled across and thought “this might be cool to try out?”
That’s it exactly. I think I saw 5 Days a Stranger first and it went on from there.
What systems and games did you own and play growing up?
I grew up playing lots of Archon on Commodore 64 and then later I got into NES games like Mega Man (especially 3). But I think the two big ones for me were Lemmings and Quest for Glory 1 (the VGA remake), which I’d have to play at school or at friends’ places because I didn’t have a PC. But Lemmings was brilliant – so much appeal right off the bat with those exploding characters, which kept you staring long enough to get totally hooked on the game itself. And Quest for Glory blew me away because I’d never played a game with so much atmosphere – all that stuff to explore and discover. I had only played action games until then, so the idea that this game had a whole world to walk around in – it was amazing! And back then I never noticed whether it seemed “too scripted” or whatever. It just kept unfolding.
So yeah. Those two probably had the biggest impact on me. In recent years, it’s been lighter stuff like Pikmin and Katamari Damacy. I’m less of a hardcore gamer than I used to be, so I’m liking things I can sit down and play in little bursts. And Katamari had such a hilarious aesthetic.
Are you a fan of point n’ click adventures?
Sure – but then, I grew up playing adventure games, so I’m completely ready to forgive a game for a bit of stupid inventory-clicking crap. I’m a sucker for atmosphere and somehow that genre can dish out atmosphere pretty easily. I can even find it in little indie games like, say, Enclosure. Maybe it’s the slower pacing… or the fact that when you’re wandering from screen to screen, clicking your shovel on everything, waiting for your idiot character to move across some giant field then you have no CHOICE but to notice, ooh, all the little pixels of grass. (But now I find that kind of “puzzle” hilarious, too – how can I stay mad at adventure games?)
Being less of a hardcore gamer and playing in small bursts.. do you ever play any casual stuff on the web.. flash games.. anything like that?
Sometimes I’ll play casual Flash stuff in class but I’m more of a download guy. Something about that browser window. Although Samorost was awesome. Does that count as casual? And I loved Peasant’s Quest for obvious reasons.
Not owning a PC.. why was that? Coming from the opposite end of the spectrum, I actually wasn’t allowed to own any consoles growing up and I feel like I missed out on a lot of pretty sweet games in my youth. Do you feel like you might have missed out on a lot of cool stuff because of this?
Heh, my folks were Mac people back then. We had a pretty swell Mac Classic and I had a few games for that… uh, Carmen Sandiego and SimAnt come to mind… and eventually I even got Lemmings for that too (in black and white). But hell yeah I missed out! No Scorched Earth, no Syndicate, no early King’s Quest and I sucked at Doom.
Where did the original concept for Gesundheit! Come from? Influences?
I think the original concept probably came from one of the ideas I was tossing around with my Quake 1 buddy in high school. There was an idea to have this monster that would be constantly chasing you, serving as a time limit of sorts on each level. The player character was a little piece of fruit with legs. Or maybe a beet. That’s probably where it came from. So I kept the monster idea in mind but instead of a chase thing I wanted to make a puzzle game. I was actually going to make it so you just drop food for the monsters but I used this crappy sprite of my girlfriend in early tests and I thought it would be funnier if she was sneezing all over the place.
Working on those tests, I guess I was thinking of Lemmings, where you influence the behavior of characters without controlling them directly and also probably Pikmin, which was great in that it gave you a player character too. Sometimes I just don’t want to be a cursor.
Really, the only thing I’m trying to do is make a game that I would enjoy (if I hadn’t, you know, worked on it and gotten ridiculously good at beating it).
What does “Gesundheit!” mean? Where did the title come from?
It’s something you say after someone sneezes like “God bless you.” Wikipedia tells me it’s German but I heard it often enough growing up in my Canadian suburb. At first I wanted to call the game “Yummy Snot”, which I still think sounds awesome.
Is making time for development an issue for you? It seems very on / off…
Yes, it’s absolutely on / off! With a generous amount of off! Haha, I fully admit that. At the start of the year my schedule was much kinder than it is now. But when there’s lots of real life stuff that really does have to take priority over some hobby video game you’re working on… shrug. Plus, even a small game like this is a very slow thing to make, especially if you’re no programmer. For me, it’s not frustrating, it’s just how it is. At first I was a little hesitant about even putting the demo online because the last thing I want is for people to be checking my site all the time to see if there’s an update (and if there’s anyone who actually does that, uh, I love you and you should probably stop).
Is motivation a big issue for you?
No, motivation’s not an issue at all. I really, really love every part of production – doing the drawings, making them move, planning levels, recording the music… and I even get a kick learning coding (fixing bugs is a bitch but what can you do?). The only issue is time and there’s not tons I can do about that for now. I like Gesundheit! a lot and want to do it justice, even if I’m an old guy when I get it done – and it’s not like the graphics can get any more out of date.
Any particular aspect that you enjoy producing most of all?
I probably get the biggest bang for my buck with the sound effects – compared to everything else, it’s really quick and painless and as soon as I hear the splats and squeals coming out of the characters, it’s like they’re suddenly alive to me. It’s rewarding.
Are there any other details you can share about what you plan to include in Gesundheit! (without ruining it for people obviously)?
There’ll be a few different kinds of monsters, a few different kinds of flowers, things like that. Mostly it’s about the levels. I’d like to have at least 20-30 new ones and more of a sense of “progression” through the game.
Any release date in mind?
Not yet. If I had one in mind now, I’m sure I’d just miss it so… yeah.
Gesundheit! has become one of the more anticipated indie development projects with some extremely positive coverage. Have you been happy with the response to the game so far?
It’s been super duper. Loads better than I could have imagined. I sometimes check where my hits are coming from and run foreign links through Babelfish, which is hilarious. Getting emails is cool, too, because I guess all the people who didn’t like it don’t bother writing you, so you’re only left with the good stuff, which is pretty nice reading.
Do you have lots of ideas kicking around in your head for future games?
Sure, I’ve got a few ideas for other games. Who doesn’t? But I definitely won’t be starting any other games until this is done (unless someone wants to pay me lots of money). It’s actually lucky that I didn’t know how much work it was going to be when I started, cause maybe I’d have been scared off. Would I knowingly start something else this size without getting paid for it? Haha…
Any favorites from the indie scene or not enough time in the day?
I don’t play as much as I’d like to but I loved Cave Story. And 5 Days a Stranger will always have a place in my heart as will Elasto Mania. After I wrap up my school stuff for the holiday, I’m looking forward to Aquaria and Samorost 2, which I haven’t played yet.
What are your thoughts on the commercial industry – has it gone uphill or downhill since you started playing video games?
This is a hard one. I was a lot more easily impressed when I was a kid and games were new. I mean, really, most NES stuff was garbage and the quality of the average video game has obviously gone way up since then. But I guess these days I find myself less and less interested in more and more games – I just don’t feel that sense of wonder or intrigue that I used to. There are lots of exceptions of course – Shadow of the Colossus, Katamari, Beyond Good and Evil (you can tell I don’t have any of the new systems). But in general, it seems like games have become less interesting places to be.
Also, I’m getting a little tired of the never-ending bad-ass-ness of games (and movies). I walk into EB and everybody on the wall is squinting their steely eyes and pointing guns at me from inside their glistening body armour. It’s ridiculous. But that’s just a pet peeve.
Where would you like to work after your post-grad? Are you looking to get into the commercial video game industry or something else?
I guess it would depend on the studio and the job but lately I’ve been thinking of working at an animation place – somewhere that does commercials and stuff, projects with quick turnarounds. Variety. With games, I like working on a bunch of different aspects and from what I gather the industry’s geared towards specialization. So I might be happier just tinkering with long-term indie game projects in my spare time. But meh, who knows?
Plus, there’s still the freelance illustration stuff – I’m just finishing up my first children’s book and it’d be cool to do more of that stuff on the side too.
Thanks for your time, Matt.
Thanks a lot yourself.
