Industry Interview: Ninja Bee

Original interview conducted on the 19th February 2009.  Genuinegamers.com (GG) has managed to gain an exclusive interview with Project Manager Justin Hakanson from NinjaBee!

Have a read below at what we had to chat about:

GG: Let’s start off with a simple question.  What is your gamertag and what made you choose it?

JUSTIN: My gamertag is dajuse. A friend used to call me “juse” and since that was taken I followed the example of Steve Taylor (gostay) and Kevin Heap (yazeus) and just added a two-letter prefix to my gamertag. Now I am dajuse (The Juice!)

GG: Juicy!  So how long have you been gaming for and what is your first gaming memory?

JUSTIN: I started playing games as a kid in the early 80′s. Wow, memories are flooding back… My first memory was playing an old text-based adventure game on a computer with a cassette deck attached to it. But probably more of my gaming time back then was spent playing Ms. Pac-Man and Pitfall on my friend’s Atari 2600. (And thanks for making me spend an hour looking through wikipedia articles about old games I used to play!)

GG: What would we do without wikipedia?  As we know you work for NinjaBee, can you tell us a little about the company and what you do?

JUSTIN: NinjaBee is a division of Wahoo Studios, an independent game development company in Orem, Utah. NinjaBee was created to separate projects of our own creative vision from those we contract do for other companies. I do project management for the company. I help all the people who do the real work (programmers, artists, designers) get what they need to done.

GG: Any idea why the company is called NinjaBee and not Ninjawasp?  Do you guys have a more deadly sting?

JUSTIN: Haha. I wasn’t here when the name was picked, but personally I identify much more with a bee than a wasp. Don’t you? Also, I’m pretty sure no small part of the decision was based on NinjaBee.com being available.

GG: Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee?  So how long have you been working with the company?

JUSTIN: I joined the company in 2005 a few months before Outpost Kaloki X was released.

GG: Can you tell our readers how you got into the gaming industry and what made you choose it as a career?

JUSTIN: I knew Steve Taylor (President of NinjaBee) for many years and it just so happened that I was looking for a job at the same time they were looking for a project manager. (I had been doing project management in another industry for years before this.) I guess it was a combination of who you know, what you know, and a little bit of luck.

Working for NinjaBee is really great. Even though it is a game company a job is still a job and the people you work with can make your life miserable. But the people here are awesome. Combine that with making awesome games and it’s a great place to work!

GG: It certainly sounds like a great place to work!  What advice can you give to gamers wishing to get into the industry?

JUSTIN: We get asked this a lot, but here is the secret: Do something! There’s a lot you can do on your own without being employed by a game company. Make a game! Draw art! Design something you think is fun! Practice what you want to do. If you want to program, get good at it. You could even write a game. (We use C/C++.) If you want to be an artist, draw stuff, model stuff, animate stuff. If you want to be a designer, learn to write. Write stories, designs, reviews of other games. Read about designs. Figure out why one game is better than another.

We also have 3 questions that we ask ourselves about the people we hire: Are they smart? Do they get things done? Are they a jerk? The first two questions are directly related to if you have done something. The third is about keeping a good work environment. People are much more productive when they don’t work with jerks! To borrow from Bill and Ted: Be excellent to each other!

GG: Nice reference!  As you probably know, a lot of Universities and Colleges are offering computer game design courses.  What are you opinions on these?

JUSTIN: I think this falls under the category of doing something. In terms of the actual education, as with anything else, it depends on your instructor and on the amount of effort you’re willing to put in outside of class. Don’t just skate by. Use it as an opportunity to dig into game design and make yourself better at it.

GG: Can you tell us a little about what you’re working on at the moment?  Obviously nothing to descriptive… we don’t want to get you in trouble.

JUSTIN: I can say we are working on bug fixes and DLC for A Kingdom for Keflings. (But nothing specific to announce, yet.) We are also working on some other projects, but nothing I can really talk about.

GG: A Kingdom for Keflings was one of my favourite arcade games released on the Xbox.  Where did the ideas come from regarding it?

JUSTIN: I’m glad you like it! The original idea for the game came from a game-in-a-day prototype Steve did years ago for a city management game. (Steve was the lead designer on AKFK.) One of our other designers, Jeremy, had an idea to use an avatar-type character instead of the usual “hand of God” approach most of management games use. From there it evolved into what it is now. We certainly played lots of other sim/management games for inspiration of what to do (and sometimes what not to do). We also brought in a lot of playtesters and that helped us focus what we were doing and make sure what we were trying to do was working.

GG: When I first saw videos and previews of the game it instantly reminded me of the Settlers series I used to play on the PC.  Do you think you’ll make a sequel to AKFK or something similar?

JUSTIN: We have talked about possibly doing a sequel, but we have yet to decide if we want to do that or some cool, new game. But never fear! There will be another NinjaBee game coming, whether it’s a sequel or something entirely new!

GG: Well I’m definitely looking forward to what you guys have planned!  What games have you worked on since your time at Ninajabee?  And which one are you most proud of?

JUSTIN: I’ve worked on Disney’s Trivia Time for the PC, Saga (the MMO: RTS) for the PC, and A Kingdom for Keflings for Xbox LIVE Arcade. I helped a little bit with play testing and feedback on most of our other NinjaBee games, but I wasn’t on them full-time. I’m actually proud of all of them for different reasons. (Come on! I can’t pick my favorite child!)

GG: I couldn’t possibly make you pick your favourite, could I?  I would just like to say thanks for taking the time to answer the questions and giving our readers an insight to what you do. Just one last question before you go though.  If you could be any computer game character, who would you be and why?

JUSTIN: I’m going to have to go with Clyde Drexler on the old NBA Jam arcade game. That guy could do it all on the basketball court and he played for the best team in the NBA! (I don’t even want to think of how many quarters I plugged into that game…)  Thanks for letting me answer some questions! It was fun!

**

Be sure to check out http://www.NinjaBee.com for information on the studio!