Rex Crowle
Rex Crowle is a video game designer, graphic designer and animation director. He was Creative Lead of Tearaway at Media Molecule, did art & design for LittleBigPlanet1&2, created EpicWin, as well as being a BAFTA Breakthrough Brit. Rex talks about his latest game Knights and Bikes and how it was inspired by the landscape and life of his native Cornwall.
Knights and Bikes draws on your childhood in Cornwall, which is a part of the UK with a very specific character — rugged coastline, Celtic roots etc. Which aspects of Cornwall have you brought to the game?
I think the Cornish themes break down into three areas: the rugged ancient beauty, its position as a modern holiday destination, but also the financial reality of it being a very economically-challenged area. And each of these themes is like a layer that modifies the others.
So that ancient beauty is sometimes threatened by the more modern attempts to capitalise on that. But with very little left of traditional industry, modern tourism is a necessity for the region to survive and for the natural beauty to be maintained. And those elements combined can create a compelling game setting.
The wild beauty of the region is at the more fantastical end of the scale, and gives me lots of scope to make environments the players will enjoy exploring just to see them. Meanwhile, the 1980s setting allows for some more traditionally game-like areas like theme parks and crazy golf courses, for them to play though. And the economic hardship not only drives the story forward, but also provides a key difference in outlook between the kids and the adults in the game.
Cornwall is a popular setting for stories, what is it about this region that inspires artists?
Firstly there’s the obvious distance. Even now, with massively improved travel-links, it still feels like an adventure heading down to Cornwall. Most of my really good ideas, I’ve had while sat on the train journey down from Paddington station.
And on arrival, there’s great contrasts in the atmosphere and landscape. From the rugged cliffs of the north-coast, to the picturesque coastal towns on the south, the landscape is dotted with history. Just from looking out of the window from my family home, I could see an iron-age fort, ancient tumuli, a Celtic cross, abandoned tin mines, the white peaks of the china-clay pits, as well as the almost science fiction wind farms dotting the fields between.
I think this all puts oneself into quite a reflective mood. You can lose yourself just thinking about all the stories that have played out on the landscape. Some talk about the landscape being timeless, although I tend to think of it the other way around, that it’s covered in the markings of time and each of those markings spark ideas for stories of what came before.
Cornwall is also a part of the UK that struggles economically and that seems to play a part in Knights and Bikes, with the caravan park closing. How important was it for you to portray the Cornwall you know, rather than the one you may see if you watch Poldark?
That’s very important to me, knowing first-hand the harsh realities under the surface. Most work is low-paid and seasonal, as I know from my own experiences of trying to find a job locally, both before and after my studies. And although there are beautiful views, and pretty villages, it’s a tough region to live in to make a living or raise a family.
Painters and novelists are often linked to a geographical area, if you think of Hardy, Dickens or Ian Rankin, but game designers don’t seem to get this luxury. Even British made games are often set in the US. Why do you think that is?
My theory is that games have a lot to teach their players, just purely in how they function, and are interacted with. That’s a layer that other mediums don’t have. No one requires a series of tutorials to get through a film or book. So there’s a flow of information in games, just to allow the player to get through it.
And that probably makes the actual settings and themes a little more conservative. There’s more piggybacking on existing works or pop culture, to create shortcuts for the player, so there are not as many new concepts to absorb. Because the way of interacting with the work is more complex, the stories and ideas become a little simpler, just so the game isn’t constantly bombarding the player with information.
Having said that, there are plenty of games that are drenched in lore, particularly computer role-playing games (RPGs), and I’d love to see more experiences that draw less on Tolkien or George Lucas, and innovate more in their settings and themes. I’d love to play an RPG set during the miners-strike, or play a game as the Tollpuddle Martyrs, or experience setting up a new life after moving from the West-Indies to Britain in the 1950s. Games are one of the best mediums for experiencing other lives; I just wish I didn’t have to be a soldier or a wizard so frequently!
Do you worry that your choice of setting may limit the appeal for the game in overseas markets and how do you resolve that dilemma?
The two main ways I try to avoid this is by firstly, having some pop culture wrapper around the whole project. Being able to say “It’s like The Goonies, but set in Cornwall” is a useful device to widen-out the market appeal, and I think our successful crowdfunding on Kickstarter proved that. The majority of our backers are in the U.S. and probably haven’t eaten that many saffron-buns or danced a Cornish Ceilidh, but can still become interested in a story set in the 1980s about girls on their bikes, looking for a fabled treasure. A story told with hints of ancient Arthurian legend.
And also, I’m the only Cornish member of the team; both my co-creator Moo Yu and our publisher Double-Fine are Californian. So although I’m adding in lots of little recollections, I find that diversity on the wider term useful to gauge if I’m becoming too obscure with my references and dialect. While it gives the game more of a sense of place to have all those references about saffron-buns and Ceilidh dances, but it’s not a requirement that they understand them all.
Would you like to see more games tap into different aspects of British culture and locales? How do you think that could be supported more?
There’s definitely huge scope for work outside of the British stereotypes of tea, The Queen and Union Jack underpants. And the film industry has managed this with hits like The Full Monty (1997) Made In Dagenham (2010) and Pride(2014). I think what the UK games industry needs is more help in uncovering these stories.
In many ways the games market is reaching saturation point at the moment. It’s difficult to stand out with the sheer quantity of releases each and every week. And having a novel setting and theme is one way to do this.
Game development wasn’t something that was taught when I was at art college, so I haven’t experienced the teaching practices first-hand. But, I think it could be very beneficial for courses to partner games makers with local historians and story-tellers, to uncover local stories with wide appeal. And to also look for ones that are not just about English life, but the experiences of those that have made this island a new home.
What was the starting point for Knights and Bikes?
The starting point was just chatting with Moo about the possibility of doing a Goonies inspired role-playing game. We were sat in an ancient pub in Wapping at the time, staring out at the Thames, so maybe those ancient timbers and sound of the waves had an influence on the theme we eventually settled on.
What was the process for developing a game from the initial idea?
It was quite experimental in the early days, just in terms of trying things out, and tinkering with it like a hobby project. Initially the game featured a gang of children which you swapped between, but we didn’t feel you connected with any of them particularly strongly and we reduced our starring roles down to the two girls, Nessa and Demelza.
But once we had enough of a prototype we had to decide if it was something we’d want to take further. Moo was keen on doing a Kickstarter, as a way of getting funding, and that meant I’d be able to use all my years of producing trailers and pitches for games. So from then on we were concentrating on producing enough of a cross-section of the game to edit a trailer out of. I often find a game doesn’t really exist until you’ve made the first trailer, which will not only show the world, but also your team, what its full potential will be.
And for the trailer we brought on Kenny Young to do the sound design, who we’d worked with at Media Molecule, and also Daniel Pemberton to score it.
Since the Kickstarter, we’ve all been concentrating on delivering that vision established in the trailer; building out the locations; adding the characters and interactions; and wrapping up the story. It’s definitely challenging showing work so early in order to get crowdfunding, and you have to be careful not to overpromise. We were definitely a little too optimistic on how long it would take to build the game with our tiny team, but our backers have been very encouraging and patient!
Kids on bikes were a mainstay of 80s cinema, but they seem to be making a comeback, with IT, Stranger Things and the tabletop RPG, Loop. What is it that brings us back to stories like these?
For me, it’s about freedom. Getting your first bike allows you to start to move outside of the protective forcefield of your family home. You can start to meet up with friends, and have your own adventures, without parental supervision.
Were there any particularly British influences on Knights and Bikes, such as children’s books or TV programmes?
Susan Coopers Under Sea, Over Stone (1965) is a big influence, not only because it’s also set in Cornwall, but it has a great sense of both adventure, and quite chilling peril, in its story of a gang of children searching for The Holy Grail.
While I’m painting the scenery for the game, I also continually listen to the recording of Richard Burton reading Dylan Thomas’ Under Milk Wood (1954) as it’s just dripping in atmosphere and I find the imagery conjured up in the poetry far more inspirational than any Google image search.
And then I do take some influence, for the animation style, as well as its generally anarchic atmosphere, from the cartoon series Rhubarb and Custard(1974).
Knights and Bikes features children, but is it a kid’s game or is it more like Stranger Things — a show that’s about kids, rather than for kids?
The game is designed to be suitable for children, but playable by two players. But it’s also set 30 years ago, so, in many ways it’s an ideal game for a parent to play with a child. There’s something for both ages, and the story itself is about both friendships and parental relationships. So hopefully those themes get mirrored between the game, and whoever is playing the game, whether it’s a child and parent playing, or two friends of any age playing.
You’ve moved from a big successful studio, Media Molecule, to kickstarting your own game. How have you found that transition?
It’s definitely very different. I think of it being like a sabbatical from studio development, as these days I’m mostly working solo and getting lost in painting the games environments and characters, before meeting up with Moo to collaborate more directly on the gameplay features. And I definitely enjoy having some time-out to improve my own personal craft, although it is at the expense of being around the noise and stimulation of being in a very creative studio. Luckily we’re all still best friends and we can all meet up after work anyway!
When you were growing up in Cornwall, were there any opportunities for you to make games and was it something you always wanted to do?
There were opportunities, in that I had a computer and a fairly reliable power-supply. That put me ahead of a large chunk of the world, but there wasn’t much else in the 90s and it was hard to find others who wanted to do the same pre-internet. My first game was a collaboration with an old family friend who lived far away in Devon. We used to mail floppy-disks back and forth between us, as he added the code and I did the art. Unsurprisingly, we never finished making the game, but I still enjoyed the process and having an outlet for my art skills. I did gradually lose interest in game development, especially once I went to art college and abandoned digital creation for several years.
However, towards the end of my studies, I started teaching myself the software Flash, which I saw being used in innovative ways online, from studios like Hi-Res! for a promotional website for the film Requiem For A Dream (2000). Using Flash for experimental storytelling is what drew me back into digital creation and ultimately led me to ending up in the games industry.
What support and infrastructure do you hope is in Cornwall now for the next wave of game creators?
I’ve been very impressed with the course and facilities now available to students at Falmouth University (my old old college) and they have resources I could only dream of when I was studying. I just hope that students don’t get completely caught up in the technology. That they take some time to get outside, listen to stories from older residents, and look at the landscape and the art that it’s influenced, before they make their own digital experiences, so that it all inspires more distinctive and diverse game experiences.
