Worlds & Their Builders #1 - Jack Squires
Talking to the creator of Exit 19 about building Ambient Mixtape ’16, noise shaders, sound design and more.
Jack Squires (@jsqrs) is an L.A. based gamwright active since 2014. His most recent work, Exit 19 (2016) was released this November as part of the Ambient Mixtape ’16 alongside some of altgames biggest names. His works have received high praise from publications such as Killscreen and Rock Paper Shotgun. His game ▲Nø♦C1iP▲ (2014) was exhibited at the 2015 Cluster Festival of New Music and Integrated Arts in Winnipeg, Canada. You can find all of his work on itch.io.
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Jack, your latest game, Exit 19 was released as part of the Ambient Mixtape ‘16 collection. Were you approached to participate in the collection after its themes and shared mechanics were in place, or did you have a role in crafting those?
Ambient Mixtape ’16 was actually organized by myself, Oysterfake (@oysterFAKE) and ceMelusine (@ceMelusine). We got in touch with a bunch of other developers within the altgames community on twitter, and asked if they would be interested in the project. Once everyone was on board for the idea we all voted together on “After Hours” as the theme. CeMelusine, Oysterfake and I chose a first person controller as the shared mechanic. Oysterfake actually programmed the controller for everyone to use, so big thanks to them for doing that.
Was the vote the extent of your collaboration or did you contribute to each other’s projects at all?
The vote was all we ended up collaborating on. Originally, the project was going to be a collection of different scenes, all merged together into one single first person game. We ended up running into a lot of issues trying to do it that way, and just released the games separately as they exist now.
Is there anything left in Exit 19 from a design perspective that you implemented with this idea of a single game in mind?
About half of Exit 19 was designed with the idea that it would be a part of the single larger game. Pretty much everything before you exit the highway. My perspective didn’t shift a whole lot once I realized we were releasing the games separately though. All that really changed was adding a menu screen and definite ending. Originally, the car at the beginning of the game was supposed to represent a transitory object between whatever game came before mine and the one that came after. I decided to leave it in, as it became integral to the story I wanted to tell.
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“The games I make are very much representations of my emotions, values, and mental state at the time of their conception.”
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When starting Exit 19, the game’s most striking feature is the digital noise filter rendered on to the ground and objects near the player. You’ve used a similar effect in previous projects such as Lavender Memories (2016). What interests you about this look so much?
The noise shader came to be after experimenting with some halftone shader code. Originally, it was just black and white dots that represent shaded and non shaded areas on an object, like how a comic book might look. When I made Lavender Memories I wanted it to have that shading style, but I didn’t like how it looked so cartoonish. Lavender Memories is a game largely about loneliness and disassociation, I wanted the shader to represent that. That’s where the noise effect came into play. I think it does a good job of creating an intangible feeling on the objects it’s applied to.
Each pixel of the object can either be represented as a colour or as black and this is always changing. That randomness and the inability to tell what parts of an object exists or doesn’t is what appeals to me. Exit 19 deals with very similar themes as Lavender Memories, so it felt right to use the same effect. For Exit 19, I ended up rewriting it and adding the ability to display colour and flat textures. In my next game I plan on using the same effect, but I’ve now rewritten the shader to include bump map textures for more of a three dimensional look.
So has the noise filter become a kind of personal signature at this point? You’ve used it in at least three projects in a row at this point.
The next game will hopefully be the final time, I don’t see myself using it again after that project. The games I make are very much representations of my emotions, values, and mental state at the time of their conception. These three games sort of stand on their own as a collection of where my emotions have been during this year. I’ve found the noise shader to be a good representation of those emotions. Maybe while I’m developing this next game that will change if I discover a shader that better visualizes the themes I’m going for. That’s how Lavender Memories and the noise shader came to be in the first place, so it could very well happen again.
While each of the three games are about similar subjects at the core, they branch off as well. With Lavender Memories I wanted to show individuality and loneliness, so for that the noise shader worked as simple black and white. Exit 19 has a lot to do with passage of time, so it was important that colours could be used to show that. I want my next game to invoke themes of truth and reality, which is why texture will be important to integrate with the noise shader.
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Moving from noise to noise, you work pretty often with sound designers or outside musicians for your projects. Some of your games have original music written for them or at least custom sounds. Lots of developers of your size cut corners on audio production with little consequence so what compels you to double down in that department?
Another theme I tend to induce in my games is uneasiness. I think good sound design is the best way to invoke that feeling. To me the things that are the scariest and most unsettling, are not what you can see, but what your mind creates when lacking visual cues. Especially so with a stimulation of audio. The best example of this in my games would be Tonight You Die (2015), a horror game I made in collaboration with sound designer Taylor Shechet. He does really amazing work in both sound effects and music, and has been a great friend and collaborator throughout most of my games. I hope to continue working alongside him for my next project.
Taylor always tells me there’s a ton of sound designers looking to have their work in games as a means of press. Many will even do it for free as long as the game is freeware. I think that’s something smaller developers should take advantage of, it’s super easy to find people who want to do that kind of stuff.
▲Nø♦C1iP▲ is a music game of yours that made me feel uneasy, physically that is. But that probably shouldn’t be called a lack of stimulation. That game has so much visual stimulation it becomes overwhelming for your eyes to read. Many of the youtube videos showing ▲Nø♦C1iP▲ feature people eventually stopping due to this. I couldn’t finish it either. Are instances of over and under stimulation used in your work to create similar feelings of uneasiness or is that something that just kind of happened?
I’d say it could be, but that was never the intention with ▲Nø♦C1iP▲. Over-stimulation was definitely an intended theme of ▲Nø♦C1iP▲, but it was never intended to cause unease. As a developer, you are constantly experiencing the game every time you add something new and test it. So I got very acclimated to the visual effects of ▲Nø♦C1iP▲ through the hundreds of times I played. That obviously wasn’t the case for most players who simply tried the game out once or twice, which is why It could have led to sense of unease. N0clip was one of the earlier games I made, I hadn’t yet understood the importance of playtesting. It’s an important lesson to learn though, that how I experience the game as the developer will be very different to how most new players will. After I realizing that, I’ve become more interested in that connection. With Exit 19 I intentionally wanted the landscape to reflect my experiences and how I perceived progression through it. I knew not everyone would be able to reach the ending because of that, but that’s something that I think supports the themes of the game itself.
Speaking of Exit 19’s ending, it has more than one. Thematically I find them very similar, one has you sinking into endless sand and the other sailing towards an endless sea. Do you agree? If yes, what’s the importance of including both.
I’m glad you we’re able to find the alternate ending, so far you’re the first person I’ve heard from that has. The endings both share a thematic similarity in that they signal an end to the reality you’ve been experiencing. It was important for me to include both because while they share that idea, they differ in what they represent. One ending has the player falling into the darkness of the desert sand, with the white light above fading to nothing. The boat ending shows the opposite, darkness fades and a tunnel of light grows larger and closer to the player. I see the endings as death and rebirth respectively, with the rebirth ending signaling back to the start of the game where there’s a seemingly endless landscape ahead of you.
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Over-stimulation was definitely an intended theme of ▲Nø♦C1iP▲, but it was never intended to cause unease.
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You mentioned your upcoming game earlier. To wrap up today, are there any other details you’re willing to share at this point?
Other than the themes of truth and disassociation I mentioned earlier; I can say that it is going to be a first person horror game about religion. This is the first game I’m actually starting with the notion that it will be a horror game. That was never the intention for Tonight You Die or Exit 19, they just sort of evolved that way. It will be interesting to see how this next game evolves as I go into it with a heavy intent for horror.
If anyone would like to stay updated with that project as I develop it, you can follow me on twitter. Also, I encourage you to follow Taylor Shechet (@_tlr_) who I will likely be collaborating with for the games’ audio. Lastly, be sure to check out all the games along with Exit 19 over on Ambient Mixtape ‘16.
Jack Squires is an L.A. based gamewright. His work can be found on itch.io and he can be followed on twitter. I reached him by e-mail.
