We often mention our team in terms of "Amplidudes and Amplidudettes", but we decided we should give you folks an idea of who we mean. You've guessed it, it's time for another installment of our (semi-)regular feature, Meet the Team! This time there's a twist! Since we're breaking for the holidays, we have not one, but a double interview for you! If you want to know more about us, or your nephew wants to learn more about the career path of a game developer, or if you're just curious, read on.
Today, we're talking to the people without whom there wouldn't be an Endless universe, Mathieu & Romain, aka AmpliMath & SpaceTroll!
Who are you and what do you do at Amplitude?
Romain: I am Romain, Creative director. I am responsible of our vision in games.
Mathieu: And I am Mathieu, I am Amplitude’s Director of production. I follow all of our projects.
What were you doing before you joined Amplitude?
Mathieu: I built Amplitude with Romain. Before it existed, we spent 6 months researching the idea, our business plan, finding the right people, an office, everything… thinking about our first game, developing a prototype. Before that, I worked at Ubisoft, with Romain.
Romain worked on Battlefield over at DICE. We worked on RUSE, Ghost Recon, Call of Juarez 2, Clash of Heroes…
Romain: A lifetime of planning the creation of Amplitude!
What feature have you worked on that you're super proud of?
Romain: Amplitude!
Mathieu: I spent a lot of time on the GUI (graphical user interface-ED) of all of our games, with our designers, our external partners… And the studio of course.
Romain: There are two things I’m really proud of… well three…
Mathieu: Four?
Romain: The universe we created, which I think was a challenge, because we wanted a science-fiction universe, something that wasn’t the same boring common trope. And it was even harder to add on top the fantasy universe of Endless Legend and keep it a coherent whole but I’m really happy with the results we have, which allow us to explore both sci-fi and fantasy, and seeing how people get into it, want to create in this universe, even make games for it, it’s a real pleasure! The most important thing, really, is that we still want to create within this universe ourselves. Usually when you’re done with a game you just want to move on to the next thing and forget about it, but that’s not the case here.
The next thing I’m really pleased with is the asymmetry of our games, which wasn’t really something we had planned when we got started; it was something we added during creation. It was this statement that we always want to enable players to play the game their way: as a military strategist, the classical way, but also as an economic powerhouse, without ever fighting. It was an idea we had at the start, but it really became kind of similar with Amplitude games, and I’m really proud of it.
And the last thing I like is that we had the capacity of exploring other styles of games around 4X, still in the strategy genre, but that we managed to bring people to other kinds of games, stuff that differed a bit.
What are you currently working on?
Mathieu: On top of simply “everything”, Endless Space 2’s GUI. And I’m overseeing production for everything.
Romain: All our games, as I am overseeing the vision for everything that is announced, and everything that isn’t!
What's your favorite game of all time?
Mathieu: Civilization. Civ 4
Romain: Same. That’s one of the things that really drove Mathieu and I together, we thought there was nothing better at the time in terms of 4X. I would add Sid Meyer’s Pirates! because I’m a big fan of his.
What's your favorite faction or character in our games?
Romain: OPBOT, but he’s kind of our mascot. There is rarely a quest design meeting where the name OPBOT doesn’t come up: “OPBOT suddenly arrives, OPBOT is behind the door…” We have fun with this character a lot, as he tends to come up throughout all eras, everywhere, and you never know if it’s really him or not… As for factions, the funniest one is the Horatio. I really liked the idea of this misunderstood guy in love with his self-image, trying to make other people like him so they could understand him. Gameplay-wise they’re not my favorite.
Mathieu: I like the Drakken. I like their gameplay, the theme, their powerful units… even if they’re not necessarily a warlike faction, contrarily to the Necrophages. And I like the Necrophages because it forces you to play in a certain way. That’s one of the things I like with all our factions, really, they have different gameplays, they force you to try new things and get out of your comfort zone.
Romain: Gameplay-wise, I’d say… Ah, yes! Wait, no… Mmh, I like the Broken Lords, they have a pretty streamlined gameplay – oh wait actually, I think… but no, really, the Forgotten. I like them a lot. At the start I wasn’t really into them, but we developed them a lot visually, and now I really like their story and visuals, their trickery…
Is there a funny story that happened to you at Amplitude?
Romain: For one of our first G2G votes, we had given players the choice three ways of approaching pirates. The first one was religious zealots; the second was a more nomadic people, more lost in space, seeking nourishment on their way. It was a bit different, really interesting. And we had the usual everyday pirates, stealing and killing, scarred faces, parrot on the shoulder. I was sure one of the first two was going to win, because they were different, but really quickly we had like 70% of the votes going to these ultra-classic pirates, and I was super surprised! I tried campaigning on the forums, to make players try and support one of the other options, but in the end that was their choice. Now we’re just a bit more careful with the options we offer in the vote, to try and ensure all options are interesting. We had “pirates” in a recent G2G vote and somehow they won again. That’s also what G2G is about, it’s about losing creative control; at the time it made me laugh to play with the community like that and see how they reacted.
Mathieu: no fun stuff. [smiles]
What's your favorite quote?
Mathieu: “Or if you like, we just don’t do it?” I use it in production meetings; it makes people find creative ways of solving problems.
What's the next place you want to travel to?
Romain: New Zealand. It’s been my “next place to go” for the last ten years.
What's the dish you cook to impress people?
Romain: boiled egg with fish eggs (French: oeuf mollet aux oeufs de lump). I made that to seduce my wife back in the day… and actually it was godawful that day, I had messed up, but when it’s done right it’s really good! Just don’t forget to let it cool in the fridge for three hours, and don’t put double the sour cream necessary.
Mathieu: Lamb vindaloo.
When you have 30 minutes of free-time, how do you pass the time?
Romain: Rocket League. Or good’ ole Hearthstone.
Mathieu: Just enough time for a game of StarCraft II.
What story does your family always tell about you?
Romain: These are stories you don’t really want to tell…
If you could relocate the studio in any country, where would you want to go?
Romain: New England…? All the countries in which you’d want to go would be countries in which it wouldn’t be easy to work, or to recruit, so you always end up in cold countries…
What chore do you absolutely hate doing?
Romain: cleaning the bathroom at work after [REDACTED] trashed them.
That's it for Mathieu & Romain! We hope you found this interesting. Comments or additional questions, feel free to ask!
If there's a question you would like us to ask the interviewees, let us know!
