Hey guys and gals!
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! 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. This week, we're interviewing an independent contractor who has been a long-time partner, with a unique story to tell!
Meet the high-flyer who shapes endless worlds for you to explore, Jean-Luc!
Who are you and what do you do at Amplitude?
Hi, I am Jean-Luc, I am 45 years old and have three children. I live with my wife and daughter in a beautiful valley far to the North and East of Paris, with fields and woods nearby. I work for Amplitude as a freelance consultant and my job is world generation. I take all these ideas from the designers about how the world or galaxy should be structured, and I hopefully come up with some program that creates it from random numbers. Always different, but with the same structure, variety but consistency. I like the challenge.
What were you doing before you joined Amplitude?
I am normally an airline captain, flying short and medium-haul passenger flights across France, Europe and the Mediterranean Sea. I have been flying for 18 years now. I squeeze the occasional day at Amplitude to advance the current generator project.
When did you join the studio?
I joined right at the creation of Amplitude, before the name was even chosen and the company was still in limbo. Before he became a powerful game industry mogul, Mathieu (AmpliMath) and I met during college, and we are old friends. I discussed with Mathieu and Romain what I could bring to the team, and random procedural world creation is a long-time hobby of mine, which started with a rogue-like dungeon generation on a Sinclair ZX81 (16Kb memory, audio tape long-term storage) with my father when I was 12.
What feature have you worked on that you're super proud of?
Although I think that such generators are always perfectible, I like the way the Legends terrain retains consistency between neighbouring hexes, with fairly natural variation.
What are you currently working on?
I am working on some improvements to the Endless Legend generator, and galactic generation for Space 2. For the latter, however, I merely provide the design-friendly bricks and tools with which Maxence (Meedoc) actually implements the generator's logic.
What's your favorite game of all time?
At 45, I have played games since the beginning of time, probably. That is why singling out only one game does not seem reasonable to me. I have fantastic memories of Wizardry (1 through 8), Ultima (3 to 6) and DOOM (the previous century one). Sid Meier's Pirates is a lovely game which I enjoyed over a very long time. More recently, I have greatly enjoyed XCOM : Enemy Unknown, Morrowind, Far Cry 2 and the STALKER series. I have sunk an unreasonable amount of time on 7 Days To Die and various "survival" games like Don't Starve and Empyrion Galactic Survival. I also dabble in more obscure or hard core games like Dwarf Fortress or 7.62 High Caliber, and quite a few rogue-likes such as FTL, Stone Soup Crawl and Dungeon of the Endless.
Is there anywhere on the Internet where I can see more of your stuff?
Apart from my work at Amplitude, I have not yet accomplished anything that I would deem worthy of publication at this time in my game creation career. As for my main occupation, the objective is obviously to remain unknown and anonymous to the public until retirement age, celebrity in that field being usually both fatal and shameful.
What's your favorite race or character in our games?
I love the lore of the Vaulters in Legends, and that of Sara Numas in Dungeons. These characters have qualities of loyalty and fighting spirit in desperate situations that powerfully appeal to me. I play them for these reasons, apart from any gameplay advantage or failing they might have.
Is there a funny story that happened to you at Amplitude?
Not really, but I thoroughly enjoy my time with the team. They are a fantastic group of people, studious, industrious and relaxed at the same time. They have high intelligence and talent, and it is a great joy to talk and work with them.
What's your favorite fictional character?
James Bond. Resourceful. Fearless. Without remorse. Kills the bad guys. Seduces the beautiful girls. Survives.
If you could relocate the studio in any country, where would you want to go?
As a global traveler, here is my answer : nowhere else. The studio is where it belongs, and far away is always a strange place. Home is home, and you do not have any other. Love it. Defend it.
That's it for Jean-Luc! We hope you found this interesting. Comments or additional questions, feel free to comment!
If there's a question you would like us to ask the interviewees, let us know!
