Dogs Understand

When did you start drawing and how did you develop the unique style that we see now in your work?

I’ve started drawing since forever. The style I'm using now, especially in my drawings, is more inspired by textures. I’m really into patterns, textures that you can find in nature – waves, ripples, how everything is in everything and how everything has an influence on everything.

Are there any specific artists, authors, or filmmakers who have influenced your work?

Yeah there’s a lot of people who have inspired me over the years. I, of course, consume a lot of media – it’s either video game[s], film, books but I don’t have any artists specifically that influence me. I try to listen more to my own inner voice and dig into my feelings and my own experience. I think it’s already so rich in texture not just visually but emotionally.

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When did you start creating your video game and can you tell us a bit about the themes or narratives that you explore in the game? 

So I started to create Gobble Fantasy 2003 four years ago. I just wanted to see if I could do a little Pacman game but then it grew and grew and became what it is now. It became more complex when I started bringing characters and merging a story to the gameplay. It started with the gameplay, then I made a narrative around that.

You use RPG Maker 2003 to create your video game. I read that not only are all the graphics in 2D, the movements of the graphics are created with sprites (single images that have a composition of frames in a specific orientation to give the illusion of movement). Does this mean that you sketch out the movements, frame by frame, of each character in the game? 

Yeah, so for my game I use sprites — this means I have to animate my characters for every direction. For example, in a sidescroller, If a character [has] a walk cycle you can get away with just 2 directions, left and right. Which is fun, that means you only have to invert the direction of your animation (laughs). That’s always a relief after so much work. But yes, it’s an old program I’m using, not only is my game retro but so are my methods of working.

Why choose this particular software over others?

I’m using RPG maker 2003 simply because I’m so comfortable with it. If an idea for a game or a world appears to me, I instinctively open it. I've been using it since I discovered it's possible to make my own games, which was probably when I was around 10 years old. It’s a program that allows you to easily make J-RPG style games with turn based battles, dialogue boxes, a money system, etc. It's a bit limited, but I like to use its tools and subvert its original nature to make different types of games than what's expected. Also, the music that comes with the program is what inspired the levels of my game. I think there's a 2003 at the end of the program's name to make it sound brand new during 2002. Which is certainly not the case anymore, it's pretty ancient, but that's part of its charm (laughs). So now you know why there’s a 2003 at the end of Gobble Fantasy 2003, it’s a love letter to my beloved software.

What challenges have you faced while developing your video game, and how have you overcome them? 

If I met some challenges while making this game, I would say it's having to watch myself not to overscope everything, because the ideas fly by way faster than my working hands and the program doesn’t allow me to be as spontaneous as I’d like. So that’s a big challenge just trying to keep everything not out of scope and realistic. It’s a big humbling exercise for me (laughs).

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Are there any specific technical or creative hurdles that you've encountered?

I’d say I feel like I’m mining or polishing for quality. So if I get things wrong I polish it even more until I get it right, which is why it’s been four years in the process, I suppose (laughing). This game is the place where I let myself be a bit of a perfectionist, contrary to when I make zines, because there’s an event coming up in one week and I want to make something special for it — that gets my gears running in a different, more spontaneous way. I find it so liberating, so I always have this long project which I want to be perfect and all those little projects around which are more immediate, as much in the doing than the showing. No one was waiting for me to finish a game before but now that I have a Patreon, and people actually put money in my project because they might believe in it or in me, things are different, I feel responsible to deliver. By intentionally painting myself in a corner I start[ed] getting wise about things, because they are now funded in reality and I cannot just expand things forever anymore. 
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It’s interesting you say that because it sounds like maybe before you started working on your video game, in your artistic practice, you didn’t have that many restrictions or boundaries. Do you feel like having these restrictions now has helped shape or form your artistic practice in recent years?

Yeah I think so. I work better, I’m less volatile because I feel grounded because of others. It’s a form of communication and now I have people who [are] listening so I actually try to articulate a bit better because of that.
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Can you walk us through your creative process when developing new characters or worlds? How do you go from the initial concept to the finished product?

Well, I started this game mainly just like Nintendo — I prototype something first with barebone graphics only to get something fun to play, then I add a coat of visuals and inject meaning, story and characters to the project. As I add characters to the game, there’s a world that starts building and the narrative unfolds itself naturally. In the end, the gameplay is the core of the project and the aesthetics can be interchangeable. It’s like I’m doing my own commercial project but [it’s] just one person, which is insane. It’s a fake commercial project made in a very DIY way. 

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It sounds almost a bit magical, the way it develops, it sounds like maybe you don’t even know when you start the process where it’s going to end up which is kind of exciting.

Yeah that’s true, like for a long time I just kept surprising myself because I’m the only one who can judge what’s good or not and if I’m surprised or think something is funny then of course it has to stay. But at some point I need to also stop and say “ok that’s what I’m going to put in the bottle because the bottle is only that big”. For this project, I have a good idea on how I'm going to close up things and all the extra ideas I’ve found along the way are kept inside my sketchbooks for future projects.

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Do you have a favourite character that you’ve created and if so, could you tell us a bit about it?

I guess I have Noël — can I show  you (grabs a cardboard design of Noël to show to the camera)? That’s Noël – every character represents a different part of me. Noël is the main character because I really wanted to talk about… (trails off) I don’t know… the gameplay is very chaotic and destructive and I felt like Noël [had this] very chaotic vibe in him and he [has] the whole game world[’s] feeling on his shoulder. He represents the game with his happy-go-lucky nature, above good or bad, he just is.
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Can people currently play or demo your game, and if so, how? 

Not quite yet, right now I’m working on a level that is big enough to be its own game that is inside my game. So that will be at the same time a demo in itself. That's the first thing I’m going to launch but for the whole game I don’t know. I’ve been on it for three years and it might take three more years to complete.

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You’ve created several zines as well, how does the zine format complement or enhance your artistic vision?

All those zines I did were mainly for events where I knew I would be showcasing them, like Expozine or FBDM which was a comic book festival. So it’s really cool, I use those events as deadlines to work on little projects such as comics, which I make very fast, without overthinking. I already have my game to keep me overthinking so it’s very refreshing to start something new that I know is going to be done in a week and be presented to people. It’s very motivating and If I keep accumulating those zines, it might even become a book in the future.
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How do you balance your time between creating illustrations, 3D work, animation, and developing your video game?

I can be a very unbalanced person. It’s a struggle everyday for me to stay healthy and still do interesting work. But now it [has come] to a point where I feel like my work has [merged well] with my practical life and I don’t isolate myself as much as I used to. I think that’s important when you’re an artist. It's very easy to go deep into yourself, mining ideas and concepts and then go outside to get a pint of milk only to feel really disconnected with everything or at least everyone. That’s pretty much how my life was for a while but then I realized, “Ok, I need people around me — I need support and to support others”. The social aspect, I cannot ignore. I thought I could get away without it but no. I actually need the people and there are people who need me. Not ignoring the outside world will fill me up so much creatively in the end. It’s not just the long walks in nature, that’s good too, but solitude has its limit. It’s a constant back and forth from the outside busy world to my inside personal landscape.
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How do you engage with your audience and community? Do you actively seek feedback or collaborate with other artists or people to further develop your artistic practice?

The way I interact with my audience so far [is that] I try to apply what I’ve learned in game design since they are both interactive. I’m a playful person, I love to play games in general, not just video games. I see any interaction as a game – I throw the ball at someone and [they] throw it back to me. By example, I organize little contests sometimes: “Guess the silhouette of my character” and people fill up the silhouette with their own version of what the character might be and the answer there is just amazing! Or when I ask them to make fan art, they haven’t even played the game but they’re already stoked with the character design, and they copy it and they send it to me — I’m crying. I feel like those activities are already a part of my video game.
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As you continue to evolve as an artist, do you have any plans to explore new mediums or experiment with different artistic techniques? Are there any artistic goals you have set for yourself in the near future?

I tend to go with my feelings at the moment — of course there are so many mediums I’d like to use more, like sculpting or painting, probably painting big formats would be nice just to shape a different experience that won’t end up being showcased on a small phone screen. As for the game I’m making now, I wish it's not going to be the last one. I have so many projects with different worlds that are in the waiting room, waiting to be explored and shared. VR is interesting, I’d like to explore that as well. Finally, trying to collaborate with others, that’s a big goal for me, something I want to get better at. I’ve just got out of my shell. Finally showing up feels like a second birth (laughing).
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With Please Don’t Tell we really like to play with the topic of secrecy and we like to end every interview with the same final question. What is your secret to staying creatively inspired?

My secret to staying creatively inspired would be to seek novelty, all the time. I think people are a good source of it so I go towards them and then, when I'm fulfilled, I come back and I put it all into my work, as much as I can. I think that’s where the juice is. Doesn’t matter what it looks like aesthetically. My experience — it’s the core of everything I do, that’s the only thing I will ever know. So as long as, I think, you feel like you’re plugged into this core you can really speak your truth and create something relatable to other humans.

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