{"id":63851,"date":"2022-09-01T15:30:41","date_gmt":"2022-09-01T19:30:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.themainemag.com\/?p=63851"},"modified":"2022-09-02T09:25:01","modified_gmt":"2022-09-02T13:25:01","slug":"a-maine-video-game-designer-levels-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.themainemag.com\/a-maine-video-game-designer-levels-up\/","title":{"rendered":"A Maine Video Game Designer Levels Up"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cWhen I was in middle school, I was playing a game, and I had the realization that making games was someone\u2019s job,\u201d says Adam deGrandis, who is sipping coffee on his back porch in Scarborough one clear spring morning. \u201cThat blew me away. And a second later I thought, Oh my god\u2014 that could be my job!<\/em>\u201d The year was 1995, and the game was Command and Conquer (which might bring up some memories for the elder millennials and gen-Xers out there). It would be a decade before deGrandis would get his foot in the door of the then-fledgling indie gaming industry, but that realization stuck with him, propelling him along what, by his own account, was no easy path. \u201cLearning how to make games is hard,\u201d deGrandis admits. \u201cDoing it blind,\u201d with little to no help, \u201cis incredibly hard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the early 2000s deGrandis attended the Maine College of Art (MECA\u2014now Maine College of Art and Design, MECA&D) for graphic design. He realized that, although the college did not yet have any courses in game design, the computers all had a 3D-modeling software program called Maya installed. \u201cI was aware [Maya] was used in games and in film, and I had access to it. I would basically skip classes to teach myself Maya,\u201d he recalls. Serendipitous as this opportunity may seem, it points to a larger pattern in deGrandis\u2019s early years: striving to realize his goal while taking advantage of the scant resources available. These were the days of dial-up internet and sluggish Yahoo searches. The lack of easily available information led deGrandis to take an all-or-nothing approach. \u201cI came to the conclusion that if you work in games you have to be able to do everything. That\u2019s not really the case. Most people specialize, but I didn\u2019t know that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And so deGrandis taught himself everything, from design to modeling, programming, and digital art creation. In 2005 he got an internship at the early indie studio GarageGames and moved to Eugene, Oregon. DeGrandis bounced around the country following work until 2011, when he decided to move back to Portland. At the time, it seemed an odd choice for someone with his aspirations. \u201cMy wife, Sarah, and I moved back primarily because it\u2019s a very high quality of life here. We love the environment, we love the people,\u201d deGrandis says. But he admits that there wasn\u2019t much of a video game development scene in Maine. Even so, with the connections he\u2019d made on the West Coast, he managed to get by with freelance gigs and adjunct work at his alma mater. Then he founded Chickadee Games in 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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\u201cPortland, and Maine in general, has such a rich history of artists of all stripes coming here. It took a little while, but I think digital art is now taking root the same way, especially games. Other people come here and say, \u2018This feels like home,\u2019 and they want to stay. It\u2019s like, \u2018Oh cool, because those are my people.\u2019 The community just builds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These days, deGrandis thinks of himself primarily as an art director for hire. \u201cThat\u2019s the short version,\u201d he laughs. Using the art fundamentals he built at MECA, coupled with everything he\u2019s learned about game creation since, he helps companies across the globe realize their games\u2019 unique artistic visions from his home office in Scarborough. \u201cI\u2019ll start with a bunch of different questions; it\u2019s a lot of listening. I\u2019m trying to find out what the game is about. And I try to remove myself from that process as much as possible. I don\u2019t want to make Adam\u2019s version of their idea; I want to make their idea.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeGrandis takes this separation of self from work seriously. Although he still begins most of his projects with hand-drawn sketches, often creating unique playlists to get himself into the right headspace, he doesn\u2019t necessarily consider what he does to be art in the strictest sense. \u201cFor most of my career I have approached my job more as a craftsman,\u201d he explains. \u201cAn artist has questions they want to ask a viewer or audience, and they have something they want to say. A craftsman doesn\u2019t have anything of their own they want to say, but they\u2019re really interested in language, and they like wrestling with language.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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In deGrandis\u2019s craft, he wrestles with what he calls the Triad of Concerns: visual communication, marketing, and production. The goal of visual communication is for gamers to be able to understand their characters\u2019 motivation, obstacles, and rewards in \u201cthe five-second read,\u201d which is what he calls looking at a screenshot of the game for just five seconds. This has to be balanced with both marketability\u2014making sure the game looks good and appeals to gamers\u2014and production\u2014being mindful that it doesn\u2019t take forever to create. \u201cAs I\u2019m designing an art style, I\u2019m weighing all these things. Every decision is deliberate.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

DeGrandis has been the art director on hit indie games such as Tooth and Tail, Steambirds Alliance, and Battle Bands, the last of which is from the local Portland developer Aerie Digital. Currently he\u2019s working on revisioning the art style of Desktop Dungeons, an award-winning quickplay puzzle game. (A more inclusive list of his work can be found at chickadeegames.com.) And, for those looking to learn, he\u2019s landed a job teaching his craft as a full-time educator at MECA&D, beginning this fall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For inspiration, deGrandis looks to his surroundings. \u201cWalking the trails all around the marsh here, that\u2019s where I feel my temperature come down. Or even just going out to the ocean and looking at the expanse of it and feeling small. This is where I want to be. This is home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\t\t

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