Meet Team Röki - Alex
We thought it was about time you got to know Team Röki and so here we are! And what better way to start than with one of our wonderful Co-Founders - Alex.
1 - Introduce yourself
Hey I’m Alex and I’m one of the founders of our little studio and, alongside Tom, responsible for defining the vision and direction of Röki.
Being a small team, my role is pretty liquid. One of my primary focuses is all things characters. I model, rig and animate all of Röki’s characters. Outside of that I take care of our art/animation tech. This can be anything; from writing our custom shaders, creating our lighting system, devising how we want our character’s facial animation to work, to some secret stuff we can’t talk about yet but is very cool!
Basically, a whole heap of cool stuff.
Presently I’m owning the Alpha pass on the third act of the game, implementing Samu’s paper design.
2 - What was / who was your inspiration for wanting to be in the gaming industry?
I wouldn’t say I had a single point of inspiration, I’ve always been a huge fan of animation, comics, movies and games, seeking out odd curiosities and hoovering up a hugely diverse range of stuff. I knew from an early I wanted to do something creative for a career.
My dad in some ways confirmed this, he was always pretty frugal with advice, wanting us to forge our own paths but he did tell me in no uncertain terms, “Whatever you do, don’t go into academia”. I didn’t need telling twice!
3 - Favourite childhood game
I had two big gaming influences growing up, my SNES and Lucasarts.
On the Lucasarts front, The Secret of Monkey Island was the firm favourite (in fact I recently wrote a blog about it : Adventure Game Corner - Monkey Island).
The other title that burned itself into my childhood was The Secret Of Mana. At the time you couldn’t get Final Fantasy games in the UK so this was my first foray into JRPG territory and I found it utterly enchanting. I especially remember the joy of being fired around the world map in a cannon in glorious MODE 7 graphics.
In fact, now I think of it, one aspect that both games I’ve chosen have in common is that they have exceptionally strong and memorable soundtracks. Probably not a coincidence!
4 - Favourite game of the moment
I’m playing Dark Souls Remastered at the mo. I was late to the party with the series, the first entry I played was Dark Souls 3 and I’ve been slowly working my way back. When they announced the remaster I was pretty excited to be able to pay a visit to the first in the series.
The Dark Souls series is a bit Marmite. I like the fact that it just throws the rulebook, plunges you into a weird world with no set up and the let’s you slowly piece together what’s going on as you progress. It’s very minimal in terms of story telling but also very powerful, allowing the player to fill in the gaps and form their own interpretation of what’s happening. I definitely prefer this approach than cutscene heavy games, if I wanted to watch a movie, I’d watch a move.
Outside of that, I’m really enjoying playing through Unforeseen Incidents which for fans of the genre is a must to check out and looks LOV-ER-LY.
5 - Who do you think would make you starstruck?
I had the pleasure of meeting Tim Schafer at a recent BAFTA Crew event and that was pretty cool. After the roundtable discussion he came over and asked how I was getting on, I suspect he mistook me for someone else but I’ll take it! I *think* I managed not to disgrace myself!
I’d like to meet Miyazaki (the Ghibli one) although in the interviews I’ve seen he does seem like an incredible hard-ass but I imagine there would still be a certain pleasure to be taken from being the target for his scorn!
6 - And finally… Describe Röki in 5 words or less
Jeez that’s tough, OK let’s give this a go! Röki is…
A contemporary dark fairytale, EEK.