Lasse Seppanen, the production lead for Alan Wake is presenting about the team and the tools.

• Remedy Entertainment
  • Independent studio founded in 1995
  • 31 employees in Helsinki, Finland
  • Death Rally, Max Payne, and Max Payne 2
  • Max Payne IP now owned by Take 2
• Alan Wake
  • Remedy own the IP
  • Published by MS
  • For Xbox 360 and PC
• Ambitious Project Goals > Strategy
• Understanding the Team
• In-house Content Creation
• Outsourcing & Middleware
• Project Managment Tools
• The Future

Remedy doesn't want to ship a game until they are comforatble that the game will score higher then 90+.

In the order of priority, making a great game is number one, while time is second because they dont want to work on something forever, and cost is last.  This allows them to buy into making their game.  Board of Directors at Remedy are very inolved and the game reports to the board.

• Game Design (5 +1 TBH)
  • Story Design
  • Creative Director
  • Gameplay Designers
• Visual Arts (11)
  • 3D modeling & Animation
  • Evniorment Art
  • Technical Art
  • Sound & Music
• Programming (9)
  • Game
  • Tools (2 Full time)
• Project Managment (2)
• Business + Legal + Finances + Office (2)
• IT Support (2)

Small & Agile Approach

• Few open jobs
  • Pick the ultimate best applicants
  • Sometimes having multiple heads leads you to find people to fill the slot so you don't lose the head, and not finding someone that will fit into the role you really want.
  • Critial mass of talent
    • Meeting every monday at 10 am with the entire staff
• A small, agile team can turn on a dime and pursue whatever makes the most sense for a great game
• Every team member is focused on shipping a masterpiece
• No politices, no egos, no empire building, no nonsense

We stay small and optimze team and process.

Made a decision early that mutliplayer did not fit the needs of the game or the team making it.

99% of everything being done is withing a single tool.  The entire world is loaded, and parts of the level can be checked out and worked on, while the rest is locked.  Parts can also be worked on in parellel as well as differnet deptarments.  Someone can be working on geometry and another can be working on gameplay.

• Outsourcing & Middleware
  • The industry is changing to a disrubuted model
  • Mature middleware providers like Havok
  • Remedy welcomes the change
    • We are experts in defining what the game is and how everything works together to make a great game
    • 1 car was made interlaly, while every other ones were outsurced and the outsource quality was higher.
    • With the staff being so senior, keeping those senior/experts modivated by challenging them is key.
  • Oucsourcing allows us to focus on the game

Project Managment Intranet

They use JIRA and Confluence.

• Project Timeline
• Goals
  • Quarter
  • Month
• Every Friday, PM Team sets the priorities for the coming week.
  • "steering wheel"

With a staff of senior people, you can provide more high level goals and allow the senior staff to decided how they want to do it.  Where you would have more hand holding with junior members.