Game Development Studio

Developer Profile: Graveck Interactive.

Graveck Interactive is a game development studio which recently teamed up with Freeverse to expand on the famous Big Bang Board Games which come bundled with all recent iMacs.

Who are you?

I'm Jonathan Czeck, co-founder of Graveck Interactive. I've been interested in game development since about when I learned to type on the Apple //e and started typing in BASIC code from a magazine I found. Currently I am studying at the University of Minnesota, finishing up a degree in Computer Science but taking some time off to pursue my passion for creating games.

What games are you working on?

Right now there are two game projects in the sights.

We've recently teamed up with Freeverse to expand on their world famous Big Bang Board Games. The result will be a suite of games called Big Bang Brain Games. In this suite of mind-building games there will be some familiar favorites along with some new concoctions. We're going to have the best computer Sudoku on the planet, a memory matching head scratcher, a twisted minesweeper-like game, a color matching game with a new twist, and at least two other brain benders to sharpen up those neurons.

The second one is called Papa Pizza Patrol and has been developed on and off for a while now. It started as a game with 2D graphics and my own engine. When we found Unity we saw that we could make it much more special. Now it's supercharged pizza delivery, side-scrolling style, with some really pretty visuals. You deliver pizza in your all-terrain pizza wagon across different worlds... while doing tricks off jumps, getting ahead of competitors, and keeping hungry aggressors off your back. Did I mention hang glider powerups? It's how Moon Patrol should have been if the computer horsepower was available at the time. We've got really fun feeling physics thanks to PhysX being seamlessly integrated into Unity. Papa Pizza Patrol is on temporary hold now as we work on Big Bang Brain Games.

What's the production plan?

Two guys, jumbo packs of tacos and burritos, lots of heart and long days.

How is you toolchain put together?

Unity is our bread and butter. The supporting cast is Blender, Photoshop, Illustrator, Sound Studio, GarageBand with lots of added instruments, Xcode for some Unity plugin magic, some other things I probably forgot, and Petri the one year old Pekin duck. I guess Petri is more mascot and security than an app, but people don't ask enough questions about pets these days.

What was the best part of the Unity experience?

We can make a prototype for a new game idea in a few hours and polish it as fast as we can make the art. There's a different way available to make games now. It seems ridiculous to have the world's best physics engine sitting there when prototyping a puzzle game, but it's actually really liberating. You try game designs you wouldn't have before. We have a few internal prototypes that really benefit from this, and I think they're going to be really great new games.

What obstacles did you run into?

The largest challenge is avoiding character animation. Unity supports it of course, but we don't have a supported 3D package right now. It is a blessing in disguise, though. It keeps us down to Earth and inspires us to think of creative ways to avoid it which result in some pretty off-the-wall concepts.

The biggest obstacles in Papa Pizza Patrol are probably the bouncing boulders that come rolling down the hill after you.