Telltale Games and Space
TelltaleGames
Former Telltale Staff
Our five-year anniversary has got me reminiscing about my first days working at Telltale. I was one of about 16 employees, a group that already seemed too large for that cozy office on Andersen Dr. in San Rafael. This fact was made so much clearer when I first sat at my desk in "The Fifth Corner", a proud section of the office that did not have any walls I was aware of unless you count the hockey net to my right and the Bop Buddy to my left. The "wall" that my desk was leaning against was another desk that belonged to some guy called Dave who apparently really liked salt water taffy. Visitors seemed to be impressed that this person was in our office and I heard a lot of talk about Pajama Sam, who I figured was a Bone character (I hadn't finished all the books yet). They say that smell and memory are closely related because they are processed in the same area of the brain. This may be why I will always be reminded of those hot summer days when I smell the ripe vapors from the sewage treatment plant down the street, the confusing apple-cinnamon spray that we used in our tiny restroom/shower, the flourocarbony smell of spray-on dye that crept in through the hole in our kitchen or the sweet synthetic aroma of pink/yellow salt water taffy.
Left to right: Daniel's birthday in Artist's Cove; a crotch shot; the early days were scary times...
During my first days at Telltale, the people sitting behind me didn't stop by my desk to chat much. I figured it was mostly because everyone was busy and focused so I decided to follow suit and concentrate on my first task, which was to rig CSI characters. I won't go into detail about the job, but there are three major areas of the body that are challenging to work on: the face, the shoulders and the crotch. This is because there are different skeletal joints influencing the same geometry and it isn't always easy to find the perfect balance of influences. After a few days, I noticed that half the office could see what was on my screen from their desk, which brought me to the sad realization that my co-workers were probably a little wary of approaching the guy who always has a close-up of a crotch on his screen.
[readmore]For some, change is a scary concept. Many of us have an innate evolutionary need to stick with what is comfortable and familiar. Fortunately, the ever-increasing employee count at the Andersen office made our working space neither comfortable nor familiar and we all approached the move to Bellam Blvd with eager anticipation. Suddenly we had enough space for cat-swinging, a whole lot of parking spots and even a cilantro-heavy eatery that was within walking distance. Best of all, I moved up from the floating Island that was "The Fifth Corner" to the stability of "Artists' Cove". The early days of The Artists' Cove only housed Graham Annable and me. These were simpler days in which we strictly obeyed the line labeled "Do not Cross" and we had room for Jon Sgro and Graham to use the hockey net.
The Bellam office was upstairs from a hypnotist. Maybe this is why we never wanted to leave...
So it was on an idle Tuesday, after I had rigged the last crotch on my task list, that Graham asked me to take a stab at using the Telltale Tool to do a cutscene for Out From Boneville. He opened up his book of sketches and said, "So far we only have one gesture for Kingdok, but why don't you try to put something together based on these storyboards?" What I thought to be was a fool's errand ended up as one of the finished cutscenes in Out From Boneville, and became the blood-pact that bound me to doing some form of choreography for almost every single telltale project since.
As a Choreographer, one is intimately tied to the production schedule and I finally began to understand how a small team had to work in complete synergy to be able to release a game like Out From Boneville.
We still had a long way to go after our first release, and the internet was kind enough to let us know exactly how they felt about any and every aspect of that game. Undeterred, we went on to finish up CSI 3 and got going on The Great Cow Race. By this time, Dave Bogan had joined us at Artists' Cove and the Blue Line was replaced by a wall. Things were starting to feel a little too intimate again as we were starting to fill out our britches. Then Sam and Max Season 1 was announced...
Left to right: Daniel's first cutscene; Lookin' for a hint?; Go, Mystery Cow!
Suddenly, instead of a couple of people pitching in to work on the website, we had Emily Morganti, Jake Rodkin and Doug Tabacco as the web team, instead of the art director creating all the late-night animation, we had Dave Bogan, Tim Reardon and Jeff Sarre as the animation team, instead of two guys doing most of the choreography, we had... well, Marco and me still (we were finally able to say "choreography team" with a straight face when Pete Tsaykel increased the number of choreographers by 50%). The line-turned-wall was having trouble containing all of us. So, as it has been and will always be, Telltale folk have a voracious appetite for space and one wall was not enough, so we tore down three. This, of course, was not before the office desk layout was mostly comprised of "Fifth Corners", some of which were so far from anything that would be called a wall that they got their network connection mainlined from the ceiling. With a little breathing space and an army of talented and enthusiastic people we were able to complete our first episodic season with Sam and Max, and finish up another CSI game to boot!
Left to right: Jake admires the ceiling network; Marco and Daniel, the choreography department; Dave Bogan enjoys his Bosco Tech air conditioning
With the whirlwind of new talent and the ever-decreasing space, comfort and familiarity were once again in jeopardy. We were just starting off Sam and Max season 2 and it was already time to move again. This time around we had a few more "motivators". We had an ever-dripping AC unit that would disproportionately freeze the conference room and heat the rest of the office; some of the windowed offices even resorted to Bosco-tech air-conditioning by covering the windows with aluminum foil to deflect the sun rays (but mostly to keep the government from listening to our thoughts). There was a springboarding bulge on the floor near Kim Lyons' desk that I was convinced would pop someday to unleash an unending swarm of bees or maybe tarantulas. There was an electromagnetic force near Dave Grossman's desk that would cause the power supply of his computer to burn out and no one came from the future to warn us about it. On the walk from the parking lot we had to brave an unmovable cloud of flies, an over-protective dive-bombing bird, a group of easy-to-anger rude dudes (who were actually pretty nice on a good day), a dilapidated hypnosis center and a spritely spider that grew at a tremendous rate. I don't think anyone has occupied that space since we left so I can only imagine that it looks like the Jumanji house with an overgrown tropical forest and a gigantic spider that a group of squatters fear and worship.
Left to right: running out of space; the Bellam office as we left it (it hasn't changed); our new home
The move from our Bellam office was the last one, and this is no surprise. Our current office is bright and spacious with an amazing view of the bay. Through our settling in, with only brief distractions by the triceratops that was doing the soundproofing in the office below (apparently, some of us can be a little "stompy"), we were able to complete the very exciting second season of Sam and Max only to jump straight into Strong Bad's Cool Game For Attractive People. It was really nice to work with the Chapman Bros. who had a very clear understanding of how the internet works. We had another growth spurt during this time, with another group talented people joining the team…and one difficult intern. But life was really good, especially when I could boot up my Wii, download an episode of SBCG4AP and easily show my friends and family who the Algebros were, why I decided to dress up as Dex for Halloween, and more importantly, what I did for a living (it even got some of them to stop asking me how I make the duck in the Aflac commercials look like it's talking).
Furthermore, dropping the words "Trogdor" or "Strong Bad" into my conversations was getting me further than ever. Then we announced Wallace and Gromit and it could not have come at a better time. We had gone through our growing pains and our staff and technology were at a place where we could make the W&G games that we could be proud of. Since my involvement in W&G has been minimal, I get the rare opportunity to experience this series as a fan of Telltale Games (which reminds me, do yourself a favor and just play Muzzled!, it is truly an amazing episode!). Now I'm jealous of you folks. I hope you appreciate what you have!
So now Telltale's turning five and we're working on incredible licenses (and are always looking for others), we are all set to release our games episodically through PC and consoles, and we finally have a working air conditioning system. I don't want to jinx it, but we just might finally be getting comfortable and familiar, and it feels pretty good.
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