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Interview with Ale, Creator of Squidcraft Games: "Every day we had to improvise something"

A few days ago there was a before and after twitch . The SquidCraft Games were a whole audience success, with millions of concurrent viewers, a signal by creator of content and a prize of $ 100,000 for the winner. And all this on a minecraft server that even for those who have played hundreds of hours, We continue to understand how many of the games, interactions and mechanics proposed in a title created in Java have been achieved and with more than a decade of life.

This has not been simply gathering many content creators and getting visits for their popularity. Behind the Squidcraft Games there have been months of work of a team with experience and ability to surprise both the general public, and the most experts of Minecraft. A team directed by alcuatro , a veteran of the world of creation of events and servers in the Mojang Sandbox.

With him we have talked about the difficulties of creating an event with so many uncontrollable variables, the difficulties of working while the direct it is in the air, and how this ambitious project was generated. A talk about the reality of hard work, planning and effort that is behind all the great series of streamers that are so fashionable are on twitch.

Two weeks of working blind and ten minutes of conversation

We could think that the Squidcraft Games have been an order more for people with experience working in this kind of series so massive, but the reality is very different. Ale, the project manager, tells us that he has always wanted to develop videogames, and that minecraft is more than a game, is a development platform . And this project started in the most reasonable way as it is seeing the series: _ "Every time I see something, I want to recreate it, or I see a movie and I want to do it. Maybe it's a house of scare, I do not know. At that time, When we started, I already had experience in large projects. I was always looking for ideas for projects. The Netflix series, Squid Game came out, and I think about 2 or 3 days maximum after I saw it complete, we start working on the development of A recreation. "_

This is interesting, because Ale already has a team of friends and colleagues with whom he gives life to these worlds that will later be used in series and events. And with them worked without knowing what would happen : _ "We work for two weeks without knowing who was going to be the project, what I wanted was to develop it up to a certain point of maturity and sell it to someone, we spent two weeks my team And I no budget, but thinking about selling it. "_

Ale, who already knew the creator of content komanche of the past, presented him the project after those two weeks of working on the prototype... and everything would end up in two talks of 5 minutes: _ "at that moment I had contact With Komanche, I was just doing the same, some Squid Games in Roblox with Rubius, and took the opportunity to present the idea. And from that moment we financed the project. I entered a call with Komanche as five minutes after presenting him the idea, I He heard about another five minutes and he said "Do not tell me more, I'm going to bring Auron and Rubius to the call." I explained it again, and they liked it. From that moment we made the budget and began to Work for three months. "_

Development figures

For those who have not seen the series, about 150 content creators were tested for 6 consecutive days of games. A mixture between role of previous projects such as Marbella Vice in GTA V, and the wire of the Netflix series ' the squid game ', but with the peculiarity that the creators have also been participants of the game of Role in which it has finished becoming what was not a twitch rivals, a competition also promoted by the streaming platform.

Improvise It! Full Score During those 6 days we have had adaptation of the games seen in the South Korean series, but also other additional tests to give you variety, as well as for ** " A huge work that Ale number in this way: _ "This project was done with 3 months of development, Full Development. This means that there were roles that did not work full time, who were supportive [...] were 3 months in total And like 20 people, some full-time, others partial and finally the guards, who were actors and fulfilled functions of moderator and support. They worked from about 3 weeks before the project, more or less. "_

The development of the server was the result of the compartmentalization of the work, and with an example you will understand it. _ "Music did not occur full-time, for example, but the musician did not need to be available to work when he was needed. I know, maybe we needed the sound of how the door opens, because he had to be there for power Finish that part and that aspects such as 3D modeling, music, programming and sound effects were complemented. ", _ Ale tells us.

A job about the march

Contrary to what many can think, an event like this does not end at the time when the last pixel, texture or sound is put. In fact, an important part of work was performed on the fly, while the streamers were live and the tests in dispute. _ "How is it organized behind cameras? Well, it's crazy. Every day we had to improvise something, there was not a single day that we did not do it. We had a script, but you could almost never read as such, we had changes literally 10 Seconds before speaking, sometimes something tiny failed and we had to invent something at a technical level, dialogues... we had to be prepared to improvise. "_, Ale Ale.

According to her, it tells us, the 2 previous essay weeks, as well as the morning tests prior to the event of each day , were key so that everything would go well. And in spite of that, there were understandable failures, like the game of the cookie... and it was solved with the usual recipe of Roleo: _ "In all 6 days of event only one day we had a serious problem, as it was that The game of the cookie failed. That game failed because we do not consider some things at the technical level during the tests. We had a very hard testing stage, and we do not contemplate certain factors. At this moment we decided to cover it with role, with which there was a sabotage. We invented that fiction so that they could continue. "_

Although if we talk about setbacks, there is a well-known 1. A DDoS attack on Andorra Telecom made a significant amount of streamers who reside there could not compete at the event. And, again, it was the role and the rapid improvisation of Ale and his team that saved the ballot: _ "When the Internet of Andorra fell, we left them in the room of one of the games. And we created the role that They were sleeping. We use the role in our benefit. For the next day, if it was not solved, we had prepared that the roof was closed to cast them as in the series. We wanted solutions from the series and that they made sense in it, but transferred to it. Our format. "_

Fun formula

Many of the developers with whom I have spoken always talk about how one of the most complicated things to do in a videogame is something that we all give for supposed: fun. The Squidcraft Games had it more complicated, because they had to be fun not only for those who played them, but for those who saw it .

_ "I think the formula to do something fun, considering that each channel has his humor and his audience, is to know them all a little. Everyone on my team We are involved in the community, and we know many content creators. All My team was giving suggestions, and our colleagues at Discord passed us clips of funny things that had happened, in that way, we knew what was working and had to be enhanced, and that things had to be improved or changed. "_, Ale tells me about this issue.

And another leg at this table, is to give a recognizable product and be able to reach many people, at the same time that you offer games and possible experiences within Minecraft. _ "Obviously, I try to see what we do from the point of view of the creator of content, the spectator and the producer. Many things have to be married. Certain matters could not be done, for example, there are things that We know that we will not be able to control, because it is real life and not a scripted series. That is why we prepare certain actions. For example, if we hit an air shot, everyone was going to be frozen. In the end, it was like having a Heap of monkeys, they were not going to be still. And we also had to move them when we took speeches, because we knew they were not going to be silent. "_, Confess ale.

Three types of Easter Egg and a criticism of Mojang

In such a long project, and with so many people involved, it is natural to think that there are a lot of references, Easter eggs and added so that those who discover them, enjoy. ALE confesses that there are three types of _EASTER EGGS _ in the SquidCraft Games: _ "First, we made references to our sponsors. Auronplay was in the cookie, since one of the figures was Rodolfo. Komanche was in the Broken phone, with a pug. Rubius was on the disco with an animated model and we put the music of miner. Then we referred to the squid series. Many details that are not advertised, but they are. And then two references to Tortillaland and To the challenge II, which are our series and that will be released this year. "_

For someone like me, who comes from the world of electronic sports, he knows well that in that world there is a lot of talk of the support of the developers to the community projects. On this matter I asked Ale and left me a long reflection on Minecraft: _ "The Minecraft Creator is Notch, and sold it a few years ago. Since then, the game began to decline at a technical level. Maybe at the level of Popularity No, but at a technical level, it declined a lot. To the point that if you optimized a server well, you could put up to 1000 people. And now download a server as it gives you Mojang, and when it happens from 10 people, you already start give problems. It is an abyss. "_

Of course, he tells us that Mojang did not contact the creators of the Squidcraft Games, and that he knows cases of other large twitch series that tried to talk with the Minecraft developers, without finding an answer even.

_ You can know the ALE projects and the team of it in the Patreon of Him, which we encourage you to support if you like its content._

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