🥪 🥒 👉🏻 How we played drinking with Richard Levelord Gray: personal life, favorite games and about Moscow 👩🏼‍🎓 😋 🤜

On June 20, our Instagram account went live with Richard Levelord Gray, the creator of Duke Nukem 3D, SiN, Blood. Richard also created several levels for Quake: Scourge of Armagon.

For the past few years, Levelord has been living in Moscow with his wife Olga and daughter. For the duration of the broadcast, he was stuck in Dallas due to the coronavirus. We broadcast in an unusual drinking game format: you asked Richard questions and if the question was interesting, Richard drank, after every third question the audience drank.

We share the recording and transcript of the broadcast.

What is the advantage of games from the 90s over modern games?

They are better because the technology was much simpler then and the development teams were smaller. They had more time to make the game more interesting and funnier, and now it takes all the time to make the game just work.

How do I patch KDE2 for FreeBSD?

Oh. Shutka.

How did you hear about Atomic Heart and Mundfish Studios?

The studio itself reached out to me. In general, I am often asked to watch a game or rate it, and I always agree, although nothing has impressed me lately. I consider myself "retired" from serious projects after 2008 and SiN Episodes. However, the game developed by Mundfish, for the first time in a long time, interested me: especially its atmosphere, game world and history, and the NVidia RTX ray tracing technology, which allows you to handle the behavior of light "on the go" (for example, mirrors work like real ones, you can even put a mirror in front of mirrors). I decided that Mundfish are cool guys who make a cool game, and I took to helping them.

By the way, even before I started helping the studio, I pre-ordered Atomic Heart. If you haven't seen the demo yet - check it out, the game is great. I also have their shirt.

What is your favorite game design book?

I had my favorite 10-20 design books, but that was back in the 90s. Now I can not advise anything.

What is your impression of your life in Russia?

A full story would take 3-4 hours. It's hard to give a short answer: it's like trying to explain why you like vanilla ice cream more - you just like it, that's all. I have always been interested in Russia: when I was young and when I served in the navy. This interest only grew. After I started working on games, I became friends with journalists from Russian game publications (then still paper). I often repeated: "Someday I will marry a beautiful Russian woman and build myself a house in Russia." My friends always answered: "Well, of course"; however, it happened so: I met my future wife at one of the Moscow conferences of the CWI.

Why Moscow?

Initially, because my wife lives in Moscow. Today I say that Moscow is my favorite city in the whole world, while it is very similar to New York - my favorite city in the States.

Tell us about your last pro game before the break - Becky Brogan Adventures.

These were the best three years of my professional life. I worked on this game alone - I didn't have to travel somewhere, go to meetings, keep records, control someone (or be under someone’s control myself), or even contact other people.

Why is it nearly impossible to make indie games alone now, despite the availability of free development tools and Steam?

Too much competition. When I released my game, there was still a huge number of indie studios releasing hundreds of games every week. The availability of free tools like Unity and Unreal Engine further increases the competition. Before they appeared, many talented people could not start making games due to the high cost of development tools and the difficulty of publishing games, but now any single project risks getting lost in the indie mass.

How did you meet Olga (Richard's wife)?

It all started with E3 2003 - at this conference I made friends with two Russian developers (the friendship turned out to be long-lived, they are like brothers to me even now). Later, in 2005, we met at the KRI exhibition in Moscow, and there I was introduced to Olga, she then worked with one of my friends. It was a fluke. By the way, these friends now run game development companies in Moscow.

Have you tried other areas of game development besides level design?

In the old days, level designers performed broader tasks in game design and took a fundamentally different position within the company. For example, in Duke Nukem 3D, Richard and Alan Bloom didn't just draw level maps, they actually created them from start to finish. Things have changed now: development teams have a division into low-level and high-level designers, and they have too much paperwork that is not related to level design. I would not like to be in such a position.

Are you writing a book or are you going to write one?

Thanks for the question, but no. I have been happy “in retirement” for 12 years now and I don’t do anything special.

What about a book on how to do nothing special for 12 years and be happy?

Okay, then here is the text of the book: "It takes a lot of money."

Are you happy in retirement?

Yes of course. Well, sometimes it gets boring.

You said you can talk about Game Garden and Dodo Games.

These are the companies of the very two friends with whom he has known for almost 20 years - since E3 2003. Game Garden belongs to Yuri Pomortsev, and Dodo belongs to Anatoly Norenko. Both companies produce a variety of casual games: platformers, farms and others. I sometimes help them.

How do you help them?

Sometimes - design and levels, sometimes - English translation help for Western users. I don't work for them, I just help on occasion.

How do you like the Duke Nukem 3D Anniversary Edition - 20th Anniversary World Tour?

It was cool! I took part in the development of the anniversary edition with pleasure. I would agree to do it for free (just don't tell anyone). At one time, Duke Nukem 3D was the first major project in which I participated: at the same time I first tried crunch on myself - this is when a developer works 20 hours a day. On days like this, I felt completely programmed to create levels. I worked on the anniversary version from Moscow, and my fellow 3D Realms designer, Alan Bloom, is from California; At times I caught myself expecting to turn my head and see Alan at the next table, who could always clarify any subtleties of working with the Build engine.

Do you have a favorite game that you play to relax (or just a game that you keep returning to)?

When I was doing development, I didn't play games. It's like working as a chef in a pizzeria: if you make pizzas all day, you don't want to see them when you come home. In addition, I often got tired more than other developers, being 20 years older than most of my colleagues: when I got home, I usually just went to bed. Now I play sometimes, but usually casual games; I haven't tried a new AAA game in the last 15 years.

I think the games are too complicated now: you have to read a whole book to get into the plot; control takes up the entire keyboard, too many weapons and other bells and whistles. I would like to just shoot, instead of all this - adventures, puzzles, game history, and so on.

What about Call of Duty?

Call of Duty started coming out back when I was actively developing games - I remember them well. I believe that perhaps I am already too old for all this. Although I sometimes go back to the first part of Age of Empires.

When was the last time Richard went without a mustache?

Somewhere in 1994-95, I guess. He had recently shaved his beard to make it easier to wear the mask.

Fruit Ninja or Plants VS Zombies?

From casual games, I usually play cards or 3-in-a-row, more like a board game, so I can't answer.

Does Richard like Serious Sam?

Sure. This is exactly the kind of game that I love. You just have to shoot!

How soon will the battle royale trend end?

I believe that they have been with us long enough and they will probably stay forever. They resemble the new version of Deathmatch.

Does Richard like Half-Life?

I played both "old" parts, of course. I admit that the first part deservedly won the competition with Ritual Entertainment's own game - SiN; I like the second part even more.

Are there new technologies that Richard likes or at least evokes strong emotions? VR, AR, motion capture and so on.

I got acquainted with modern VR a couple of years ago while working with Mundfish and the Higher School of Economics, and recently with modern motion capture technology. Both technologies impressed me. I used to deal with a VR device - around 2000, but the then “helmet” was absolutely uncomfortable and it was impossible to wear it for more than 5 minutes; in fact, the technology itself worked poorly.

I was skeptical, but found that modern VR glasses are comfortable to wear, and they really create the effect of presence: the virtual fall into the abyss left a strong impression. I haven’t dealt with augmented reality yet, but I think that this technology can also be interesting. My previous experience with motion capture technology was around 2005, in Texas, and it was also not very positive: the participants had to stick bright white dots on all joints, and after the capture (conducted in a large room, with 16 cameras), the animators had a long correct movements.

Mundfish's motion capture stood out from this: it used a special suit that tracked movements itself, and only one camera (maybe just a phone) - the process went very smoothly.

What's next?

The next live broadcast will take place next Tuesday, July 21 at 20:00 .

Your questions will be answered live, this time by Andrey Evsyukov, Deputy CTO at Devilery Club, who is engaged in creating an engineering culture at Delivery Club: recruiting, forming teams, creating development processes. Before that, I developed in PHP and go. The broadcast will take place on our Instagram account .

You can ask him a question in the comments to this post .

How we played drinking with Richard Levelord Gray: personal life, favorite games and about Moscow