If you have not played a PopCap game, then you have not experienced the dangers of zombies attacking your feisty garden or the shiny shininess of Bejeweled.
PopCap Games started in Seattle 10 years ago and has lead the way in casual gaming with games such as Bejeweled, Peggle and Plants VS Zombies. From first beginning in an attic, the company has expanded to offices in Seattle, San Francisco, Chicago, Vancouver, B.C., Dublin, Seoul, Shanghai and Tokyo.
The PopCap European headquarters are based in Dublin with 55 people working in the Chuzzle infested office with its games room, zombie lined walls and an all round experience similar to diving head first into a swimming pool filled with Skittles.
PopCap has remained popular throughout that nauseating period known as the “financial crisis” due to the low prices of their games which can all be trialled for free on the PopCap website and are available on PC/Mac, mobile, iPhone, iPad, Nintendo DS, Xbox and even on something called Facebook.
Bejeweled 3 was released in December and new releases include Plants vs. Zombies which is to be released on Nintendo DS after winning two Golden Joysticks. All other forthcoming releases are being kept top secret in the PopCap headquarters.
Peggle
The staff are also super cool, with a diversity of 17 nationalities working in the Dublin office, they continue to break the gamer stereotypes of being a; lazy, smelly, teenage male. The office has a growing amount of female staff, they don’t smell and they have even created their own epic version of the Olympics which involves throwing Chuzzles and of course some gaming (but who wants to run laps anyway?).
We grab Antubel and Riana who were just innocently strolling by as we explored the offices for a chat about all things PopCap…
Antubel Moreda works as an associate game designer for PopCap games and was recently selected for 30 under 30 by Develop who have an annual list of games developments rising stars. Antubel was nominated for this achievement by PopCap for his hard work on projects such as Bejeweled LIVE.
It was kind of early when we met with Antubel…
How did you receive the achievement of being selected for 30 under 30?
As you know I was nominated by someone else in the company, that’s how most people got nominated. They thought I did a great job. I’m very proud of Bejeweled LIVE (and so is the rest of the team and the company as a whole) and I was very involved as the designer, but the whole team worked very hard on this version of Bejeweled. We all agreed on what we wanted it to be and worked together to get there starting from the original plan.
What projects are you working on at the moment?
Many, many, many projects. iPhone titles, so as you might know we have a few titles on iPhone like Plants vs. Zombies, Peggle and we keep releasing regular updates for these. Some of the things I’m working on as well can be a side piece that we’re trying to take in different directions to see if we can do something new with them.
What do you do in your job on a daily basis?
I have to keep an eye on other projects to make sure that all the design decisions we have made went the way we wanted them too. I spend most of my time reviewing documents, writing documents, creating fancy diagrams, kinds of stuff like that and thinking. Some people say my job is to sit like this *puts hands behind head* and think.
How did you end up working in PopCap?
I came to Ireland seven years ago, something like that. I worked first for a different games company. I worked as a tester and tested Plants vs. Zombies and then I joined PopCap for a short time. They wanted me to work in the mobile studio testing games only I got more and more involved until last year when they promoted me to game designer. It’s hard to find an assigned job in the industry without experience because you go and you study games but that doesn’t mean you will find an assigned job.
If you were trapped in an Arcade for eternity, what one game would you play to pass the time?
If I was trapped in an arcade? Just one game? It’s hard to say because I keep changing games. Bejeweled Blitz? It’s the one game I can play for hours. If you were to ask me a non- PopCap game, I keep changing games all the time but I would probably say Team Fortress two.
Riana McKeith has been working as an associate artist for ten months in the Dublin office. Riana graduated from Ballyfermot with a degree in Animation before working in an animation study and then joining PopCap games.
Riana was just about to have first coffee of the day…
What projects are you working on at the moment?
I’m doing various things, in PopCap you do a lot of variety, I know in my last work and you would have to work on one thing for multiple months and months but here we get plenty of variety.
What games have you worked on in the past?
Were doing lots of different titles so PVZ which is Plants Vs Zombies, various other work, we have done other ones which have just come out such as Bejeweled LIVE and I did a bit of the work on that so I was happy to see it out in the world at last. It’s nice to see some of your work actually being used which is a great thing about working in games.
How did you end up working in PopCap?
I did animation in Ballyfermot College in the Irish school of Animation. So, I spent five years there, which is a lot of time. After getting the degree in Ballyfermot, I went to an animation studio in Dublin called Kavaleer Productions which was working on a short film at the time and a TV series which is on BBC and RTÉ now. Then the project finished. I was freelancing and I then saw the ad come up on PopCap and thought “yes lets go for that”. Luckily they took me on. Nothings better than working here, it’s pretty cool.
Is there many other artists working in the Dublin office of PopCap Games?
It’s actually quite small because we’re working in conjunction with the PopCap of Seattle, they share a lot of the design work. So the team here is quite small and specialised so there will be people who are working on creating the new content for games, there will be people working on localising those games for Europe and other markets but also the other artists working kind of in marketing and PR and things. So everyone has their own little niche. There’s also a nice change in pace, there will be long term projects we’re working on that are pretty hush hush and then you would have short term projects which we can rush out and balance your work out a little bit.
Bejeweled Blitz
Do you have much freedom in your artwork here?
Obviously you have to stick with within the design specification of the game, whatever project you’re working on even if it’s a new project you would have to keep within in the house style more or less. So obviously PopCap is design friendly, so a sort of PG atmosphere so it’s not hardcore violence or nudity. Each project that we work with has a pacific style.
Would you consider yourself to be a big gamer?
Oh Yeah, I mean, I hesitate to call myself a hardcore gamer and it was only recently that I kinda realised that I am. I’ve been interested in games ever since I was a child; we always had a computer in the house. I had a lot of old school PC games and then when I was older I bought my first console which was actually a PlayStation one and that kinda launched me, I play a lot of games. Assassins Creed was my big obsession for the last while and before that it was Modern Warfare; I played that religiously especially when I was freelancing and should have been working.
If you were trapped in an Arcade for eternity, what one game would you play to pass the time?
I’d probably pick one of the fighters because you’re in an arcade and it’s going to be an arcade style game so I would probably pick Tekken or something, just because there’s variety but its constant, you could do it forever. Or Street Fighter, I need to practice my Street Fighter because Street Fighter cohorts in here, the office play religiously and there’re amazing.
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