Ivan Slovtsov spoke of Ice-Pick Lodge’s efforts to resurrect Pathologic, a game originally released in 2005. Pathologic became a cult classic in Russia and gained a small but dedicated Western audience despite poor globalization and marketing at Casual Connect Europe. “We believe that Pathologic deserves a second chance. We want to make it again, from the ground up, and we want to release it properly this time.” Watch the video below to find out what Ice-Pick Lodge learned the second time around.
Ivan Slovtsov is a game designer and executive producer at Ice-Pick Lodge, one of the oldest Russian game studios. He was an independent game developer when he stumbled upon a chance to work at this studio and jumped in. He asks, “How can you pass up the opportunity to work with the guys who created some of your favorite games?”
Before becoming a game designer, he worked in IT as a project manager and marketer and has found both these roles a perfect fit for his work as an indie game developer and later as a self-producing game designer at Ice-Pick Lodge.
When Ivan is not at work, he spends his time in all kinds of escapism: music, movies, books and video games.
Taming Entropy in Game Design
It was the video games that inspired him to become a game designer. As he says, “These are one of my favorite pastimes, so trying to make one was a no-brainer when the opportunity arrived.”
He claims his favorite things about his job are the unpredictability and the constant struggle to tame entropy, although these may also be his least favorite things.
For those interested in pursuing the same career, he advises: “Assess your skills and resources and use them wisely.” He also says that it is essential to avoid starting something you can’t finish but to always finish what you start.
An Early Interest in Design and Games
As a child, Ivan wanted to build robots, not merely “sissy robots” that lift weights or fix things. His plan was to build “badass BattleMechs and transformers.” He always loved video games and playing around with modding tools for different games. At about age 12 he realized you might not need a computer game to create a gamelike experience, so he created a forum where he held role-playing sessions with his friends, although then he had no idea this was called roleplaying. At the time he believed this was his great innovation, and he was quite surprised when he discovered other people had also been doing it for some time.
Despite all this evidence of his interest in gaming, his education had no connection to game development. He had no idea this would be his career until he was actually doing it.
Begin With a Blank Page
Ivan’s creative process begins with a blank page. He then works to develop a breakdown scheme of whatever he is trying to create. For example, if he is researching jumping, he creates a jumping scheme that consists of jumping physics, controls, meaning and application in games. He then fills in the scheme with details. But he admits that quite often he next deletes everything and starts again.
The inspiration for his designs is unpredictable; he never sees something and is immediately inspired by it. Rather, his life experiences accumulate in his brain, and suddenly, almost out of the blue, the ideas explode. But the source is almost impossible to trace.
Ivan admits that he does at times have creative blocks. But his method of handling them seems a bit unusual. “To break a creative block, you have to slowly walk away from it, then, very quickly, run toward it, bashing into it,” he says. “Repeat until either it breaks or your head does.”
However, he has so many ideas that the most challenging aspect of his career is trying to implement them all. His greatest reward comes when he turns on his game to quickly check if it crashes and finding, a couple of hours later, that he hasn’t noticed he is still playing it.
Ups and Downs
One of the most painful experiences he has had to cope with came when he was halfway through a project and had neither the money nor the people to finish it. He solved the problem by working two jobs to hire the necessary people, but admits this solution was just as painful as the challenge.
The most exciting time in his career so far came when he was featured with two games on the app store as well as producing the successfully funded Pathologic Kickstarter campaign. He claims, “Both of these achievements came about by a magical method of working.”
Ivan believes game development is now reaching a time when “cookie-cutter games” are becoming less and less profitable. Instead, he feels the future of the games industry will feature increasing creativity and new experiences, with more games created for niche audiences, more casual games that respect the player’s time and money, and many, many more indies.
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