Since he was 13, Kendall Davis dreamed of making a Halo game. By the age of 20, he was a producer at Microsoft working on Halo 4. And, by the age of 23, he had quit, leaving to design his own indie game. So why would someone abandon a dream job for the rocky shores of independent development? It’s a story Davis loves telling.
It started, predictably, with Halo. Davis was raised in Northern California; his mother was a teacher who discouraged video games in the household. But, for Christmas 2001, her resolve cracked and she bought Davis’ older brother an Xbox with the console’s must-have title, Halo: Combat Evolved.
Davis explained to The Daily how his perception of video games changed the moment he experienced Halo for the first time. “I had seen my friends playing things like Super Smash Bros. or Mario and I never really experienced, interactively, such an in-depth, cinematic, epic experience [as Halo]. I thought to myself, whoever it is that makes Halo, that’s who I want to be.”
Davis’ fascination with Halo’s story led him to participate in a fan fiction contest run by the first Halo novelist, Eric Nylund. Davis won. Nylund was so impressed with the story that he wrote a recommendation letter which Davis would use to land a job at Microsoft. One year later, in 2008, Davis was working on Halo 4.
As a lover of storytelling, Davis’ job on Halo 4 could not have been a better fit. He was working with the game’s creative director on how to better integrate story into the gameplay. In simplest terms, this might mean a voice-over radio message from Cortana, Master Chief’s internal AI. More complex examples might include hackable computer terminals that go deeper into the backstory of the universe.
And yet, by last August, he had quit. Davis described the decision calmly, as if he was choosing between 2 percent or whole milk. “As good as the story was and is going to be for Halo 4, it still is a game that’s a first-person shooter where the main action you do is you shoot stuff. I just don’t see how it’s possible to tell a story, at least the way I want to tell it, with that as the dominant interaction.”
His solution? Design his own game and pitch it to Bungie, the studio that created Halo, which was starting up a new iOS games publishing wing. That game was The Last Sleeper, a story-heavy, episodic sci-fi adventure that follows a man who wakes up on an alien planet on the verge of apocalypse.
Davis chose the iPad as his platform, saying that he was fascinated with the idea of directly interacting with characters inside the game world. “It’d be really cool to be able to put your hand on an iPad screen on top of another character’s hand and see some type of reaction in her eyes or her face. Or if you could wipe a tear from her eye. Those types of human gestures are possible on the iPad and they’re not possible on a controller.”
Bungie passed on the project. Davis said The Last Sleeper was “too big for what they were doing for that space.” He continued to have trouble finding a good fit with a major publisher, so he decided to start development on his own, with the hope of nabbing some much-needed funding as the game progressed.
Now solo, Davis needed a strong team to build his alien world. Without the money of a big-budget studio, he opted for a more direct approach. “I just hopped on IMDB and looked at people in the content development wing of films like ‘Avatar’ and ‘Transformers.’ Most of those guys have blogs, and those blogs have email addresses.”
One of those blind emails was to Ethan Van Der Ryn and Erik Aadahl, a duo that was behind the sound of the three “Tranformers” movies. Said Aadahl, “We get cold calls all the time but most of them we don’t respond to. Kendall really is a sheer force of personality and vision. We’ve worked with some of the biggest film markers in the world and one thing they all share is that spark. There’s no doubt Kendall has that.”
That same enthusiasm also brought Jeff Snow, the head story artist at DreamWorks, to provide the overall look of The Last Sleeper’s dying world (as seen in some of the incredible art throughout this story), and Steve Jablonsky, the composer of the score for the “Transformers,” to provide the background music. Major game developers are also along for the ride, including veterans of hits like God of War 2, Red Dead Redemption and BioShock 2.
To support the endeavor, Davis created a Kickstarter page to get the project off the ground. The plan is to get the first episode of The Last Sleeper to a point where it’s ready to show to publishers or venture capitalists, which would help fund it the rest of the way. Then, with the release planned for mid-April, it’s a matter of seeing just how much interest there is from the fans, which will determine whether there’s an Episode 2. If the Kickstarter page is any indication, there’s plenty, as the project has raised more than $11,000, reaching his goal of $10,000.
Despite his new gig, Davis remains a dedicated fan of the series that brought him to video games in the first place. “I will always love Halo,” he said with the eagerness of a 13-year-old on Christmas. For Davis and a few million others, the 2012 holiday season can’t come soon enough.
It started, predictably, with Halo. Davis was raised in Northern California; his mother was a teacher who discouraged video games in the household. But, for Christmas 2001, her resolve cracked and she bought Davis’ older brother an Xbox with the console’s must-have title, Halo: Combat Evolved.
Davis explained to The Daily how his perception of video games changed the moment he experienced Halo for the first time. “I had seen my friends playing things like Super Smash Bros. or Mario and I never really experienced, interactively, such an in-depth, cinematic, epic experience [as Halo]. I thought to myself, whoever it is that makes Halo, that’s who I want to be.”
Davis’ fascination with Halo’s story led him to participate in a fan fiction contest run by the first Halo novelist, Eric Nylund. Davis won. Nylund was so impressed with the story that he wrote a recommendation letter which Davis would use to land a job at Microsoft. One year later, in 2008, Davis was working on Halo 4.
As a lover of storytelling, Davis’ job on Halo 4 could not have been a better fit. He was working with the game’s creative director on how to better integrate story into the gameplay. In simplest terms, this might mean a voice-over radio message from Cortana, Master Chief’s internal AI. More complex examples might include hackable computer terminals that go deeper into the backstory of the universe.
And yet, by last August, he had quit. Davis described the decision calmly, as if he was choosing between 2 percent or whole milk. “As good as the story was and is going to be for Halo 4, it still is a game that’s a first-person shooter where the main action you do is you shoot stuff. I just don’t see how it’s possible to tell a story, at least the way I want to tell it, with that as the dominant interaction.”
His solution? Design his own game and pitch it to Bungie, the studio that created Halo, which was starting up a new iOS games publishing wing. That game was The Last Sleeper, a story-heavy, episodic sci-fi adventure that follows a man who wakes up on an alien planet on the verge of apocalypse.
Davis chose the iPad as his platform, saying that he was fascinated with the idea of directly interacting with characters inside the game world. “It’d be really cool to be able to put your hand on an iPad screen on top of another character’s hand and see some type of reaction in her eyes or her face. Or if you could wipe a tear from her eye. Those types of human gestures are possible on the iPad and they’re not possible on a controller.”
Bungie passed on the project. Davis said The Last Sleeper was “too big for what they were doing for that space.” He continued to have trouble finding a good fit with a major publisher, so he decided to start development on his own, with the hope of nabbing some much-needed funding as the game progressed.
Now solo, Davis needed a strong team to build his alien world. Without the money of a big-budget studio, he opted for a more direct approach. “I just hopped on IMDB and looked at people in the content development wing of films like ‘Avatar’ and ‘Transformers.’ Most of those guys have blogs, and those blogs have email addresses.”
One of those blind emails was to Ethan Van Der Ryn and Erik Aadahl, a duo that was behind the sound of the three “Tranformers” movies. Said Aadahl, “We get cold calls all the time but most of them we don’t respond to. Kendall really is a sheer force of personality and vision. We’ve worked with some of the biggest film markers in the world and one thing they all share is that spark. There’s no doubt Kendall has that.”
That same enthusiasm also brought Jeff Snow, the head story artist at DreamWorks, to provide the overall look of The Last Sleeper’s dying world (as seen in some of the incredible art throughout this story), and Steve Jablonsky, the composer of the score for the “Transformers,” to provide the background music. Major game developers are also along for the ride, including veterans of hits like God of War 2, Red Dead Redemption and BioShock 2.
To support the endeavor, Davis created a Kickstarter page to get the project off the ground. The plan is to get the first episode of The Last Sleeper to a point where it’s ready to show to publishers or venture capitalists, which would help fund it the rest of the way. Then, with the release planned for mid-April, it’s a matter of seeing just how much interest there is from the fans, which will determine whether there’s an Episode 2. If the Kickstarter page is any indication, there’s plenty, as the project has raised more than $11,000, reaching his goal of $10,000.
Despite his new gig, Davis remains a dedicated fan of the series that brought him to video games in the first place. “I will always love Halo,” he said with the eagerness of a 13-year-old on Christmas. For Davis and a few million others, the 2012 holiday season can’t come soon enough.
