Written by Indira P.I. Rumantir
Edited by CHIQIO
Key words: interview, design, art, personal story
Interviewee: Benroy Chayson (BC)
Interviewer: Indira Rumantir (IR)
IR: Good morning Benroy, it is great to see you again. Today, as a Chiqio brand ambassador in marketing, I will be interviewing you about art – your desire for creating. At Chiqio, we believe every individual has the right to produce art and be an artist. Art is not only a skill but a passion for living and a form of expression. I am excited to hear your personal story as a growing artist. You are actually the first game designer I have interacted with, so I am glad we get to delve deeper into your passion and profession today.
BC: The pleasure is mine, Indira.
IR: Please introduce yourself to everyone.
BC: I’m Benroy Chayson, recent graduate of Centennial College’s Game Development program, as well as the co-founder and asset artist for Digital Firewood Inc., an independent video game studio based in Toronto, Canada.
IR: What was your very first experience with art?
BC: I was exposed to the concept of art at a very young age; my mother taught ballet, and thus she encouraged my more creative tendencies and hobbies as a child. It wasn’t really an ‘at first contact’ kind of moment that I can pinpoint in my life; it has been there with me as long as I have been conscious, as far as I know, and I came to enjoy the work and results of that process. I doodled, then I animated, and then I 3d-modeled. A natural evolution.
IR: Tell me about the moment you realized you wanted to pursue game development. Are you satisfied with your choice?
BC: Games were, and still are, something of a subconscious guide for me up until this point. I was exposed to browser-based video games during the height of the Flash game era, and the time I spent there influenced the way I thought about and created my art. It even influenced my personal art style, as I still use the same software to animate art assets that the old Flash games used: Adobe Animate.
So came the closing months of high school and I kind of needed to figure out what I wanted to do for higher education, and of the options that I considered, I landed on game development as my future career. My passion and my (sort of) unfulfilled wish to develop a game, be it solo or as a team, was a major driving point for me taking this path, but it was also because I felt that games have a future in the the modern world, and the applications of their principles could extend beyond just entertainment.
As for my satisfaction, I’m very satisfied that I had chosen to go down this path.
IR: What other fields were you considering studying in and pursuing? Were they also art related?
BC: Before game development, I actually considered doing any Biology-related major. I was very interested in evolutionary and environmental biology as a kid and pre-teen. I find it really interesting, even just on a surface level, the interconnectedness of every component, internal and external, on planet Earth that made all this life, all of us, possible to begin with.
Speaking of beginnings, History was also a more recent, albeit just as strong passion for me, if not stronger, for very much the same reasons I liked evolutionary biology. I also briefly considered majoring in History, and I was perhaps thinking of becoming a professor in that field. I’ve relegated these to secondary interests of mine, but still very strong interests; game development is where my heart is and will be.
IR: Explain your journey with game design/development so far.
BC: Game development has been a very eye-opening and interesting experience for me thus far, especially once I enrolled in higher education specifically for it.
I started creating games back in 3rd grade with a very close friend of mine, Christian, who now majors in Animation. We didn’t need much to start, just a lot of pencils, a lot of paper and a lot of imagination. We had little concept of balance, or dynamics, or progression. All we really cared for at the time was having fun, and I believe that was when the first seed was sown for me.
Taking game development in college was when I was exposed to actual proper game development pipeline.
IR: Describe your profession of game development from the creative side versus the technical side.
BC: This is a very interesting question. Hmmm.
I used to think of the “technical” side of game development as a separate component working in tandem with the “creative” side, but now I would argue that both sides are equally important.
Let’s take the general and somewhat vague role of “game designer” as an example, one of the core roles of game development. The job of a game designer, at least within the context of an indie studio, involves creating the defining features of the game at its core: narrative setting, characters, mechanics, etc. Let’s talk about mechanics.
The game’s mechanics is one of THE MOST important aspects of the design process, and it is very much a poster child for that creative-technical mix as I mentioned earlier. Fundamentally speaking, mechanics are technical; they are the rules by which the game is played, governing and guiding the player’s actions. However, it needs to be properly contextualized within the narrative and setting of the game, arguably a more ‘creatively-inclined’ aspect of the design process.
This applies with other roles in game development. Programming is ostensibly and fundamentally a technical role and it is, but creativity is a necessary component in order to be able to code those unique game mechanics and sub-mechanics. Animation is the flipside of it; it is ostensibly a creative role, but there are technical aspects of it too, such as specific frame rates to animate at, how the animation is going to be made (sprites or bone rigging), export formats, etc.
Sure, you could look at roles and view them solely as creative or technical roles, but thats how one ends up “siloing” themselves into their own role and becoming unaware or entirely disregarding of anything that goes on in the other departments, and from my personal experience, that’s not something you want happening, especially in a team setting.
IR: What are some of your proudest works, either as an individual or team contributor? Would you explain them to us from conception to completion?
BC: Oh boy I have quite a few, to be honest. While I was in college, I created a couple of small games as assignments, but my first full release game was called Spent Brass, a top-down shooter I made back in my first year, which is about a suit of possessed brass armor named Archibald venturing into the underworld to bring down a cult. I was the character artist and animator for that team, and I remember being incredibly proud of the team (and myself) for our first game developed as a cooperative effort.
Image Source: https://centennial-game-dev.itch.io/spent-brass
The original idea was quite a bit different from its final iteration. ARound that time, there was a niche community within meme culture that was based around people wearing parts of instruments in the same fashion as medieval armor. We thought it was a hilarious concept and made a game based on that. However due to some narrative conflict that our professor pointed out, we had to drop it and use possessed armor as our character concept. Thus I had to redo all the art for that game, but it turned out well.
IR: What is your favorite aspect of game development? Why is that?
BC: That is an incredibly hard question. I enrolled in game development for ‘the whole package’ essentially, so all of it is my favorite really. But if I had to pick, I would pick several: namely animation, design, and programming, in order of personal interest and skill.
Animation and art is simply because I have been with it for the longest time, hence it was the skill that I brought into game development, and I intend to hone it for as long as I live.
Design is also something that I have had for a long time, but it’s something that took a bit later to practice properly.
Programming is the most recent skill I’ve picked up of the three. I like it more so because it is a necessary aspect of game development; with no code there is no video game.
IR: Please share your achievements thus far! How has recognition helped you and your practice?
BC: Our company Digital Firewood attended Level Up 2024, which is a Toronto-based event every April where student games are showcased to a large public audience. At that point we had just established ourselves as a company barely a month ago. One of the two games that we brought to the showcase, Breach the Abyss, won 2 awards, 2nd place for Best Overall Game and 3rd place for Best Artistic Achievement, out of the 150+ games that were present at the showcase. I think this is really great for us as a company right out of the gate, as this allowed us to gain recognition. This will cement some following for us, in that we’re good at creating games within a reasonable time-frame. The recognition will help us in the long-run for sure.
Image Source: https://linktr.ee/digitalfirewoodgames
IR: What are some challenges you have faced as an aspiring game developer?
BC: One thing I can say for sure, which also applies to future game developers, there’s an issue of over-scoping – through the concept of the game, as in, blowing the game out of proportion. Biting off more than you chew. That’s something I’ve learned in my personal projects. When developing certain games, I don’t have the full skills. Or, I work impulsively, blasting ahead – it does not help anybody, as I had to redo the work. I’ve done this several times. So, remember to calm down, and maintain the scope of the game within your abilities. Some people enter thinking “How can I make a triple-a game like Call of Duty?” You have to start by making Flappy Bird first, then eventually, you can make Call of Duty.
IR: What do you hope to achieve as an individual and as a creator?
BC: I’m hoping to continue working for Digital Firewood and creating games. Wherever we end up, I hope we get to continue working together.
IR: If you may tell us, what are you currently working on?
BC: Well, our company Digital Firewood is actually working on two games right now. The first game, Breach the Abyss, is a top-down wave-based shooter with roguelike elements; it’s about a janitor of a spacefaring organization fighting against waves of mutant creatures invading a facility he works in, deep in the reaches of an alternate dimension. The game features over 50 unique upgrades to bolster your player with, 4 playable classes with different playstyles, 3 powerful bosses to fight, and of course, hordes of enemies to gun down. You can check out and wishlist Breach the Abyss on Steam; it will be available soon this year!
Image Source: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2933090/Breach_the_Abyss/
We are also working on a second game, called Electrifye. It is a 2D precision platformer, about a girl who falls into a vast abandoned power station and accidentally trips and reactivates the power system, gaining electric abilities in the process. It is not out yet, but we are working hard on that game, and we will be releasing a demo for the game down the line, so do keep an eye out for that!
IR: Thank you sincerely for joining me today, Benroy. I highly appreciate the time and effort you took to share your experiences with us at Chiqio. My completion of this assignment will be submitted as a transcript of our conversation, and I will include images of the works you have mentioned. Before we officially end this interview, is there anything you would like to add?
BC: IF any youngster out there wants to do game development – whether it’s as a career or as a hobby – just do it! If you want to start, make Flappy Bird first, then you can make Call of Duty someday.
IR: Thank you once again, Benroy. Enjoy the rest of your day.
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