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This article comes from the official account of Wechat: ID:chuappgame, author: etc.

"create an industry from scratch."

ACE Team is the earliest existing game studio in Chile. The name "ACE" is a combination of the initials of the three Bordeau brothers named Andres, Carlos and Edmundo (Edmundo). In the 1980s, the three brothers' father bought a Macintosh Plus computer for the family and brought back an action adventure game, Dark Castle (released in Dark Castle,1986 year), which aroused their interest in the game. When they grew up, they founded ACE Team in the late 1990s.

Since its inception, the Santiago, Chile-based studio has produced the first-person fighting game "Zeno Clash" and the unique tower defense game "Rock of Ages". More people know their games probably through the retro and bizarre action game "The Deadly Tower of Monsters". The action adventure game "conflict: chaos artifact" (Clash: Artifacts of Chaos), which went on sale in March this year, is the studio's latest work.

Carlos remembers the first time he saw the Macintosh: "it's amazing that that little box can play simple sounds and draw some conspicuous pixels." Carlos and Andres are twins, and Edmundo is nine years younger than them. "when we were young, although we couldn't really develop games, we used the graphics software Mac Paint to draw images of games we imagined we didn't know how to program." Edmundo recalled.

In a sense, the antique computer awakened the Bordeaux brothers' interest in game design and art, but Edmundo admitted with a smile: "if any of us knew programming, so much the better."

The three Bordeaux brothers: Edmundo, Carlos and Andres (from left to right) the first bucket of gold, like many developers, the rise of the Bordeaux brothers is due to modules. In the 1990s, the game industry set off a trend of making modules for FPS, and the three brothers began to create with the engines of Doom and Thor Hammer, and developed the Batman Doom 2 module, Batman Doom (Batman Doom). They replaced the hell scene in the original work with Gotham and began to draw penguin people, clowns and many villains. Andres said happily: "We are on the road to game development, really thanks to a team like id Software."

At first, the Bordeaux brothers did not realize that they would be the forerunners of the Chilean gaming industry-in their impression, the industry existed only on the Internet, and the vast majority of development teams were concentrated in North America. It wasn't until Valve Software, who was looking for products, showed a strong interest in ACE Team's modules that they realized that the gaming industry could take root in Chile over time.

Andres said that neither he nor Carlos finished college and gave up their engineering degree, but since their task is to "create an industry from scratch," it doesn't matter whether they have qualifications or not. After suspending their studies, Carlos and Andres initially joined the San Diego game studio Wanako Games (which has been disbanded). For the next four years, they spent most of their time making casual games, which made them feel dissatisfied, and the twins have been quietly designing a prototype of a prehistoric fighting game, hoping to be picked up by Valve.

After the first prototype was rejected by Valve, the brothers got a distribution agreement that was very important to them with the second prototype, and their lives changed dramatically: they left Wanako and then reunited with Edmundo to work on the game that became known as Chino conflict. During this period, they rely on their personal savings and borrow money from relatives to make ends meet. In 2009, this unique punk fantasy-style game was released with great success, won an award nomination at the Independent Game Festival and was named the Independent Game of the year by PC Gamer.

The success of Chino conflict is partly due to the use of untraditional surrealistic painting style, rather than the gloomy, low-saturation visual effects that prevailed at that time.

Not long after fists were your first priority in the world of Chino conflict, ACE Team had its second big opportunity: Japanese game maker Atlus announced a partnership with the studio to launch a transplant version of Chino conflict's Xbox. However, the Bordeaux brothers have some unexpected obstacles to overcome. "Chile is on the list of people who can't accept development machines," Andres explained. " In order to meet the terms of his contract with Atlus, Carlos had to fly to the United States to personally receive development equipment from Atlus's US subsidiary. "that almost led to the collapse of our first mainframe deal."

Unique style over the past 14 years, the scale of ACE Team has continued to expand, and the surrealist punk fantasy backgrounds of "Chino conflict" and "conflict: chaos artifact" have also been growing. In the Zenozoik world constructed by the game, players can see both large and unique mammals from prehistory, as well as the surrealist style of art masters such as Picasso, Yellonimis and Alessandro Zodulovsky. Artist John Blanche also has a great influence on the artistic style of ACE Team, the former best known for a series of illustrations for Games Workshop.

Carlos said that when he was young, in the library of a school in Chile, he stumbled upon the game book "Witchcraft: the King's Crown" published in the 1980s. The author of the game book was Steve Jackson, a famous developer in early game history. The illustrator is Blanche. At that time, he was impressed by Blanche's "twisted and rough" illustrations, which was the main reason why ACE Team insisted on adopting a unique painting style.

"the fantasy works of the 1980s were much more open and interesting than they are now, and then the influential Lord of the Rings trilogy appeared and everything became so homogeneous that in almost all fantasy works, we can see green goblins, orcs, wizards and pointy hats. If you go back to the 1980s, you will find that the imagination and creativity behind the design of fantasy works in both novels and other media are more abundant. "

What is little known is that the painting style of "conflict: chaos artifact" is influenced by Blanche's paintings. When talking about the past when they took turns reading the "Wizard" series of game books in their childhood, the Bordeaux brothers showed obvious enthusiasm. Andres confirmed that they still regard those books as precious family property. In a sense, ACE Team's game shows an unconventional spirit similar to Blanche's-unique prehistoric variants, disorganized ancient relics, and otherworldly landscapes. Edmundo describes the game world that ACE Team has spent nearly 20 years shaping as a mysterious wasteland separated from the developed world.

In another era, the Bordeaux brothers might have become painters, but they felt that video games could attract a wider range of users. When designing levels for the game, they will be inspired by Blanche and draw inspiration from real life. For example, if a tree is needed in the game, they will observe the southern fir, which is also known locally as the monkey jigsaw puzzle tree because of its unique shape, difficult to climb and towering branches.

Conflict: chaos artifact adopts the same world view and hand-painted style as Chino conflict, but does not follow the latter creation mode. To add narrative content to the game and provide stories that touch players' heartstrings, ACE hired Jonas Kiratz, the screenwriter of the Taros Rule, and produced a flamboyant soundtrack inspired by Neil: the Mechanical Age with brisk vocal elements.

"deadly Monster Tower" crammed the entire game into a fictional movie set, the painting style is like the monster film of the 1960s, full of eccentric sci-fi flavor, unlike "Chino conflict", the three brothers' latest work, conflict: chaos artifact, no longer features humans as the protagonist. This time, ACE Team did not specifically shape the protagonist in response to the needs of the players, but fully studied the enemy characters in the previous work, and designed the protagonist Psuedo on this basis. "when developers look at a character and want him to talk, they often get design inspiration." Psuedo is probably the ugliest game character of 2023, with deformed muscles and an ugly face-Kratos will feel gorgeous against him.

A more striking change is that in conflict: chaos artifact, ACE Team changes the player's perspective from the first person to the third person, with the aim of promoting an emotional connection between the player and Psuedo (and his boy buddies). To this end, the team had to overcome many challenges because it was relatively easy to animate a moving lens and two fists from a first-person perspective, and it was much more difficult to animate a fully displayed character.

In any case, the Bordeaux brothers are proud of what the development team has achieved through their efforts. Andres pointed out that ACE Team incorporated "soul" RPG elements into the game, while achieving a very unique fighting style, the whole process is like building a tower with matches. Edmundo said that since the release of "conflict: chaos artifact", players have played with its flexible multi-move system.

ACE Team was photographed at the GDC conference in 2016, and the team is still growing in recent years. Game Jam events organized by game studios or universities have sprung up across Chile, and ACE Team plans to stay in Santiago. Andres explained that the studio's business is very stable and the job-hopping rate is extremely low. " Because we are the oldest existing gaming company in the country, we have seen a lot of people living in Chile with their children, and it is not easy to move-these employees have been at ACE Team for more than 10 years. This is completely different from what people see elsewhere-the turnover rate is so high that developers tend to work for only one company for two years and then look for new jobs. "

Andres added that because the epidemic has made telecommuting the norm and studios can attract talent from around the world, he is confident that ACE Team will not leave Latin America even if it grows. "in any country or region, development teams face the same challenge of how to make games discovered by more players." Andres believes that the Chilean gaming industry will have a bright future, but he believes that the government must invest more if the gaming industry is to reach its full potential.

"in Chile, the government invests in the film and TV industry in the form of subsidies, which is 10 times the amount invested in the gaming industry. from my personal point of view, everyone knows very well where the ceiling of the Chilean film and television industry is, and in the next 10 years, the Chilean gaming industry is likely to grow to 10 times what it is today."

This article is compiled from: https://www.nme.com/ features / gaming-features / the-brothers-behind-ace-team-have-grown-up-and-theyre-not-looking-back-3438650

Original title: "The brothers behind ACE Team have grown up and they're not looking back"

Original author: Francisco Dominguez

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