AnsweRED Podcast Episode 20 — Animating Creativity: 'Alike', Blender, and Teaching the Future

Like with any good nickname, if a game-dev studio has a catchphrase, it should be something someone says once, then it just sticks. Well, nobody at RED knows who said it first, but “We Are Rebels” has been living with us since forever. It’s on our t-shirts and studio walls; it’s something we say, and one of the ways we think. It’s an expression we often add after coming up with something crazy — as well as a casual equivalent of “what can possibly go wrong?”. And while there’s much shared understanding of its exact meaning, there’s no singular definition everybody would accept without adding a few words of their own. In this phrase, we’ve found something that unites, but also leaves room for individuality. And we love it. Being a rebel doesn’t always mean acting in opposition. One of the things we like doing the most is tackling problems we don’t initially know how to approach. I mean, who in their right mind makes an open world TPP RPG, then a card game, and then an FPP RPG? Us, apparently. Instead of falling into an annualized development cycle, we choose to challenge ourselves, often shooting for the stars. We’re independent and have no corporate overlords, so we have the creative space to experiment, and we’re also big enough to leave a mark and attempt things other studios can’t. Finally, much like every self-respecting rebel, we live to challenge the status quo. Bad design practices, bad business motivations, bad relations with gamers — they’re things we are and will remain vocal about. For everyone's benefit. This is what it means to be a rebel. But there’s definitely more to it — all of us here are really eager to hear what it means for you.