Working on fan projects and small indie games is one way to garner attention and the chance at higher-profile roles in the industry. Toby Fox came up working on projects like EarthBound Halloween Hack, but after making it big with Undertale he had the chance to officially work with Nintendo - getting a Mii Fighter costume in Super Smash Bros. and contributing music to the Pokemon franchise. However, the opposite transition also holds merit, as seen via projects like ZOR: Pilgrimage of the Slorfs.
ZOR is a mash-up of genres, a deck-building roguelike with survival and crafting elements set on tabletop-inspired grids. Developer Righteous Hammer Games - known for 2016's Solitairica, a roguelike-RPG take on Solitaire - is relatively small for the scope of its current project. Just two individuals are working on the bulk of ZOR from their garages: studio founder and creative director Clint Jorgenson alongside artist Gavin Yastremski (with some contractors pitching in). However, Game Rant spoke to Jorgenson and Yastremski about the duo's previous experience at studios like EA and how those skills have translated to the indie space.
Starting on the Right Foot
Jorgenson got his first computer in the 1980s, and said he immediately became interested in graphics and programming. He wasn't able to approach this professionally while working at a lumberyard in the '90s, but the dotcom era led him to realize a career could be made on digital, artistic pursuits. After flunking out of electrical engineering, he studied programs like ActionScript and Flash at the Vancouver Film School before briefly starting a career in movies. One of his first projects was creating the fake computer screens in 2002's live-action Scooby-Doo (a practice he called "fantasy UI").
Soon after, Jorgenson landed his first gig in the games' industry: EA's Def Jam: Fight for NY. That began a 13-year career with the company, during which Jorgenson worked on every Skate title, a few SSX games, and Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare. It was during his time on the PvZ spin-off that Jorgenson met Yastremski, who similarly moved from brief stint on film and television to a nine-year career at EA thanks to connections with a professor at the Art Institute of Vancouver who previously worked on SSX.
Yastremski said he was "blessed" to study 3D software in high school, letting him dip his toes into the world of video game art. "It blew my mind," he said. "I knew this is what I had to do coming out of high school." He touched Garden Warfare, GW2, and Battle for Neighborville while at PopCap Games, then Yastremski had the chance to do environmental art on Respawn Entertainment's Apex Legends for about nine months.
While Jorgenson said he was happy at EA, "lucky" to work on a number of great games, he began to feel burnt out. A few years earlier, Bully and Skate alumnus Kevin Ng started working on independent mobile games, eventually founding Wonderful Lasers in 2014. Ng's success was inspirational for Jorgenson, who said he was interested in moving away from the specialization of AAA development to become more of a generalist. He and Joe Van Zeipel, who also worked on Garden Warfare, started Righteous Hammer Games in 2015.
From Solitairica to ZOR
Jorgenson and Zeipel "jammed on ideas" before leaving EA, but decided to start off recreating Solitaire to learn Unreal Engine. Amid that process, Jorgenson came up with the "mechanical mash-up" of Solitaire using the kind of abilities found in iPad games like Puzzle Quest. With audio support from fellow Garden Warfare veteran Rob Blake (also known for Mass Effect), the game succeeded on its "over-the-top and unrestrained" energy.
"It was really fun because we were so excited to be doing our own project for the first time, we decided to go wild with it. But yeah, it was kind of an accident, not everything was pre-planned."
Prototyping for ZOR began shortly after Solitairica, though Zeipel would leave Righteous Hammer to join Phoenix Labs as a UI designer on Dauntless. Having seen colleagues receive government grants, Jorgenson "threw my lot in" and applied for funding through British Colombia's Creative BC organization. The grant he received could only be used for hiring people, and over the next few months he worked with concept artists and 3D animators to create a "vertical slice." Yastremski left Respawn soon after learning about this project, "always blown away" by Jorgenson's UI work on Plants vs. Zombies and interested in having more creative freedom from the confides of a "giant, high-polished product."
Yastremski helped solidify ZOR's artistic vision, inspired by the works of Jim Henson and Don Bluth - particularly the "dark, kind of creepy, and cute" worlds of The Dark Crystal, Labyrinth, and The NeverEnding Story. With a more complex 3D style, as well as extra funding for roles like QA and audio through Epic Games' MegaGrants program, ZOR ballooned in scope. The project was meant to take two years, but is going on four leading into its Early Access launch this month. ZOR was first announced with a teaser trailer in October 2019, though Jorgenson said "we definitely announced it too early" given its snowballing ambition made it hard to judge the game's timeline.
"This freaked me out at times, but I'm really happy now because I can't believe what we've done with such a shoestring budget."
ZOR and Indie Passion Projects
Righteous Hammer has worked on numerous iterations of the game, trying to balance not just its charming yet "freaky" atmosphere, but also a gameplay loop in which every turn is a Chess-like puzzle. ZOR: Pilgrimage of the Slorfs has appeared at events like Steam Next Fest and the Yogscast's week-long Tiny Teams, but Jorgenson feels it's a novel concept that people have to play to understand - something the team has struggled to convey through marketing alone.
He hopes the Steam Early Access launch generates strong word-of-mouth, as Righteous Hammer wants to release a "polished, replayable, tight game" with frequent updates rather than "years of noodling." If ZOR is supported, Jorgenson wants the team to make it "the ultimate version it deserves to be," though there's also talk of one day returning to the world of Solitairica. "I think it deserves another game."
Both Jorgenson and Yastremski are interested in continuing to work on smaller passion projects, though neither know what the future will hold. They still look back fondly on their time at AAA studios, with Jorgenson particularly impressed to see EA give Skate another shot. Yastremski is "super stoked" to see the passion on games like Apex Legends and Skate, which some of his former teammates on PvZ have moved into. Yet he feels "after a time you kind of need a break from the giant teams."
"I was super fortunate that Clint brought me on to work on this project, and the dream to me is to continue doing what we're doing. Being able to explore unknown territory and be pretty free, moving around, adjusting the sights on what we're doing. That's the dream."
ZOR: Pilgrimage of the Slorfs is in development for PC, with a Steam Early Access launch scheduled for August 30.