Flying the Kite: Stray Kite’s Visionaries - Kyle King
Kyle King - Art Lead
Stray Kite Studios is grateful for the amazing response to our new blog series, ‘Flying the Kite: Stray Kite’s Visionaries’, and have been overwhelmed with the love shared with us after our first post featuring Bobbie Soques.
With the first feature story complete, we decided to shift departments and move to the Art team. This department includes a wide range of skillsets, experience, and specific disciplines that will cater to various fans and aspiring artists.
The first artist we will feature is Kyle King, Art Lead and Principal Animator. Kyle is an industry veteran who has had a fascinating journey through his career, ultimately bringing this experience to Stray Kite. Being accredited in some of the largest and most recognizable video game franchises ever, Kyle brings additional influence to an already deep roster of developers here at the studio!
Kyle King wearing a motion capture outfit.
What was your first job in the gaming industry and how did you get there?
Animator at Gearbox Software: As I was graduating from college, local game studios had artists that would visit surrounding schools and they ended up inviting a couple of us to lunch to talk about opportunities. It was a surreal experience to be talking with professionals that I looked up to. I ended up going with Gearbox Software and submitted my demo reel, received an interview, and ended up spending the next 13 years helping build the Borderlands franchise.
What inspired you to pursue a career in video game development?
Video games! I think it’s a fairly common response now that the industry has aged and more people who played them as kids have entered the industry. Back in 1997 on the original PlayStation, I played Final Fantasy 7 night and day. It was then that I knew that I wanted to animate and make games. There was no traditional career path to achieve that goal, or even suggest that it could be a reality, but for some reason I knew that was what I wanted to do.
Which game has influenced you the most on your journey as a developer and why? Have any studios or artists also contributed to this influence?
I continually look at other games for inspiration so I don't think I can say just one. Games like XCOM, Apex Legends, Wartales, and many others implement and design animation differently. There are many fun things to take away from them. As for artists, there is one animator that stands out, Kiel Figgins. I competed with him many years ago on CGTalk back when some of the first animation challenges were happening. His work has always been an inspiration and helps challenge me to continue to grow with all the variation in work.
What has been your most memorable gaming moment? Has this influenced how you design games?
Funny enough, one of the most memorable moments I've had came from the game Rust. I experienced the true psychological breakdown of society. It’s a long story, but a friend of mine joined us after we had been playing awhile, and we watched him go from i’ll never kill a new player to plotting and conniving while holding a stone over a kneeling player's head. As for influence, it’s reminded me that games are built as a whole for experience, not one specific art form. So it’s a great reminder to work together with all departments and that none are more important than the other.
How do you keep up with the latest technologies, tools, or trends that can assist you and your work?
I follow a lot of small developers that tend to use the latest technology as well as keep tabs on the GDC talks each year. They really are a heap of knowledge.
What brought you to Stray Kite?
Culture and Values. These two aspects are what drive my personal and professional life. Since I previously worked with Paul Hellquist on Borderlands 2, I knew that Stray Kite was going to be the place for me.
What's the most challenging part of your job? How do you power through it?
I think the biggest challenge is communication. Humans are not all the same, so learning and understanding on how each person and discipline communicates can be challenging. In this instance it is not powering through it but developing ways for each person to understand and safely communicate. Stray Kite prides itself on having open and safe communication avenues which has created the best work environment I've been a part of.
How would you describe the culture at Stray Kite?
Truly different from a lot of the industry and I would describe it as safe and open. Our core principles are on my mind every day that I communicate with teammates and I make it a point at all times to reinforce them. A safe place to work really removes blockers and opens up the creative process.
Share a fun story or heartwarming memory from your time at SKS.
Patrick, our tech animator, had a wonderful idea last holiday season that he wanted to give a surprise gift to the owners for the new office space we are working on. He mentioned it to the art team and everyone immediately was on board to pitch in where they could, both artistically and financially. The idea was to create a custom sign, based on our logo, that could be hung when the office space was complete. Artists came up with different logos and designs and we even voted together on which ones we liked. We presented it to the owners who really loved it and can't wait to hang it! I feel it was a great reflection of what Stray Kite is really like. It's very heartwarming to have deeper relationships with coworkers that is exemplified by our company core values.
Have you had a mentor or colleague that helped you with your career?
I was in a very unique situation where I never had a lead or a director. This meant that all my early growth came from working closely with the other animators at Gearbox. We grew close and always helped push each other in healthy ways to have fun and get better. Sixteen years later and we still chat daily.
What project or piece of development has been challenging but also rewarding?
Pre-production planning. Working at a smaller studio and helping build multiple projects from the ground up has been the most challenging and rewarding. Developing a plan that you created out of thin air from what you call “experience” and then seeing it pan out over the course of multiple years. It's very rewarding but also challenging.
How do you combat creative burnout or feeling stuck?
I’ve used social media in a different way than most I think. I’ll follow and like only art and animation related content. So any time I pull up Instagram or Twitter, it’s all really awesome artists and indie developers that experiment with fun new ways to create gameplay and animation.
How do you attempt to push the industry forward with your animations and overall work with a game? Do you look at community feedback of other games? Do you gravitate towards other games that have a style that you would love to try?
One of the ways is to create concept sequences that are just based on animation and fun. This always allows for design and animation to visualize the best case scenario since implementation isn't a concern when concepting. I think one of the best times that I’ve achieved this was the Bunker Boss from Borderlands 2. After concepting how the ship could fly and attack, it really helped inspire code, design and animation to create a unique boss battle. Community feedback on other games is very beneficial to understanding how players verbalize their concern and happiness. I’m on multiple discord channels for other indie games where i’ve learned a lot.
What is it like to actually work in a Motion Capture room? Is it fun setting the scenes, acting out the scenes, or all the above? Any fun moments with Mocap?
Great question! It’s everything you're inner child wants it to be. I’ve been working in a motion capture room in some form my entire career and have helped build sets, pipelines, direct, co-direct, act, and train. It feels like you're a kid just playing out your fantasy, but you get paid to do it! One of the best times I’ve had was acting out the Jabbermon in Borderlands 3. It was our first time experimenting with creature motion capture. I put on arm stilts and hopped around the room acting out different attacks and movements, just like Planet of the Apes motion capture. It allowed us to get three times as much animation as we normally would for a creature. There was still a lot of work on the clean up side, but it was a great experience.
Favorite game of all time? Most recent game you have played? Your GOTY for 2023 so far?
Favorite game of all time still goes to Final Fantasy 7 (and the remake). The games that you grow up on always have that special place.
Most recent game would be Dredge. It’s a smaller indie game that nailed the Lovecraftian style. Audio, atmosphere, gameplay, all very cohesive and well done.
I’m going to stick with Wartales as my GOTY. It had a whole new player experience for me.
Any words of wisdom or information that young, aspiring game developers can use as they pursue a career in game development?
Working well with others is as important as your discipline's skill. Communication with coworkers can make or break production. It's important to be cognizant and self reflective of how you communicate.
We thank Kyle for being our second visionary and hope that everyone enjoyed the insight! We will have plenty more to share in the New Year, so keep it locked here on our website and across our various social media channels. Also, if you have any additional questions that you would like us to ask in the future or as a follow up for Kyle, send us an email at Marketing@StrayKiteStudios.com or at any of our official social media channels listed below.
Flying the Kite: Stray Kite’s Visionaries
Bobbie Soques - Technical Designer
Stray Kite Studios is excited to begin a new blog series called, ‘Flying the Kite: Stray Kite’s Visionaries’, bringing a focus on the foundation of the studio… its people! A studio is only as talented as the people that bring great ideas to life and we strongly believe that it is important to highlight who these incredible people are!
While we have plans to eventually do interviews via videos and live streams that allow everyone to dive deeper into their journey into the video game industry and share other stories, these blogs will be more of a Q&A style. This way we can serve a wide range of questions that better allow our community to understand who makes Stray Kite who they are today and where they plan to be in the future!
Our first Visionary is Bobbie Soques (pronounced ‘SO-kez’), a Technical Designer who has been with Stray Kite since its early days and has grown her career beginning in Quality Assurance and moving now into Design. Bobbie encapsulates everything that Stray Kite Studios is about and its values, making her the perfect choice for our first post in this series!
What was your first job in the gaming industry and how did you get there?
My first job was here at Stray Kite! I was hired as a full-time QA Tester after being referred through someone I knew. This was a few months after I graduated college in 2019. I was the 10th person to join!
What inspired you to pursue a career in video game development?
My older brothers introduced me to Kirby when I was about five years old and I’ve been playing video games ever since. When I was thirteen, my brother sat me down in front of Mass Effect 2, and I absolutely fell in love with the storytelling. I only played for a few hours, but I walked away thinking, I want to tell stories like that.
What brought you to Stray Kite?
They were the first people to hire me after I graduated college, lol. I quickly grew to appreciate my role as a full-time QA Tester (versus the contract QA which is the norm in our industry) and the freedom and responsibilities that I wouldn’t have had at a larger studio. For example, I was able to start prototyping out my own games in Fortnite Creative while I was a QA Tester, and we even released one of my original maps under the studio name!
Which game has influenced you the most as a developer and why? Have any studios or artists also contributed to this influence?
Dragon Age: Origins and the Mass Effect trilogy were the games that got me excited about game development, so obviously Bioware is a big inspiration to me. I also owe a lot to games like Firewatch and the Stanley Parable for really opening my eyes to the different things you can do and stories you can tell with video games.
Have you had a mentor or colleague that helped you with your career?
Wow, where to start? All of the folks at Stray Kite have been so wonderful and encouraging as I grew in my career, but I want to give a special thank you to Ryan Slack. Ryan took over as our part-time QA Manager shortly after I joined and has been nothing but warm and supportive even as I graduated from QA to Design. I also want to shout out Paul Hellquist and Shovaen Patel, who have always taken my ideas and interests seriously from when I first joined to now, and have offered great feedback and helped me grow. I also owe a thank you to Morgan Kidwell (formerly of SKS, currently at Bungie), who worked with me directly when I joined as QA and taught me a lot of the skills and confidence that have helped me in the years since.
What has been your most memorable gaming moment? Has this influenced how you design games?
I’ve mentioned before how much I love the stories that video games can tell, but something I’ve learned through the years of playing games is the power of player stories – that is, the stories players tell themselves based on what they did in a game. One time when I was playing Sunless Sea, my ship became adrift in open waters with no fuel to get us to a port. We were also at very low ship health from fighting off pirates a moment before. Faced with no other options, I decided to pray to the gods of the Neath to grant us fuel. Shockingly, they actually answered my prayers– by dropping a lump of coal from the ceiling onto the deck of my ship– and in so doing dealt one point of damage to my ship, instantly sinking it. This is in no way something the creators scripted to happen, but they created the mechanics that allowed for this incredible, funny, and totally on-theme story to occur. Now when I create games, I’m not just thinking of the story I want to tell, but also of the stories players can tell through interacting with the world.
What's the most challenging part of your job? How do you power through it?
I find that the most challenging part of my job is not any of the technical aspects, but taking feedback. When you have an idea that you’re very excited about, it can be hard to entertain any changes to it, even if the feedback is positive (i.e. “I really like x! Can we get more of it?”). But it’s important to remember that it’s not your idea or mechanic, it belongs to the entire studio and the game as a whole. So any feedback is not directed at you, but towards the common goal of making the game better. Once you shift your view to that collaborative lens, it becomes much more fun and rewarding to take and give feedback.
What project or piece of development has been challenging but also rewarding?
When I first became a Technical Designer, I ended up in charge of a minigame in the project we were working on, which was a lot of responsibility for my first job as a Tech Designer! I remember asking Paul [Hellquist, Creative Director], how I should implement a new mechanic, and how shocked I was when he said he had no idea and I should do what I think is best. I was surprised at how quickly I became the local expert on anything relating to that minigame and the systems related to it, when I had no idea how any of them worked even weeks earlier. Eventually I ended up leading discussions and fielding questions and feedback from stakeholders for not just my minigame but others, which was crazy for someone with only a few months of experience in the role! But I am definitely a lot more confident now when it comes to taking charge of features and making design decisions.
How would you describe the culture at Stray Kite?
Very egalitarian! It’s different now that we have more people, but everyone at Stray Kite has a voice and input on the company direction as well as whatever project they’re working on. The company is also very transparent about any company decisions such as a new office or potential contracts, and welcomes feedback and input on those decisions. For example, when offered a potential contract to work on a game, we held a studio-wide discussion where most of the team shared concerns with working on that particular game, and so we ended up turning down the contract.
Share a fun story or heartwarming memory from your time at SKS.
I have a Mass Effect N7 hoodie that I wore a lot when I first joined SKS, to the point that one of the company leads commented on it (jokingly, of course). And so my first week at SKS, I was presented with a cake in my favorite flavor decorated with the N7 logo. It was very sweet and definitely made a big impact on me as an anxious young person just out of college at my first game industry job. I felt very welcome, and have only felt more welcome since.
Any words of wisdom or information that young, aspiring game developers can use as they pursue a career in game development?
I encourage you to try out different parts of game development! I know both college and the industry tend to pigeonhole you into one role early on and keep you there, but there are so many parts to game development that you might not even know exist, let alone that you like, until you try it. When I first got into game development, I wanted to be a game writer. Then in college, I ended up being the producer on a lot of projects. But then I started getting into Unreal and found that I really enjoy implementing and prototyping features in Blueprint. Seek out opportunities to learn new skills at your job or in a personal project. You may find that what you love doing most is not at all what you expected!
We thank Bobbie for taking the time to be our first featured visionary and hope that everyone enjoyed this first post! We will have plenty more to share in the coming months covering a wide range of people across various disciplines within our industry, so keep it locked here on our website and across our various social media channels. Lastly, if you have any additional questions that you would like us to ask in the future or as a follow up for Bobbie, send us an email at Marketing@StrayKiteStudios.com or at any of our official social media channels listed below.
Spending Time to Celebrate
Stray Kite Studios recently reached the significant milestone of hitting our 5-year anniversary! To celebrate, we decided to come together as a team and spend a day dedicated to what is most important; the people that got us here!
Stray Kite Studios recently reached the significant milestone of hitting our 5-year anniversary! To celebrate, we decided to come together as a team and spend a day dedicated to what is most important; the people that got us here!
To commemorate this occasion, we organized a day for everyone and their loved ones to enjoy an evening filled with food, drinks, fun, and laughter…. Oh, and some competitive Pickleball (Sluss definitely dominated)! Not only did this time allow for everyone to let loose and break away from work, but it also allowed for the team camaraderie to continue to foster, bringing people together to connect and better get to know each other outside of work. We believe it’s during these moments of connection and getting to know one another on a personal level that are invaluable in building a strong and cohesive team for the future!
Our leaders shared words of inspiration, dedicated time to expand upon what comes next, and reflected on the collective efforts and achievements that brought us to this point in time! Oh, and there were gifts and a cake! We can’t celebrate without cake!
Our 5th anniversary celebration was certainly unforgettable and we cannot help but feel an overwhelming sense of anticipation for what lies ahead. We hope that this milestone creates a launchpad for future projects, growth, and even greater achievements!
We soon will be hosting a virtual version of our anniversary celebration so that we can also share these moments with our employees located in other places or who were unable to attend in-person. We already know the competitive spirit of everyone will lead to some incredible games and memories here too!
Stray Kite Studios Turns 5
Stray Kite Studios is proud to celebrate its fifth anniversary as an independent studio!
Stray Kite Studios is proud to celebrate its fifth anniversary as an independent studio! This is no small feat as building a sustainable and healthy business for half a decade takes hard work and dedication. 🪁
Over the past 5 years, we have created some amazing experiences that have captured the hearts and minds of players from all over the world. From building some of the largest original islands in Fortnite Creative, including the original Prop Hunt, to partnering with our friends at Gearbox Software to develop Tiny Tina’s Assault on Dragon Keep: A Wonderlands One-Shot Adventure, the work that the team has done continues to leave a lasting impact on the industry we all dearly love.
Shovaen Patel, Stray Kite Studios co-founder and CEO, took some time to reflect on this milestone:
“With our 5 year anniversary today, I want to celebrate how far Stray Kite has come and where we are going in 2023 and beyond. When Paul and I founded Stray Kite in April of 2018, we could never have anticipated this journey. We started out with nothing but our reputations, our skills, our time, and hope. From Fortnite Creative, to a global pandemic, to future projects and beyond, we’ve all experienced a lot as we’ve built and grown the studio and its reputation. We’ve helped ship multiple AAA games. We’ve created incredible features and cutting-edge technologies, fleshed out new IPs, and brainstormed dozens of innovative game ideas. We’ve built a ton of core technology on top of Unreal Engine to allow us to realize new projects and new features much faster. We’ve taken on ever bigger and bolder projects to allow us to grow our team and ability to work together. We’ve faced every challenge and come out stronger each time.
In April of 2018 there were two of us. There are now thirty-two. We’ve assembled an incredible team that’s continuing to shape and grow. The lava is starting to cool, forming the foundation of the studio with key developers leading us, an office to call home, auxiliary support, and a camaraderie and trust that binds it all together. On that foundation we will be building our first major in-house project. The lessons we have learned along the way, both at Stray Kite and throughout our careers, are what will propel us to make it a success.
We are thrilled to be on this journey, and hope you are as excited as we are for the future. The studio is turning a corner as we complete our fifth year. This is only the beginning. Watch what we do next!”
While this is just the beginning, we are excited to celebrate this milestone with everyone and cannot wait to see what the next five years look like!
On behalf of everyone at Stray Kite Studios, thank you for playing our games and being part of our journey!
The Future is Bright
It all begins with an idea.
At Stray Kite Studios, our values and passion for our work is what drives us forward as we embark on the journey of making awesome games. Our founders formed the studio with the goal of unlocking the true potential of games while ensuring that all employees had the safety and efficiency to best unlock their dreams of creating experiences that players will enjoy for many years. With 2023 now in full-swing, we are excited for all that we have planned for the year as we grow in number, take on new ambitious challenges, and connect with even more people.
To help manage our growth and ensure we share our vision to more people, more often, you will see a continued increase in where we connect… starting right here with the ‘News’ section of our website. This allows us to not only share exciting updates or news announcements with you, but also serves as a landing page for larger, long-form content pieces along the way. Those may be blogs, developer diaries, or anything else we think we should share! This section will inevitably evolve over time as we evolve too, but for now it can serve as a source of truth for exciting milestones planned this year!
Recently, members of the Stray Kite Studios team attended the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, California. This annual event plays host to an industry-only meeting of game developers from around the world who come together to connect, share knowledge, and showcase their incredible work. The SKS team was on-site to attend various meetings with partners and industry leaders to discuss business dealings and potential future collaborations. Additionally, this time allowed the team to individually connect with other thought-leaders in our space and enjoy different panels and speaking engagements with educational content. Of course, time was allocated for everyone to come together for a team dinner and continue to build upon the camaraderie we are founded on.
As 2023 continues on, we are excited with the path we are currently navigating as a studio. We have exciting announcements and news we cannot wait to share along the way, but for now be sure to follow our social media channels and check our website as we will continue to share updates, including career opportunities, as they arrive.