An Interview with Sébastien Kerjean
The Co-designer and Art Director of Defcon

Victor Feltes:     Tell us a bit about yourself.

Sébastien Kerjean:     I'm 25... almost 26 now, and you can't have a clue how fast I think life's going on.

       I'm French-Canadian with french origins.  Both my parents are from France.  I'm their only son, and I think I've always been a calm and quiet kid.

       I studied science back at high school and college but I had always been in touch with art.  I've always enjoyed drawing and playing music, mostly piano and guitar.

       My college degree completed, I went on to computer engineering at Sherbrooke University, which was the way I always knew I'd go through, and that made my dad happy and proud.  That lead me to my teenager rebellion (which came pretty late in my case).

       Way too much abstract sciences which appeared to me to lead nowhere gave me an overdose.  For 2-3 months, the nice student I am became a dropout, and that's when I met Jean-René.  I was barely going to half my courses, answering jokes in my exams, and playing RPGs.  Most of my friends did this in college, I just did it later...  The only course I passed was computer assisted design. :-)

       After a couple of sessions with a career counselor, I finally ended studying... career counseling!  That's where I met my girlfriend.  I had three four-month internships in Ottawa, working for the government of Canada.  I helped building a big website about youth and employment.  I did a lot of computer design too and was staying late at night often, working on the first screens of Defcon.

       Now that my studies are completed in a domain with no chance to get a job (ironic to be a career counselor with no job...), I work part-time at selling sunglasses.

       I meet with some ol' time friends to some LAN parties from time to time and enjoy playing computer games a lot.  In fact, I think I'm the only true gamer in our little group. :-)
 

How did you end up working at Anonymes Informatique [now called GolemLabs]?

     Every time Jean-René and I met with some friends for our weekly RPG session, he showed us what he had done on Defcon (which he programmed for the only fun of making a cool game to play with).  We gave hime our suggestions on what we thought could be cool.

       As we noticed the commercial potential of the game, we began discussion how it would be possible to make money out of it.  In my humble opinion, as good as the concept was, it had to be nicely wrapped in a nice user interface and cute graphics to attract potential customers.  The graphics are the first things we see, isn't it?  It's only after that you notice the powerful A.I. and the huge possibilities of the game engine.  And don'T misunderstand
me.  I'm not saying that graphics are more important that the remaining, only that one cannot go without the other.

       However, at that time, Defcon was using a 320x200 256 colors display.  And it wasn't even taking full advantage of the 256 colors.  So that's where I got trapped!  As I didn't want to see such a powerful game concept wasted by such archaic graphics, I suggested to help.  To change the display to 640x480, a new map had to be done.  As Jean-René wasn't too conviced and that he didn't want to do the work on the map all over again, I told him
I'd do it...

       One thing led to another and I got more and more involved in Defcon's development.

       I also had the bad idea that such a realistic wargame could not go without realistic military units.  This was the beginning of a very long nightmare... compiling and designing the world's military units in what a post on our forum qualified as "the database from hell".  Thanks to Victor who took the relay when I could take no more!
 

No problem, it was great to help out.  Tell us about the artwork in Defcon.

    There has been a big evolution in Defcon's artwork. At first, it was running on a 320x200 display.  When I joined the team, we upgraded it to a 640x480 256 colors display. When I developed the first screens, I was in Ottawa, 250 miles away from Jean-René.  He first told me it was impossible to make the map appear in an area containing some 45 degree angles.  He got back to me two days later with that problem solved... so I gave him another. :-)

       I was getting better and better at giving him headaches, my favorite sport.  It did some good however.  I forced Jean-René to get better at programming, and he did the same with me with designing.  That's what makes Defcon what it is today.

      I am now developping screens on the new 800x600 32 bit color display.  More resolution, more possibilities.  The interface is very customizable and much more dynamic than previous versions. We now use transparency effects to show popups over the main map instead of fading to black and showing a data-only screen.  We now use the map in almost every screen.

       Defcon being a rather complex game, with a lot of data that could repel some, it's the artwork's role to present it in a way that doesn't look too complicated.  The word artwork might not be the right one to use, as there is not much art in Defcon so far.  Designing the interface is more a mather of space organization then graphical art.  The job is to organize the information presentation so it's easy to understand, intuitive, and then appealling to the eyes.

All in all, artwork in what I enjoy doing most.  It's where I belong.