Skin Deep is Released!
Launch Day!
Very happy to announce that Skin Deep is NOW AVAILABLE:
Learn more about Skin Deep at its website.
People made this
I wanted to talk about the people who made Skin Deep.
In the past I’ve usually worked either by myself or with 1-2 collaborators. For Skin Deep, I partnered with Annapurna Interactive. This allowed me to scale up production for the duration of this project.
I was extremely lucky to work with these collaborators on this project. Skin Deep would not exist without these folks.
Suzanne Will
Suzanne was recommended by a mutual friend. Suzanne and I share common history in that we both cut our teeth making Quake/Half-life/Half-life2 levels. During Skin Deep development I was constantly astonished by “how the heck is Suzanne this good at level design???” What a privilege to work alongside such a wonderful person, incredible collaborator, and brilliant level designer.
Hire Suzanne! Her portfolio is here.
Tynan Wales
Years ago Tynan and I collaborated together to make Quadrilateral Cowboy, and it was such a pleasure to be reunited with Tynan on this title. Tynan has previously been a designer on Bioshock 2, Tacoma, and a slew of other great titles. His kindness, warmth, absolute wealth of experience, and incredible imagination is incomparable.
Hire Tynan!
Laura Michet
Laura is the narrative director of Skin Deep. She created Skin Deep’s characters, plot, writing, handled the localization and VO process, and hired and managed all 9 of the guest writers who wrote the cat emails. Skin Deep has a ton of incredible narrative content and the only reason it works is because Laura is such a seasoned pro.
Laura was previously a narrative lead at Riot and is currently narrative director at Heart Machine.
(We’re also married ❤️)
Eric
I’ve known Eric for 12+ years. We’ve previously collaborated on a gamejam project together, Goldline, and he’s also worked on titles such as Unfinished Swan, Solar Ash, Dream Daddy, Train Frontier Classic, and more. Eric is able to draw so much from his vast experience and apply it to so many parts of the game – engine code, rendering, gameplay, UI, everything.
Hire Eric!
Sanjay Madhav
Years ago, Sanjay and I were both on the same team when we worked at Pandemic Studios. It was so nice to reunite with Sanjay here. Sanjay has previously worked on titles such as The Lord of the Rings: Conquest, The Saboteur, The Pathless, and more. Sanjay is one of those programmers that can gracefully handle anything you give them, and I’ve always been impressed by how he’s able to make the most surgically precise changes to code that do so much.
Sanjay is a professor at the University of Southern California, and his site can be viewed here. Hire Sanjay!
Priscilla Snow
Priscilla composed and made all the music in Skin Deep. Priscilla describes the genre-spanning Skin Deep soundtrack as a “fever dream” and I agree in the most complimentary way possible – every track is so beautiful in completely different and unique ways. Priscilla has previously composed soundtracks for A Good Snowman Is Hard To Build, Patrick’s Parabox, JETT: The Far Shore, and more.
Hire Priscilla! Her site is here.
Mimi Kwan
Mimi made some models for the game, and also made the textures and models for all of the cats. There were a lot of fascinating logistics to figure out with Skin Deep’s low-poly cats – how does a cat wear glasses? How does a cat hold a purse? Where does a cat hang its lasso? – and Mimi was an amazing collaborator to work with, coming up with creative solutions to unique problems. If you need 3D model work, hire Mimi.
Hire Mimi! Her portfolio is here.
Tom Elgon
Tom made the rigs, models, textures, and animations for all of the human characters in the game. Truly incredible art, and truly understood what would work well in the game. Fun fact: Tom’s Save the Princess animation was the first work of Tom’s that I saw, and clicked with it immediately – do yourself a favor and check it out.
Et al
It’s a miracle whenever any game is released. Games are such a tangle of things, of art and science and production practicalities all smashing into one another.
Skin Deep is no exception. I’m so glad I got to work with such a great crew on this.
There are more people who worked on the project, listed here, and I’m thankful to everyone. Without these people, this game wouldn’t happen.
If you see something you like in Skin Deep, please know this: it’s almost certainly from one of the wonderful folks listed above.
Enjoy the game!