Creative Director

Joining us from the spiralling cardboard disc we use to hypnotise the elk comes Richard 'Rahdo' Ham. Richard originates in The Real World, and has been on several occasions heavily implicated in the creation of real actual games that real actual people have played, and that furthermore he has been thus involved without having turned into some sort of Hag, or Harpy or Bile-Vole. He knows things. He knows his Design-Lathes from his Production-Presses, and how to Make things, and, additionally, His Onions.

Originally hewn from a single maroon macaroon, Richard now sports alternating bands of lint, flint and bits of mint with a carvel-built wainscoting of pine strakes secured with brazen bolts. He also has pauldrons, and a sort of bascinet, but made of candy. We've estimated his height at around a kilometre but it's hard to know, the cloud cover's pretty low and the kestrels are persistent. Richard is fullered along his entire length, with a broad ricasso, and has to be physically restrained from scuba diving, even just between desks or up and down the stairs. His favourite dances are the Estampie, the Madison and the Collegiate Shag, his preferred colours are Ant and Veal. He has us beaten chin-down for beardage. He's surprisingly lifelike. He's behind you. Oh yes he is. Oh yes he is. OK, he's not, but you totally did not know that for sure.

Selected Online Coverage

We love spreading the Splash Damage gospel. Below are some of Richard's favorites:

• GiantBomb interviews Richard Ham about BRINK (4 June 2009)

Things You Were Too Afraid To Ask...

Every once in a while, we interrogate one of our own and put their answers up for all the world to see. Read on to find out more about what Richard does, how he ended up at Splash Damage, and more.

What do you do at Splash Damage?

I’m the Creative Director at Splash, and I oversee the overall development of our titles from a design point of view. So if the game ultimately sucks, gameplay-wise, I guess you can blame me (but trust me, it won’t suck).

Why did you want to work in the games industry and how did you get started? Do you have any tips for people wanting to break in?

Actually, a million years ago when I was in college, the notion of “making games for a living” wasn’t as common as it is now, so it wasn’t a career path I was on. But while I was going to the University of Washington, I got a great part time job as a Nintendo Gameplay Counsellor. So during that time (back in the late 80’s/early 90’s), I pretty much played every game that came out for every Nintendo system from start to finish, and spent all day talking to people on the phone about it. That lead to an assistant editor gig on Nintendo Power for awhile too. Several years later (after a brief sojourn as a United States Postal Worker), I was able to leverage all that game knowledge, plus the communication skills I’d learned as a phone rep, into a junior design gig at Eidetic, Inc., a little developer out in the middle of Oregon.

To answer the “tips to get in the industry” question, I don’t have much more to add that hasn’t been said a million times before: get your hands on game dev tools and start making stuff. If it’s good enough, you’ll get hired. If it’s not good enough, keep trying until it is. The important thing is that you’ve got to prove you can stick to it, finish what you start, and produce high quality work.

And a further word to the wise: you’re much better off going the home brew route to impress than going to one of these game colleges. Believe me. :)

What other games have you worked on?

I’ve worked on a bunch: I just finished up Fable 2, and before that, I did the console version of The Sims, Pitfall: TLE, a few movie tie-in games, etc. Speaking of movie games, I also worked a bit on The Movies as well.

Most important to my current position, though, would have to be Syphon Filter 1 and 2, which I was the head honcho on.

Out of all the games you've worked on, which one is your favourite, and why?

That’s a tough one, a really tough one. They all had ups and downs. Fable 2 was the most challenging definitely, and I really enjoyed working with the people at Lionhead. Working on The Sims was great, too, getting to go to meetings with Will Wright and do something completely unlike anything I’d ever done before. Pitfall was fantastic as well, and I was really proud of it because it was the first game I’d shipped that my wife loved (she’s not much of a shooter fan).

But at the end of the day, I’d probably have to list the original Syphon Filter as my fave. It was my first game as a lead designer, and to this day, it’s the one that was the least compromised in terms of what I wanted it to be. I really had a lot of freedom to make what I thought was going to kick ass, and turns out, it did kick ass.

Why did you join Splash Damage?

Actually, the answer to that ties into the last answer. Splash offers the promise of getting back to my roots in a bunch of ways. I haven’t made a shooter for a long time, though they’re still my favourite genre. I’ve had plenty of offers over the years to do another one, but I’ve always avoided it because it felt like I would be repeating myself.

But what Splash is doing is so cool, I just couldn’t turn down the offer. In fact, there’s a lot in it that’s similar to what I wanted to do in Syphon Filter 3, back when it was going to be a PS2 launch title, but that I never got the chance to do. So I couldn’t turn down the chance to be involved.

Plus, I mean, c’mon, the Enemy Territory games were freaking fantastic. So there was that, too. :)

What are the best and worst parts of your job?

The best part, for me, is solving problems. It’s what I enjoy most about development. Stuff like having to come up with clever solutions when there’s a technical issue, or design systems clash in an unexpected way, is just a blast and very fulfilling.

The worst part is that as time has gone on and I work on bigger and bigger games, I find I have to spend less and less time actually doing hands on development. Back in the day, I would personally design a bunch of levels and do a bunch of scripting in addition to dealing with high level design issues. But these days, that’s harder and harder to do, as the machine for games development becomes bigger and more complicated. But it’s a small price to pay to get to do what I do.

What was your first gaming experience?

I hate to say it, since it seems like it’s the answer for over half of these staff interviews, but it’s gotta be Pong, back in the early 70’s. What I remember most vividly about it was that it was the first thing I was ever better at than my dad. That was a really big moment for me, because before Pong, my dad was a god who bettered me in every way imaginable, and it seemed impossible to my 5 year old mind that I could ever measure up to him. But then with Pong, I actually kicked his ass! And he wasn’t “being nice” or “letting me win”; I was doing it! So that was pretty important to me.

What types of games do you like, and what's your favorite game of all time?

I pretty much like all games except professional sports sims (hell, check out my played games history if you don’t believe me… yes, I did play Open Season, and I liked it too!) My favourite genre is shooters though, and some of the best games I’ve played in the last few years were shooters (The Darkness, CoD2 and 4).

That said, my favourite game of all time isn’t a shooter at all. For the longest time, it was Legend of Zelda: a Link to the Past, which is still the best Zelda game of all time, period. However, last year, Link was surpassed as all time fav by a very surprising, out of left field contender: Elite Beat Agents. I’ve always liked rhythm games, and EBA is a fantastic one, but it was the fact that this is the first game I’ve ever played where the main verb isn’t “kill”, but “inspire” that really moved me in way no other game ever has. Just fantastic stuff!

What's the meaning behind your nickname?

When I started playing Everquest, the first character I rolled was a human and in a fit of uncreativity, I named him after me: Raham (Richard Allen Ham). Turned out he sucked, and so I made a halfling guy next, and since a lot of people knew me previously as Raham, I made my new one Rahdo (to give him kind of a hobbit sounding vibe… Frodo, Bilbo, etc.). And I’ve used it ever since.

Finally, what do you enjoy doing when you're not at work?

Well, mostly when I’m not at work, I’m commuting to and from work, these days. I spend about 2 and a half hours every day on the train coming and going, and about another hour on my bicycle, trying to get something positive out of the commute, and so that’s nice. Right now I’m averaging about 11 miles a day cycling, which is good, right? Anyone on the boards a diehard cyclist? Mostly it’s nice that for the first time since I was a mail man like 15 years ago, I’m getting regular exercise! :)

So I can’t complain too much about the commute: exercise, plus more time to work. In fact, we just passed Waddon station, so I’ve got to close up my laptop now and finish the questionnaire when I get into the office!

If you have any questions you'd like to ask, feel free to post them in the comments — our forum-trained tapirs will try to answer as many of them as possible.