Someone in the alligator mob is out to whack the panicky squealer Pat. Can you figure out who it is? You have until eight tonight. Thatβs when The Event happens, and he has an invite he canβt refuse…
From that simple premise comes the wild ride that makes up the indie point-and-click adventure Later Alligator.
Freshly released on September 18th, itβs already among the highest-rated Steam titles at an almost unheard of 98%, with reviewers praising its innovative take on the genre and its βcute and quirkyβ humor. Pardon the cliche, but that phrase was made for this game: Itβs adorable, it doesnβt have a single serious moment, and if it doesnβt at least amuse you, please check your hair color because you might not have a soul.
Oh yeah, and itβs hand drawn.
The development was handled by Pillow Fight games, who I did not interview. Music and sound effects were by 2 Mello, who I also did not interview. Everything elseβstory, characters, scripting, and every frame of animationβwas done by Smallbu, the Boston studio behind Baman Piderman. If you havenβt watched it, Baman Piderman is about… Just watch it.
Theyβve also worked on Adventure Timeβnetting them an Emmyβand Clarence, while keeping up Piderman and multiple personal projects like fan animations and the miniseries Daffodil. As youβve guessed, Smallbu is a massive animation house with tens of- No wait itβs two people.
Lindsay and Alex Small-Butera are a husband and wife duo whoβve collaborated on every project for more than a decade, working side-by-side and sharing joint control of every aspect. Them, I did interview.
So letβs dive into the question on all our minds: How do 80,000 drawings become a game?
Later Alligator was animated entirely by hand in Toon Boom Harmony?
Lindsay: Yeah.
https://twitter.com/SmallBuStudio/status/1172917341849575430
…And you both use Cintiq Pro 21βs*, right?
*This is when I learned not to make bold statements based on dodgy online sources.
Lindsay: Nope! I use a 24, and Alex, yours is what?
Alex: I think itβs the Intuos 5. I canβt stand drawing on the screen. I actually like having my hand be down by my waist so Iβm looking straight ahead.
I donβt think Iβve heard anyone say that before.
Lindsay: I disagree with him, yeah.
Alex: [Laughs] I like having it out of the way so I can just see the art happening. No hand. No arm.
Remember you couldnβt wait to get the Cintiq? You were like βAah, I need it, I need it, so excited!β We finally got one and you were so happy, then I tried it and I was like, βI canβt handle this!β
Do you do post-production work in After Effects?
Lindsay: Yep!
Alex: Weβve moved most of it into Harmony, though.
Lindsay: Yeah, Harmony covers a lot of the bases that Flash couldnβt.
Alex: The more we learn about Harmony, the more we realize we donβt need other programs, which is great.
From what Iβve seen of Harmony, it seems the interface is simpler than you would expect, but then itβs capable of a lot more.
Alex: Itβs very easy to learn, but itβs teaching you things youβre not used to. It feels like a program that is made by artists. All of the Adobe products are made by programmers and web designers because thatβs how they came about, but once you understand that Toon Boom thinks about things differently, and that different way is better [for animation], itβs amazing.
So, the game is composed of 40,000 cels? Thatβs the number I always see quoted.
Lindsay: No. Probably double that. I think somebody said that number earlier on in the project.
Alex: We hadnβt nearly finished all the assets. So now? Easily eighty, if not more.
Thatβs amazing. How long did it take?
Lindsay: Just under two years.
Thatβs it?!
Alex: And it was sprinkled in with all the other work we had to do. Like, there were times when we werenβt working on it solid at all.
Snacky Snacktime for kidsβ musician Parry Gripp; released in 2018 while Alligator was underway.
…Yeah, I need to dive into your process. Youβve said youβre capable of doing all this just because youβre very fast. Did you practice speed itself, or was it a byproduct of animating as much as you do?Β
Alex: If you draw slowly and deliberately, that creates a certain effect. But if you draw without caring how it comes out, just trying to get the feeling across, without stopping yourself by checking everything and second-guessing? You can draw so much faster than you think you can. Then you just make more passes until itβs clean.
Getting to that point is tricky and it feels weird. In high school, we did these ten-second figure studies: The teacher would hold a pose to draw for ten seconds, and you had to get as much as you could down. At first itβs uncomfortable because itβs like, βNo, I wanted to draw the whole pose!β
10-second studies drawn in Harmony by animator Dave DK
Lindsay: We did that in college too. Itβs part of an animation curriculum, to be able to get down gesture really fast. When youβre animating, you donβt want to overlabor a drawing. This is why they say a lot of great illustrators make bad animators [and vice versa]. Itβs just a different way to approach it. Drawing fast is a hallmark of animation.
For accuracy, we go back over things many times. Thereβs a rough pass, then a second rough pass, then a tie-down pass, then a second tie-down pass, and then a cleanup pass. Our accuracy has improved so much just from a decade of doing it that we can often skip steps without meaning to, though.
Alex: The first rough of the drawing is almost incomprehensible. If I were to show you the thumbnails, you wouldnβt know whatβs going on.
Lindsay: A lot of them are even on Post-it notes.
Alex: Sometimes a section will need two more passes of rough to get it right, or sometimes a section will be like βOh, this is basically done! This can be cleaned up now.β
Do you go linearly from storyboards > sketches > keyframes > inbetweens > cleanup > coloring?
Alex: We donβt really define it. Itβs more like βWhat needs to get done now?β It starts with basic, sketchy drawings of how the story beats are going to play out, then weβll do another pass where there are more drawings in between, then weβll do another pass where itβs timed-out if thereβs audio.
Lindsay: Weβre very fortunate because weβre not in a studio environment where things have to go a certain way because youβre working with lots and lots of people. Since weβre a very small teamβa very, very, very small team [laughs]βAlex and I can be extremely malleable. Whatever we need in the moment, we can change. That helps us make decisions quickly and put stuff out really fast.
Would you consider speed the most important part of your approach as a whole? And if so, why do you value having so many projects?
Lindsay: I donβt think itβs the most important thing, but working in animation as two people, our time is all we have. If we didnβt put out anything for years, which sometimes animation can take, it would end up falling by the wayside. We just donβt have the luxury of that. Until we worked on the game, we were working for hire: We would get stuff like, βSeven minutes of Adventure Time has to be completed in four months,β so we just learned around that.
Scene from Adventure Time they animated as special guests.
Weβre having to do tons and tons of projects to pay the bills and stay alive and keep our families safe. I would love to have more time for things, but itβs not the case when youβre out there working for a client.
Alex: Thereβs a feeling when youβre really enjoying the process of drawing and you lose track of time… That sensation is really nice, but you could be basking in that enjoyment of art, or you could actually be finishing a project.
Lindsay: If youβre making beautiful paintings at home that you donβt have a deadline on, take all the time in the world. But working on a video game for two years, we almost went broke. If weβd taken any more time, we wouldβve gotten into trouble.
So, for BamanβLindsay, I believe you did the writing and storyboards, Alex, you did the keyframing and voice acting, and you both split the inbetweening and post-production? But for this one where thereβs much more animation and no vocal work, how did you split up the tasks?
Lindsay: Iβm the director, so I did all the writing, all the concepting, and a lot of the boarding and stuff. Alex is still our keyframer. But it was a very together process: Weβre both animating, weβre both designing, weβre both making the jokes, and we split up the concept artwork. Itβs very much split down the middle.
Weβre often both at the same computer, both drawing on the same tablet, working really close to get things the way we want them.
Just passing the pen back and forth?
Lindsay: Yep! When weβre beginning things and hashing things out: the way things move, the shots, the design, we find itβs best if weβre standing there and talking the whole time weβre doing it. It ends up being seamless and we get things done a lot faster.
Does that ever force you both to draw on the Cintiq?
Lindsay: We actually do it mostly at Alexβs computer. Itβs got a bigger setup and itβs a standing desk, so we can both stand next to each other. I hate drawing on his stupid, flatted… flat thing, though! [Laughs] But I do it.
Wacomβs official position is that the Intuos is not stupid, although it is both flatted and flat.
Lindsay, did you write the script entirely by yourself? And how is scripting for an interactive medium different than for a passive one? Youβre writing dialogue trees, if-thens…
Lindsay: Yeah. Part of what helped me is early in the process, I decided there wouldnβt be a lot of if-thenβs: The way Later Alligator is set up is, you ask them questions but they always respond in the same way.
Initially [Pillow Fight] wanted me to work in Ink markup, but I just didnβt have time to learn a coding language because most of our life has to focus on animation. So what I ended up doing is putting everything together in Google Docs, and it ended up being more like a regular animation script.
Everything was about speed in this project because we didnβt have more time than we had for the project because we and Pillow Fight all had to get back to other things. There were a lot of things that we did to ensure expedience, and that was one of them.
Youβre in [Human] Boston and Pillow Fightβs in [Human] Virginia. How do you work remotely on such a large project? Constant communication, sending massive files, etc.
Lindsay: Itβs really easy to do that nowadays. We just had Slack, and we all know each other in real life, so we would just have weekly calls; talk about what weβre doing. Sending files is easy because we all haveβ¦ the internet. [Laughs]
Alex: We use Google Drive and Slack, thatβs it.
What parts did Pillow Fight handle? Did they have much creative input?
Lindsay: They had input into the gaming aspect. When we started, I had ideas like, βThis guy has a game like this!β A clone of Flappy Bird or a sliding block puzzleβ¦ But we gave them creative control of game development and they came up with some really fun mechanics. That was instrumental to the success of the game.
What can you tell me about the process of getting it from an animation to a game, though? What programs did they use?
Alex: Each game and each background that had characters in it, we set it up like a normal animation file. So we have all the frames layered and set up in Toon Boom, and we would make all the assetsβ[theyβd be] just sitting there for when there was going to be something interactive or something on screenβthen we would just send them over as PNG sequences, labeled and sorted as best we could, and they would put it together in Unity.
Lindsay: Alex knows a bit of Unity and I used to do a bit of coding in C++, so we had an understanding of how these things work, so we were able to work really closely with them. Initially, we had to figure out our process for the exporting of these things, and how Harmony would play with Unity. It turns out they hook up really well!
The game has βover 100 alligators and 3 ghosts.β With that many characters to design, did you eventually come up with a formula or pipeline?
Lindsay: Thatβs the joke number, [but itβs] pretty accurate. There might be more.
Pat the Alligator is a character Iβve been drawing since high school. But I had very little experience drawing animals and I never practiced it, so I had a very particular way of doing it which was just really silly. Thatβs where the style came from.
Early Vine (remember those?) of Pat
There are a few [variables] within the style. There are the side-facing alligators that are like a V; there are the top-facing alligators where itβs like a triangle pointing up; and ones that are in between. Those are kind of the three shapes of alligators.
Alex: We would both be doing lots of different drawings and then decide which ones fit the tone of the game. Weβd combine aspects of the drawings we were making and once we both understood the style, we could just draw gators as we wished.
Lindsay: The visual language came really naturally.
Each character has a very distinct set of reactions and idle animations. Did you plan those out in advance, or did you have to improvise some of them?
Lindsay: A lot of them were improvised just because each gatorβs conversation nodes were very different from each other, but there were general ones: Wins, losses, happy, sad, disappointed, angryβ¦ But it was on a case-by-case basis.
Your workβgoing back to early Bamanβhas a lot more unusual angles and βcamera movementsβ than you see in other indie animations. Whatβs the secret to pulling it off well? Do you use any 3d elements or video reference, or is it done off the top of your head?
Lindsay: Nope, itβs just done off the top of our head. Thatβs one of our specialties, why we get hired a lot to do dream sequences and stuff for TV. Itβs in most of our work. We just have really good spatial awareness from doing it for so long. And because Alex and I so often work in silly or simplistic forms, itβs easier to move that stuff around. We do plan out floorplans, basicallyβwhere things are, in order to keep them consistent.
Alex: Itβs funny: When we were getting toward the end of the game, we were looking at the angles we chose like, βAw, this wasnβt pushed far enough! This couldβve been so much more extreme!β
The last thing I wanted to cover was the gameβs inspiration. Old-school cartoons were clearly one, but I also got some Triplets of Belleville vibes?
Lindsay: We both love that movie, so… Sort of, but impalpably.
Alex: The game came about when we did a really terrible test animation and we said, βItβs not going to get any more complicated than this.β Thatβs all it is, but as we were drawing it, we wanted to make it look better.
https://twitter.com/SmallBuStudio/status/1175785425182613504
Lindsay: For the backgrounds, we found all these gorgeous photos of extremely tacky, richie-rich interiors from the 50βs to the 70βs and I was like, βOh, man, the game should be like this!β And part of the game is inspired by Long Island. Alexβs family lives there, and itβs just the most alien, tacky place Iβve ever been in my life.
Twinight House; Oyster Bay, NY. Image from MLSLI.
But in terms of the gameplay, thereβs a huge inspiration from Professor Layton, the original trilogy, just because thatβs my favorite game. I think thatβs pretty obvious.
L to R: Professor Layton 1-3 for the Nintendo DS.
Who are some of your other favorite indie game artists, or just artists working on other awesome things that you wish had more exposure?
Lindsay: I think Wandersong is really interesting. What elseβ¦
Alex: I donβt know. Iβd have to think. Yeah, we donβt really consume that much media.
Lindsay: We donβt have a lot of time because we have to work so hard to keep the studio afloat. But weβre big fans of stuff on Cartoon Network. Weβre loving watching OK KO, Mao Mao, those kinds of things. But in general, we canβt play a lot of indie games, which sucks, βcause we should, βcause theyβre very good. And I never feel like I know what anybodyβs talking about! [Laughs] Weβre boring, Iβm sorry!
Speaking of your schedule, you once talked [in an interview] about having to go almost 50 hours without sleep while working on a project. Is that the kind of thing that happens often?
Alex: There was a time where we werenβt using our time wisely.
Lindsay: A couple years ago when we were first starting our business, we were doing lots of projects all the time, we were up all night crunching, getting sick, feeling terrible, and we had a particularly bad one several years ago that kept us up into the forty-something hour range where we were both seeing spots and hearing things. And we decided after that, we will never do that again. Our health is too important. No more all-nighters. And we stuck to it by being smart about the way we use our time.
I wish a lot of young creators would also take that vow. Your health is much more valuable than anything.
Alex: Thereβs this idea that staying up late somehow means you get more work done. Thatβs a huge fallacy that hurts a lot of people. The best way is to work steadily while youβre awake, then sleep as much as you need to. That gets way more work done over time than crunching.
Thatβs advice the culture as a whole needs. Especially in web media where people brag about getting like three hours sleep a night.
Alex: Yeah, itβs a bragging point: βOh, I stayed up till 5!β Okay great, the whole week is gonna be shot for you.
Lindsay: You also canβt sustain that after age 25.
Do you have any secrets for living and working together without conflict arising?
Lindsay: We were actually just talking about this earlier and not to shame you, but itβs such a rude question! [Laughs]
We get asked this all the time: βOh God, how do you guys not kill each other?β And itβs just, βWell, we just like each other!β
Alex: We got this question at a cafΓ© we always go to just yesterday. It occurs to everyone to ask us that. We were talking about it right before your call: βWhatβs the reason people do that?β
Lindsay: Itβs essentially, βDo you find your partner annoying?β [Both laugh]
Oh! Thatβs why I tried to frame it asβ¦ not βDo you find them annoyingβ but, βDo you have any advice forβ¦β You know what Iβm trying to say?
Lindsay: I do. My advice for anyone in a partnership of any kind, whether itβs a romance or a friendship or anything beyond that binary, is just βCompromise, and be really communicative.β Alex and I talk everything out. We say whatβs on our minds. Weβre extremely honest to each other about our feelings, whether theyβre negative or very positive.
When youβre really honest with people and you speak simply and respectfully about how you feel, even if itβs not a good thing, I find you can always find common ground with whoever youβre working with, whether youβre working on work-work, your life, or anything like that.
Honesty, being upfront, and compromise are the keys to a happy partnership.
Alex: I would add to that: It helps to be honest internally, with yourself, and if youβre in tune with how you really feel, that helps you communicate. And itβs almost easier if you have an external project youβre working on together: To be creating something that you both put your hands in and work on.
Lindsay: I donβt want people to get the wrong idea and say βThereβs no conflict, theyβre so peaceful!β Weβre human and we have conflicts with each other, but honesty and compromise are what help them get solved really fast so everyoneβs happy and you move on quickly.
Alex: I think working together at home all day leads to fewer conflicts. When our relationship was just starting, we had less conflict the more time we spent together. It just got easier and better.
Finally, about your upcoming feature film. Itβs called Something Special…
Lindsay: Nope, thatβs just the trailer!
What is it going to be called?
Lindsay: I canβt tell you.
What can you tell me?
Lindsay: Almost nothing! [Laughs]
Weβre completely funded to make it, all the writing is done, weβre more than halfway through the storyboards, weβre in the midst of casting right now, all the design work is doneβ¦ Weβre pretty much getting ready to go into rough animation. Itβll be done probably within the next three yearsβ time.
Weβre having more people inβnot for the art process, but weβre going to have actual voice acting and weβre hiring people to help us with post work this time. We have Neil Cicierega working on the score, which is awesome, and Matt Cummings, who we worked with on Adventure Time, is doing all of the backgrounds.
But basically, itβs still gonna be mostly just us
Lindsay and Alexβs website is here. Their Youtube channel is here. Theyβre best reached via Twitter here. Their Patreon is here.
Glossary:
- Assets: Anything that goes into a game.
- Clean-up: Tracing over the rough drawings to create the final lineart. For Alligator this was done by Ian βWorthikidsβ Worthington, I just had to cut the section in which they credited him themselves.
- Conversation nodes: The choices of what you can say or do to a game character as you speak to them, and their potential responses.
- Flash: Adobeβs flagship animation program, now known as Adobe Animate. Intendedβand much more often usedβfor short web animations and browser games than for longer projects.
- If-thens: Conditional responses and dialogue. βIf player does this, then character says that.β
- Inbetweens: The frames between the key frames that make up the bulk of all movement.
- Keyframing: Drawing the key frames or the animatic: the defining image of each character pose, object movement, and camera angle.
- Pass: A draft.
- Tie-down: Going back through your rough sketches to ensure that proportions and placements stay correct and there are no visible errors.
About the Author: CS Jones
CS Jones is a Philadelphia-based freelance writer, illustrator, and occasional photographer. He spends his spare time listening to Spotify and waiting for trains. Someday, heβll finish that graphic novel. In the meantime, his work is best seen atΒ thecsjones.comΒ orΒ @thecsjonesΒ on Instagram.