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July 8, 2024
RIB MOUNTAIN – Chris Cantero said his foray into independent video game development pits heroes against mutant fruit monsters.
Cantero said it’s an appropriate plot with parallels to his startup business, Chazak Games, as chazak means strength or courage in Hebrew.
In the case of “High Fructose,” Cantero’s video game in development, he said a fox and elephant test their agility and prowess in various battlegrounds.
The young entrepreneur said he has faced both battles and wins since committing to his business full-time about four months ago – when he faced what he described as a proverbial fork in the road.
When his most recent role as a senior animator in the video game industry came to an end when 25% of the company he worked for was laid off, Cantero said he viewed it as an opportunity.
“I’d been doing (the side business work) since July 2023, and I looked at this as an opportunity to use the severance to focus on the business as I had always wanted,” he said.
Necessary know-how
With a career trajectory that included being an animator and previsualization artist on movies such as the “Hunger Games,” “Planet of Apes,” “The Finest Hours” and “Goosebumps” – as well as popular video games, such as “Call of Duty” and “DOOM Eternal” – Cantero said he had the knowledge necessary to give it go on his own.
Working as a previsualization artist and animator, Cantero said, gave him the know-how needed to understand the stages involved in game development that bring a concept to life onscreen.
“High Fructose is a genre of game known as roguelike – which he said is a style of role-playing meeting certain criteria.
Most of these games, Cantero said, are based on a high-fantasy narrative and take their cues from tabletop roleplaying games.
“This genre of game is game-play heavy with light story elements,” he said. “In High Fructose, it’s about what people will do in the game. There are arenas, and they are overrun by mutant fruit, and you as a ninja fox have to save everyone by slicing at the monster fruit. It’s a funny premise.”
A slow burn
Though Cantero said he feels like he’s always been in animation, his career path didn’t start in that direction.
His initial pursuit, he said, required taking flight – quite literally.
“In high school, I wanted to be a pilot and got a scholarship to be part of the Texas A&M Corps of Cadets,” he said. “I was two years in when I learned I couldn’t be a pilot because of my eyesight and changed Air Force regulations.”
Cantero said he pivoted into an architectural program at Texas A&M, and within a short time, learned there was a lot of crossover between architecture and animation – and he wanted in on it.
“That, and you can make money doing (animation),” he said. “I went to the Savannah College of Art & Design – it was a cool gig.”
Initially, Cantero said he thought about working in video games, but then he was drawn to movie work with Pixar.
He even interviewed with them, and though a job opportunity didn’t materialize, he went on to work on movies and video games.
Bringing animation and video games together, Cantero said, ultimately brought him full circle.
“We moved from Texas about a year ago,” he said. “I didn’t realize until recently when I was going through some old boxes (that I had a passion for video games). I found drawings of video game characters I had done when I was seven. I had forgotten about that. I was like, ‘holy cow, I’m making that happen now.’”
That he is, and in Rib Mountain of all places.
Cantero said his wife, Katie, grew up in Merrill, and they moved their family of six to the area to be closer to her family.
That includes the business – which he said took a big leap forward when he launched it on Kickstarter in late June.
Cantero said the marketing firm he works with suggested aiming to secure $10,000 in funding to begin with, enticing people with several tiers of financial support and benefits associated with them.
Potential contributors, he said, have access to a demo of High Fructose, and in exchange for funding, can receive anything from special Kickstarter pricing for the game upon its finalization to direct involvement in the game’s development and Kickstarter-only character skins.
“The higher the tier, the more stuff someone receives, such as an exclusive skin – meaning the characters look different,” he said. “The higher you get, you can get more credits (and can) design a character in the game.”
So far, Cantero said the game features an elephant that can wield six weapons at once and a fox that can wield three.
Other playable characters in the works, he said, include a lion, platypus and octopus.
Multi-faceted
As to where the idea of an elephant and a fox battling fruit came from, Cantero said he credits several sources.
“I get inspiration from playing other games, movies, my kids and funnily enough, through my hobby – jiu-jitsu,” he said.
Cantero said outside inspiration is much needed as video game development – often simply referred to as gamedev – entails many skill sets and steps, including programming, design, art, audio, interface and writing.
Though he can maneuver through many facets including art, animation and visual effects, he said others require him to tap experts in areas that complement his skill sets.
In addition to hiring a marketing firm, Cantero said he hired contractors from around the world with specific expertise – a girl in Germany to do 3D modeling, a man in Canada to create art, a friend locally to do 3D rendering and a man in Ohio to do additional 3D modeling.
Cantero said he has been burning the literal midnight oil to make progress on the game.
“There’s so much work that goes into it,” he said. “Video games require art and technology, with (those) elements combined, and it’s a lot of fun – but it’s a lot of programming and a lot of work. The last four months, I’ve been working crazy hours and need the Kickstarter funding to finalize it.”
Cantero said he’s inching toward finalizing High Fructose – anticipating a release in six months to a year, depending on his schedule and how well it does.
Many game developers, he said, launch their video games on the platform called Steam.
Cantero said he likens the PC gaming platform as being the Netflix for video games, with subscribers able to gain early access to a game that’s not completely done.
“That’s a good time to release it as it’s mostly done, but you can get feedback and tweaks from players and then release the final product after that on the same platform,” he said.
Then, Cantero said, everyone who “wish listed” the game is notified.
“Steam does a lot of good marketing for (developers),” he said. “And its platform features games for millions of players to see.”
It’s only after that, Cantero said, that a developer can apply to submit a video game to the stores for Xbox, Nintendo Switch, etc.
Cantero said for him, there is still work to do to reach his definition of success with High Fructose and beyond – including family-friendly, encouraging stories via additional video games.
“(Success to me) is to keep doing this full-time, on the low end and the high end – the sky is the limit,” he said. “If it’s a massive success, I could see hiring local people to help make my next game. That’s the dream – to have a local space in Wausau and do more video game development.”
