MEET THE A LONG SURVIVE TEAM: CARLOS PUCHE
About YOU
Name: Carlos Puche
Job Title: Multiplayer Programmer
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlospuche/
Favorite Game: Half Life
What kind of video games do you play? Do you spend a lot of time playing video games?
Well, my main focus is on multiplayer, I’m a father, so I don’t have much time, and games are consuming longer and longer stories. It is impossible for me to dedicate 45h of campaign to a videogame. Although I play them all. On a daily basis, what I play the most is League of Legends, although I must admit that Diablo IV has made me go several weeks without playing LOL. But I don’t like to pigeonhole myself in one type of game, I play them all, from casual to hardcore games.
What was your first encounter with video games? Was it the video game that made you fall in love with them?
Metal Gear Solid, is without a doubt the first game I played that left me with an empty feeling inside.
How much experience do you have in the video game industry? What was the biggest challenge you have faced?
Well, I have about 12 years of serious experience although I started in the world with my own engines when I was quite small. When I got serious was with Unreal Engine 3. The biggest challenge was to port a project from Unreal Engine 3 to Unreal Engine 4 without any documentation.
Who is your favorite video game character? Do you think you are related to him/her?
Daxter from Jak and Daxter. It’s a game I love. He’s definitely the best sidekick even though I don’t look anything like him.
Imagine you could mix two video games into one, and the end result would be good. Which ones would you mix?
Gran Turismo and Mario Kart. Imagine, driving on those tracks but with a simulator, and being able to launch attacks and so on. Wow, that would be awesome. And in VR obviously.
If you had to decide on a video game world to live in, what would it be?
Runaterra without a doubt, and my worst enemy I would send to Silent Hill.
What is it like to work at Friendly Fire Studios? Tell us some interesting anecdotes.
First, I don’t work in Friendly Fire Studios. I don’t see it as an obligation or an exchange of services for money. Here we are a simple family with few resources but a huge HEART. We build dreams, and well, there are easy days and difficult days, but always with the best illusion. Every morning when I wake up and turn on the PC, is to see what amazing things we can do. It’s a lot of fun. I think one of the best moments is when we were at DreamHack Valencia in 2022, and the whole team entered in a life-size version and perfectly synchronized. We were all playing in the same space, in an area of about 70m2. That was amazing.
About A long Survive
Tell about a recent development challenge you have encountered and how you solved it.
Oculus deactivated its Online System a week before we migrated to it. And wanting to be a cross-platform title, it left us with the difficult task of creating our own cross-platform online service. Coupled with Unreal’s poor documentation, it has been a challenge to make a scalable, efficient and reliable system.
Do you have any interesting details about the development process that you can share?
Well, since we make a VR game, most of the meetings are in-game, we take notes, we point, and it’s very expressive since our avatars have a very very good arm system, and we can see the expression of the rest of the team while we make decisions. I solemnly swear that in the meetings we shoot shots only and exclusively for work reasons.
Which mechanics of A Long Survive do you find most fun or innovative?
Obviously VR, playing in VR is a completely different experience. Facing enemies, it’s completely immersive, and something that on a screen is something simple, here it becomes a brutal challenge. It takes guts to get into a hallway listening to noises and feel yourself in there.
As a player, what do you think would be your role or focus when playing A Long Survive? What do you think would be the role of the rest of the team?
I like the action and being on the front line emptying magazines.
AMAZING NEW
The things of destiny are incredible and the day we had planned the “Meet the Team” of Carlos Puche, today he has become a dad again.
Congratulations Carlos and welcome Aidan!!
