About

In 2011, Monarch started after a brief pause in my AAA gaming art profession to explore design. Our first game, Spacetriss was never released but plenty of lessons were learned from it. Several prototypes followed: Marble Maze, the Monkey Game with artist Schiller Jean-Louis, and Star Kingdom. In 2012 it paused for a lifetime opportunity. Fast forward to 2019, working from home a year before the Pandemic, Monarch resumed and has been running since. I wanted to make games again, have fun, and create something out of meaningful decisions as our priority over graphics. Time is short, life is unpredictable, who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Following a prolific career in interactive entertainment, learning from the best, spanning over a decade on titles such as Tomb Raider: Underworld, Call of Duty: World At War, Call of Duty: Black Ops, The Last of Us, Uncharted 4, and Uncharted: Lost Legacy , there was a moment where I wanted to go further than just art and programming.

To say these experiences were epic would be an understatement. I was lucky enough to work alongside giants, behemoths, demons, dragons, myths, and legends in gaming. Honestly, you'd be surprised how many grossly undercredited phenoms in the craft exist who are responsible for much of what you love about your favorite titles.

But as time went on, I felt empty. Something wasn't right. Our industry was changing and I was hungry. I sensed it, time to take all the lessons learned from the past and apply them to the future. I wanted to understand the secret of fun in games. Having been on both sides of competing titans, companies at the zenith of their power, I took notes and realized there were many things we needed to explore and go deeper to push the envelope of runtime engines. It was a difficult journey and a lenghty process yet a lot of great insights were found along the way.

And so a new chapter begins. Monarch Games is an attempt to apply notes from an epic past toward a mammoth future, one step at a time. I can't promise we'll be successful nor better than anything else. The landscape of apps and games is full of giants, monsters, and creatures of another kind, calamity and mayhem disguised as amazing people and scary talent. I'm convinced some individuals are made of magic particles and fairy pixie dust, able to do special things most of us can't. I admire them. But the race is not won by the strong, nor the swift, nor the wise, neither the genius, rich, talented, or knowledgeable. Success is: time and chance.

As a lighting artist, I spent most of my career perfecting the look of games toward pinnacle cinematography, pushing the envelope of what engines could do, squeezing every pixel drop hardware was willing to muster (hugs GPU, apologies to engineers). But over time it wasn't enough to make a game pretty. I'd find myself taking compliments for a game that looked great but felt empty when I held the controller. It didn't matter if the graphics were praised, sold copies, won awards, or recieved ratings. No pretty screenshot could fill the void in my heart as a gamer. Graphics didn't matter to me anymore. What's the point of making a game look great if no one cares to play more than once before they move on? Where's the fun?

A co-worker at my last company said to me before I resigned in 2019, "great gameplay can save bad graphics, but good graphics cannot save bad gameplay."

I never pegged him as a hardcore gamer but his words struck. What he said would've been considered blasphemy in the world of 3D graphics. But he was right. Perhaps he was indeed a joystick connoisseur. In our field, visuals are the only thing that matters. To hear a guy like that say those words affirmed the very thing yelled in my heart as well as to those who shared my sentiments.

I also grew tired of being limited in my role. In time I'd get more invovled in modeling, materials, FX, animation, and eventually programming. But then I loved writing, storytelling, drawing, made comics on the side, experimented with filmmaking, web design, music and more. Learning, testing theories, and trying new ideas to see what sticks is what keeps me motivated. The more you learn, the more you grow, and greater one's joy comes with each discovery. But it also increases the chance one reaches a limit in how far they can go on a large team. I wanted something new.

One thing I discovered was the secret of productivity. The importance of counting the number of steps before results occur to accomplish a given task could not be overstated. When it went up to a hundred, I learned to code so it would be reduced to 10 to get the same quality, or better. The result was unprecented speed, depth, intricacy, as well as breakthroughs in workflow with the least effort. I was able to improve all of my own assets as well as the entire pipeline for my team. I even wrote a preset system for instant sunset, day time, night time, rain, fog, snow, clear sky, and other conditions with the drop of a menu option. You could choose a color and weather condition to get hundreds of attributes to coordinate in less than 5 seconds toward a natural, pleasing, result in one moment what would normally take hours or weeks!

But some feared it was too easy, that anyone could light a level. While not true, such is the price of progress. People fear being replaced and one's accomplishments can become resentments.

I hit a ceiling. Lighting and scripting can only go so far toward a great game, and I didn't want to scare anyone with the next phase. But I was hungry for more. I wanted to build something I could call my own. I wanted to push past things people were afraid of. But I also had to learn to take it a step and a day at a time.

Fast forward to today. This is an experiment. Every day is day one. The idea is to go the distance, as far as one can go, try scary things, until there's no more. In the process, hopefully someone becomes inspired, another is provided for, entertained, and helped as much as possible along the way. My hope is that with all the work put into Monarch, you too may be able to benefit as we all run the race of life.

The name Monarch was chosen for its embodyment of "thy Will be done on Earth as Heaven" . I wanted it to be a symbol of divine direction. I believe all great ideas, projects, and endeavors that change the world or make history come from the right timing, inspriation, and something more. If we humble ourselves to this, I believe great things can happen. Hard work is not enough, I believe there's a beyond the beyond worth seeking to make it happen.

Maybe it's nothing more than a passion rant.
Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

A. Gabriel Betancourt
^{Founder
gabe@monarchgames.net}
*LinkedIn Bio
Web comic