Gronk
AUTHOR: Jeff
Exactly one year ago tomorrow, our most excellent art director Doug Williams introduced himself on our website with a post titled “They Actually Pay Me To Do This $%#@”. It was an earnest, personal, and thought-provoking post. And then some clown gets on the comments and posts this gem:
Doug, I think the truck should be more red.
ps. If I eat your brains do I get your powers?
Brilliant. Mod it out? Nah, there’s no harm in it — it’s just silly.
Some people.
A few days later, Doug, James, and Dave came to me and said they knew the perfect guy to fill our recently opened position for an effects and environment artist. “Who?” I asked? “Gronk!” they said, looking proud. Just that: “Gronk”. Like I was just supposed to know who “Gronk” was. Like “Madonna”. Regardless, if these three were endorsing the guy, I figured I should meet him.
“Gronk” came in a few days later to interview for the position. It turns out his name was John Gronquist, and that he was a cool guy, a total bad-ass environment artist, and a zombie freak to boot. He’d spent the last three years doing FX and environment work for some little indie game I’d never heard of — ODST? Or Halo something? Reach 3? All of those.
Fortunately for us, Gronk was ready to tackle something new, and our passion for zombies and the design directions we were exploring for Class3 were right up his alley. He was at the Lab with his hands down in the guts of CryENGINE 3 a few weeks later, and he’s now our go-to guy for effects, user interface, and lighting. He’s a fantastic artist, and we’re lucky to have him.
But there was something about his name that stuck in the back of my mind. Where had I heard it before? Oh yeah. He was the clown who called out Doug for the not-quite-red-enough truck. His comment is still there on Doug’s article, by the way, setting the maturity bar for all of us… 
Hey Gronk — thanks for jumping in with us on this. You kick ass.
Jeff
P.S. Don’t forget to check out Gronk’s welcome to his fellow survivors!
I really hope he loves Alan wake/Red dead for inspiration.
Trucks need to be very red, it’s a fact.
JOBS
[ No open positions. ]
I like it! just because you have what you need
Also, you have a great team (All Stars Squad).
Same!This is good. I mean like you said.
And that was a joke right? Because, who doesn’t know what Halo is?
Definitely not an indie game!
Dang that was a year ago already?!
awsome jobb, i really hope u can choose what is ur profesion in the game to like if u was cop or fireman or what ever b4 the outbreak so u got some speciall skills plus lvls in the game survival lvls and aim and stuff would be pretty cool xD