* Photo: Carmen Winant * 
The Marriage
Release date: February 2007
Development time: One evening, plus a few months of debugging
What it is: A Kandinsky-esque "love poem to my marriage."
How it plays: Manipulate blue and pink squares, balancing their need to stay close with their drive to interact with other things. Mess up and the squares become increasingly opaque—a sign of emotional detachment.
Response: Mixed. Rave reviews and 500K downloads, but Humble's wife hated it. "She didn't like that the rules were asymmetrical for the pink and blue squares. She said, 'That's not how I view a perfect marriage.'"
Stars Over Half Moon Bay
Release date: February 2008
Development time: Five months
What it is: "It's about one of the oldest forms of creativity, how you look at something simple and find patterns in it."
How it plays: Mouse around gathering stars to form constellations. "The ancients had all the time in the world to lay patterns in the sky. We moderns grab moments when we can."
Response: 100,000 downloads. "It was a total reversal of reactions. Most people who liked The Marriage really didn't like Stars, and people who didn't like The Marriage really liked Stars."
Perfect distance
Release date: March 2009
Development time: Eight months
What it will be: "It follows the thought processes of an unspecified man. He starts off as an artillery officer in some war, and then the game tracks back and forth through his life. It's about decisions. Most games give you a set of binary choices. I wanted to show a variety of options, and the point of view pops in and out of the protagonist's mind."
Anticipated response: "It may be an utter disaster. It's probably the most depressing game I've ever played; people will want to kill themselves at the end. This could be my Ishtar."
Rod Humble is a busy guy. As the head of the Sims division at Electronic Arts, he oversees the development of scores of big-budget games, the kind of mass-market blockbusters designed to please millions. Recently, chief among them has been Sims 3, the latest installment in the best-selling PC game franchise of all time, which took three years and a team of up to 100 geeks to produce. Humble had a hand in everything, from the look of the characters and the feel of the controls to the packaging that'll sit on shelves at Best Buy.
When Humble, a 42-year-old Brit who once led development on EverQuest for Sony Online Entertainment, has some free time away from the grind of game design, he likes to unwind by... designing more games. But these creations are the opposite of his day job's output. At his home in Half Moon Bay, California, he codes crude-looking interactive art on his laptop, designed just to please Rod Humble. When he deems the works complete, he offers them as free downloads on his personal Web site (rodvik.com/rodgames).
For Humble it's a way to blow off steam and toy with uncommercial ideas. "I've got a job where I have to bring in a large amount of revenue," he says. "So at home, I'm doing all this weird stuff that I know won't make any money, to get it out of my system." We asked Humble to tell us about his home-brewed concoctions.
When Rod Humble isn't heading up Electronic Arts' Play label, which oversees all of the company's Sims and casual titles, he's churning out small indie games on his own. His homebrew creations- including Stars Over Half Moon Bay and The Marriage -strip gameplay to its barest elements,. He's currently working on his next DIY game (placeholder name: Perfect Distance) while working with his team at EA to put the finishing touches on Sims 3, due this summer. Here's an excerpt from our interview. —David Kushner
Kushner: How's your new homemade game coming along?
Humble: It's been a nightmare. This is much, much bigger than the other ones and really tough. I started last April thinking "I'm not going to leave the game development until the last minute", and so I thought it would be done by June. But beware of game developers bearing ship dates!, It's probably the most depressing game I've ever played in my life. People will want to kill themselves in the end.
Kushner: What's your personal game development process like?
Humble: For the stuff I do at home, I like to do it by myself. I usually work late at night after the kids are in bed. I goof around and make something for at least an hour in bed with the laptop. Rob Kauker, the head of audio for the Sims, did the music on Stars Over Half Moon Bay. At the end, I'll bring him and a couple voice actors in on my new game.
Kushner: Meanwhile you're working on The Sims 3 during the day. How does that compare?
Humble: It's three years of development with a team of 10 ramping up to 100 people!
Kushner: What do you like most about the new Sims?
Humble: It's fascinating. What I thought the key features were and what they turned out to be are different. I'm in love with the open world. You can go anywhere and see your neighbors living their lives. People are going to fall in love with the characteristics of the individual Sims.
Kushner: Like what?
Humble: In The Sims 2, we had fixed variables - they were all kind of the same. But with The Sims 3, they have personality traits and quirks, and they all have an impact on the game. The other day, I hit the "random" button and made a Sim who was evil, wanted to take over the world, but was afraid of the outdoors and didn't like plants. I put him in the game. The first thing that happened was he wanted to donate money to undermine a child's charity. Because he's evil, he can troll Internet forums. He gets a job in the crime career track. Every morning he wakes up and does evil, yet he's afraid of walking across town.
Kushner: How do you balance doing small personal games with doing big games like The Sims 3?
Humble: Games have been my chosen form of entertainment and art. Now I'm running a label, and so I'm less able to focus on small very, very creative games. I've got a job to bring in a large amount of revenue each year. So I decided that I'm going to do all the weird stuff that I know I won't make any money off of at home. That's the appropriate place to do it. My day job is making entertainment—this is a noble profession and will make millions of people happy. At home, I like to make games that are art, and I don't care if the audience is just one person. It doesn't matter if a dozen people like it or a half million, I'm just focused on the art itself.
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