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José & Damien
PORTFOLIO

José & Damien.

Damien Monnier: Designer with over 15 years of experience in the games industry – working with some of the best companies in Europe, including SONY, CDProjektRED & TEAM17. He has worked on a number of titles and genres, from mobile puzzle games to current AAA games, 3rd Person action shooters, online racing games, and Mature RPGs for PC and Consoles. A former line cook and comic book collector.

José Teixeira: Visual Effects Artist with over 10 years of experience. He has worked for Techland, CD Projekt and People Can Fly, among others. Jose created visual effects for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, both expansions of Hearts of Stone and Blood and Wine, Cyberpunk 2077, Bulletstorm, Gears of War 3 and Gears of War: Judgment and Infinity. An architect and lover of great design. Graduated with a degree in architecture from the University of Lisbon. Lifelong massive gadget freak who currently uses his son as an excuse to purchase a worrisome amount of Lego sets

José & Damien

Personal development

  • 2009

    José joined People Can Fly as a visual effects artist where he created visual effects for the games: Bulletstorm, Gears of War 3, and Gears of War: Judgment and Infinity.

    Damien joined Sony as a games/level designer where his tasks included: vehicle handling, designing tools (level and scripting) and gameplay features, as well as a system that allowed players to interact with huge crowds of NPCs.

  • 2012

    Damien joined CD Projekt as a gameplay designer. His tasks were to design and prototype (from the ground up) new gameplay features, combat, player interaction with the game environment, GUI, Mini games and also to support existing WIP designs.

  • 2013

    José joined CD Projekt where he created visual effects for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (both expansions) and Cyberpunk 2077. Damien gave an NVidia Presentation that received 1.2 million viewers.

  • 2014

    Damien gave two stage presentations: on E3 for Xbox and The Game Awards 2014

  • 2016

    Damien joined Techland as lead designer and also gave a live stage presentation for Gwent.

  • 2018

    José joined Techland as a visual effects artist and then decided to build his own studio with Damien.

  • 2019

    José and Damien founded Exit Plan Games and gained funding from the first investment round for the development of Bang-On Balls: Chronicles.

  • 2021

    Bang-On Balls, the first game from Exit Plan was released in March on Steam.

The history of ExitPlan

José & Damien:

How it all started

José: There wasn’t any sudden plot twist. We’d been working together at AAA game studios for years, where we created several fantastic games and we really enjoyed it. At some point, we just started talking about the possibility of creating something for ourselves in the future. However, we needed an exit plan for this.  And so, by pure chance, we created the name of our future studio before we had even started to think about it seriously.

José & Damien:

The idea for the first game

José: The final idea was the combined result of a certain thought process and lots of trial and error. At the very beginning, it was just me and Damien. So, we had to think about what kind of game we could create, just the two of us: Damien as the Game Designer and me as the Visual Effects Artist.

The lack of a full team severely limited our options and we had to automatically eliminate a lot of ideas. We were unable to create a game with an open world and a developing character. It had to be something full of effects, with interesting gameplay. We started testing prototypes, one of which, loosely based on Katamari, was the most fun. In that game, the player moves a ball, which grows in size as it gathers up all the different elements that it passes. We created something similar to this, but then we expanded on the gameplay mechanics. Our ball could jump, break and accelerate. Then, it was time to put this in the context of a story. Thanks to Damien, who is a fan of history, we came up with the idea that each level should be a separate period in history.  Thus, we started to become increasingly aligned with the CountryMan meme, which perfectly matched the whole concept.

The most important thing for us is that people who are completely unaware of the meme can still have fun. The fact that they are unfamiliar with the meme does not affect their understanding of the game.

José & Damien:

Why "Bang-on Balls"

Damien: We spent a week writing various names on the board, but none of them sounded right. Then, Jose asked “OK, what is good about our game?” I said it was a good game, simply good. I liked it, and then suddenly a very British phrase “bang on” came to mind. I said “bang on. Bang-On Balls” – we immediately felt a vibe. That was it. We knew it was a bit stupid, but we liked it! In addition, the name reflected exactly what was happening in the game. Perfect!

José & Damien:

2+2

Damien: For the first year, only two of us worked on it, and then during the next six months, there were four of us. So, a large part of the game was created by only four people. It’s amazing how much more we were able to accomplish just by adding a couple people to our team. Soon after that, more people joined us and this helped us take the game to the next level.

José & Damien:

Little big power

Damien: We want to remain a small team, because that means everyone has their creative freedom. Each of us is responsible for a large part of the game and it is very important for each of us to be creative within these boundaries. We want every member of our team to have a real impact on the look and development of the game. We plan to grow slowly, but surely, and develop the game while expanding the team.

Today, Exit Plan includes eight highly talented and experienced people. In addition, we are also cooperating with an outsourced sound designer and a musical composer who are both doing a great job.

I am very impressed by what we have achieved with just a few people.

José & Damien:

Your philosofy

Damien: Treat your staff the way you want to be treated.

José & Damien:

What makes you want to keep doing more?

Damien: There will come a time when the kind of games that I want to make or know how to make will no longer be popular; I’ve seen this happen with some old school designers from the ‘70s and ‘80s. They eventually hit a plateau and only a few manage to plow through and remain relevant, it seems. I want to find out if I will be able to stay relevant until I retire (which is never).

José & Damien:

Przyjaźń w biznesie

Damien: José and I are on the same page when it comes to a lot of things and whenever I am wrong, he takes the time to tell me why he thinks I am wrong while also listening to my counter argument, if I have any, which means that there is always an open dialogue between us. Also, no “I told you so” allowed:)

José & Damien:

Most hated word in business

Damien: „NFT” and „blockchain” 

José & Damien:

What kind of leaders are you?

Damien: The kind who make sure that creative minds have the freedom they need to produce their best work.

Personal development

  • 2009

    José joined People Can Fly as a visual effects artist where he created visual effects for the games: Bulletstorm, Gears of War 3, and Gears of War: Judgment and Infinity.

    Damien joined Sony as a games/level designer where his tasks included: vehicle handling, designing tools (level and scripting) and gameplay features, as well as a system that allowed players to interact with huge crowds of NPCs.

  • 2012

    Damien joined CD Projekt as a gameplay designer. His tasks were to design and prototype (from the ground up) new gameplay features, combat, player interaction with the game environment, GUI, Mini games and also to support existing WIP designs.

  • 2013

    José joined CD Projekt where he created visual effects for The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (both expansions) and Cyberpunk 2077. Damien gave an NVidia Presentation that received 1.2 million viewers.

  • 2014

    Damien gave two stage presentations: on E3 for Xbox and The Game Awards 2014

  • 2016

    Damien joined Techland as lead designer and also gave a live stage presentation for Gwent.

  • 2018

    José joined Techland as a visual effects artist and then decided to build his own studio with Damien.

  • 2019

    José and Damien founded Exit Plan Games and gained funding from the first investment round for the development of Bang-On Balls: Chronicles.

  • 2021

    Bang-On Balls, the first game from Exit Plan was released in March on Steam.

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