Yesterday we broke news here on DIYGamer that the guys who made FortressCraft (primarily DjARcas) haven’t yet been paid a single cent for their game which has ammassed almost 500,000 sales on the Xbox Live Indie Game service.

Naturally, such monetary issues hitting indie developers is always hard to hear especially when it’s somebody who is pretty much broke at the moment.

It’s also easy to blame Microsoft, the company holding onto the $1 million+ payment when, in reality, it might not even be their fault at all!

Luckily, DjArcas was able to sit down with me (virtually) this morning to conduct a lengthy interview about FortressCraft, the sales, the money issues, a PC port (ooo!) and future projects he is working on.

So sit back and let’s explore the future of FortressCraft.

DIYGamer: Obviously FortressCraft has been a big success on Xbox Live, but before that where did the idea and inspiration to make the game come from?

DjARcas: I so should have this written down, I’ve been asked it so much!

Originally I was inspired by Dwarf Fortress. This is an amazing PC-based game, with horrible text-mode graphics and the worst UI known to man. It’s also perhaps the best game ever written. So I tried to make a game ‘like’ it, but using 3D graphics. I couldn’t get the speed out of the Xbox, and gave up. This was in March 2009, quite some time before Minecraft was even thought of.

Then, in, ah, November 2010, I was playing Minecraft with a friend, and he asked me how the rendering worked. I explained the Voxels, optimal poly-culling, etc and a light went on in my head, sayin g’waaait, I could use this to make Diggers (the original game) run properly!

Nothing more came of it until I came across an argument on the Minecraft forums about [whether] the Xbox run Minecraft. I said ‘yes’, lots of people said ‘no.’ So I set out to prove them wrong. I got such a good response from so many people that I decided to release the game.

DIYGamer: And that little argument turned into quite the success story! So, heading back to Minecraft a bit (sorry you probably get this a lot) the parallels are easy to make. Obviously there are some key differences, but what do you say to people who simply deride FortressCraft as a “clone” or “copy?”

DjARcas: I’d say that they haven’t played it, as a simple as that. Going back to Minecraft is *painful* these days; Fortresscraft is miles and miles ahead technologically and we’ve dived into a futuristic/magical type game, heavily focused on creativity, whereas Minecraft is about survival!

Things like the factories, lasers and custom objects set us totally apart from Minecraft and the comment I always make – ‘Everything that FC ‘steals’ from MC, MC stole from Infimininer.’ It’s just how game development is.

There’s a ton of things in Minecraft *not* in FortressCraft; and a larger ton of things in FortressCraft that aren’t and will never be in Minecraft.

DIYGamer: That’s pretty much what I say to anybody who complains about any Minecraft “clone” as well. It’s quite unfair to many developers, in my opinion.

DjARcas: It’s [actually] amusing to see how many things from FortressCraft are making it into Minecraft… as someone said about [Minecraft] 1.8 – ‘Oh cool, Minecraft 1.8 added a FortressCraft mode.’

DIYGamer: So speaking of the continuing development. FortressCraft has been humming along quite nicely. What’s next for the game?

DjARcas: The next patch, which is looming for submission to Microsoft any day now, add quite a lot of things: lasers, pressure pads, jump pads, conveyor belts and factories.

The factories create physics objects which react and move around your world in a…er… ‘reasonably’ realistic way. This should start letting people really add movement and life into their world.

The Laser system will be expanded to allow more complex triggering on and off of systems in future patches.

DIYGamer: So could you create a sort of vehicle with the factories?

DjARcas: You *could*, but you couldn’t drive it.

One of the testers already made a spaceship with a viewport. If you look out of the viewport, you stand on a pressure pad, which spawns a UFO, which goes along it’s little path

I’m trying to enable people to make their own creative worlds in FortressCraft; to tell their own little story. One of our earlier taglines was ‘A world of a trillion stories – what’s yours?’

DIYGamer: So turning to sales… almost a half million! Impressive! What do you attribute to that sort of success?

DjARcas: I’m afraid I’m going to be *slightly* cagey on the answer to this…

Everyone attributes our sales to ‘OMFG MINECRAFT RIPOFF!’ In the first few days, or the first week, that was perhaps true. However, FortressCraft has held steady at the top of the charts for more than 90% of its released time. This isn’t due to us being a ‘ripoff’, it’s due to it being fundamentally a very slick, good looking, fun experience for players, and their friends.

I think it’d be fair to say it’s one of the best-looking Indie Games on the [Xbox Live] market. It’s most certainly the one with the biggest web presence.

We even held onto our top spot throughout the Summer Indie Uprising, which surprised me, as there was some VERY strong competition.

DIYGamer: So since it has been such a success story on Xbox Live, is there any thought or discussion about porting it to PC or maybe turning it into a Playstation game?

DjARcas: PS3 is sadly out of the picture, unless someone is willing to pay to have it written from scratch. The architecture is radically different, and our threading model simply wouldn’t work on there. We’d have to rewrite everything on the SPUs… I wouldn’t enjoy doing that. >_<

However, there’s more than ‘discussion’ about the PC version – it already exists, and we’re working on replacing the Xbox networking with something else. My main sticking point is trying to get a hold of someone at Valve, in order to start discussions with them.

DIYGamer: So back to the issue at hand. Something you said on Twitter got my mind reeling. You haven’t been paid yet! Can you explain a little bit about what’s happening with the current situation?

DjARcas: Yeah. So, everyone seems to have a weird impression of how this all works. Microsoft doesn’t paypal me $2 for each copy sold. They also don’t transfer money on a daily basis. Instead, sales are bundled up quarterly, and transferred to us.

Now, if I only had $100 coming in, this would be simple. Sadly, I need to take advantage of exchange rates, double-tax treaties and all sorts of other tax/IRS stuff that I don’t really understand!

So I’ve had to setup a new company, setup a new bank account, get hold of an accountant, get all the forms filled in and sent off…

This process takes weeks, and months! [And] the entire Microsoft process is VERY Automated. Which is kinda neat, but means I have no-one at MS to help me through the process.

XBLIG NEEDS A COMMUNITY MANAGER!

It’s also very geared towards ‘American companies’ OR ‘International individuals’ – as a foreign company, this has been a right PITA!

DIYGamer: So it’s really more of you being a lone guy in another sovereign nation trying to figure out all this stuff on your own rather than Microsoft intentionally holding out large payments?

DjARcas: Yes. Though given the ridiculous size of the payment coming in, I was half-hoping they’d fly me out there and give me a comically-large cheque. I don’t think that’s going to happen though.

The system MS has is really not that bad; I’m just a bit of a special case.

DIYGamer: Hahaha yeah I wouldn’t expect it either. They’re not exactly well known for treating their indie developers well.

DjARcas: They don’t treat us badly and I expect, if we were communicated with, that we’d understand their ‘bad’ decisions. The issue is lack of communication more than anything else! As I said – we need a community manager , one who is vocal, responsive and helpful. I vote Zman, personally

DIYGamer: And now you’re preparing for Eurogamer with no money coming in from Microsoft. Will FortressCraft be there officially or will you just be milling about?

DjARcas: Well, they tried to get us along to Eurogamer with a stand and things! I pointed out that I was skint (broke), and not able to, so they gave me some industry passes. So I’m riding my bike from Sheffield to London, crashing on a friend’s floor, and hoping the underground (subway) doesn’t cost too much!

I’ll be wandering around and taking things in, should be meeting up with a few fans, and I already have an interview lined up!

DIYGamer: The expo comped you or Microsoft?

DjARcas: The expo did.

I have a sneaking suspicion I’ll end up finding a plug socket, plugging in the laptop, and getting on with the new game modes though.

I’ll also be using it as an excuse to catch up with people I know from the industry. I’ll have a t-shirt on, so everyone can recognize me.

DIYGamer:Sounds like fun! So, aside from FortressCraft, is there anythng else lined up for you or your small burgeoning indie company?

DjARcas: Yes indeed.

DIYGamer: New game?

DjARcas: FortressCraft basically ‘got in the way’ of a whole bunch of projects I was working on!

The next one that’s likely to be release is… hmm… hard to describe. ’Automated, physics-based spaceships in offline ladder combat’?

DIYGamer: You had me at “physics based spaceships!”

DjARcas: There’s been a few videos about it. The interesting thing is – the FortressCraft playtesters were all very skeptical. Then I made them play it. It took me THREE DAYS to persuade them to go back to FortressCraft!

DIYGamer: Always a good sign! You’ll have to let us preview it sometime.

DjARcas: Aye, once 1.1 is finally out the door, I’ll be going back to it.

We’re also porting our XBLIG flop to the PC: Steam Heroes. A game that came out on the DAY of the ‘kinect/indie games’ debacle, and never recovered.

DjARcas: You’re hoping it will receive renewed interest on the PC then?

DjARcas: Possibly; I also would be scared to release FortressCraft FIRST [on the PC]. I don’t know what issues there are, what teething problems I’ll encounter.

Steam Heroes : Trials: 2557
Purchases: 139

FortressCraft gets more SALES every day than Steam Heroes had TRIALS in a *YEAR.*

And it’s really not that bad a game, it’s a quality game (really! Try it!), and it lets me ‘test the water’ for Steam/Indie City/PIG, etc, and see how much of a er… I don’t know a polite way of saying ‘ball-ache’… ‘and see how much of a PITA it’s going to be’

DIYGamer: Don’t forget Desura too! They’re my personal favorite indie digital distributor!

DjARcas: Yeah, someone mentioned them. Sadly, I was like ‘Ooo, is that a jap shmup I dont know about?’

DIYGamer: I’ll have to tell that one to the Desura guys!

DjARcas: The funny thing is, FortressCraft has such a… gravity… about it, that any digital distribution service that signs us up is likely to see significant traffic. I know for a solid fact that we grew the XBLIG scene massively, and poured in an enormous amount of new traffic there

One guy on the XBLIG forums couldn’t work out why his old game had gone from 1-2 sales a day, to 4-5 a day, constantly- someone pointed out that this coincided with FortressCraft’s release!

DIYGamer: Fascinating. The effect of your game on others I think escaped everybody, but it makes a lot of sense. Anyway, that’s all I have. Thanks for taking the time to speak with me and share your side of the story on all things FortressCraft!

DjARcas: You’re very welcome.

Once again, super huge thanks to DjArcas for taking time out of his Saturday and speaking with me. I hope he gets his money sooner rather than later as it appears he’s in much need of some capital to continue working on his game and other titles.

[FortressCraft]