If you search for the name “Lionel Gallat” on IMDB, you’ll find the name attached to a number of animated feature films: animation director for The Lorax, animation director for Despicable Me, supervising animator for Shark Tale, and the list goes on.

But more recently, Gallat has stepped away from animated feature films, and started developing a video game…on his own. The game is called Ghost of a Tale, and with one look at a screenshot it is easy to see that Gallat’s artistic skills have easily transitioned into the video game. Ghost of a Tale looks beautiful.

“As an animation director I was responsible for the animation of entire movies, leading 60+ [person] teams,” Gallat explained to IGM. “I was longing to go back to the nitty-gritty of creation; writing, modeling, painting, rigging, programming and… playing. I’ve already been in a position where I mostly tell people what they should do (and it’s probable [that] one day I’ll go back to that position) but today I’m having a lot of fun doing things myself for a change!”

Gallat, who is in the middle of promoting the funding campaign for his debut title Ghost of a Tale, chatted with IGM for a bit about his experience transitioning from Hollywood to the game development scene, his woes with Kickstarter, and why Ghost of a Tale deserves your support.

IGM – What inspired you to start working on a game, and move out of the animation industry?

Gallat - It was a good time for me to do so. I’ve always loved games and I’ve always enjoyed writing stories, creating models and animating them. But I also love programming (I’ve written tools used in production in several studios). So it wasn’t really that far-fetched for me to put the two together.

As an artist who programs I can get lost in a coherent game world and get to look everywhere I want, and interact with things that I created. In a nutshell it’s a lot of fun. I feel like a kid again, when I was programming moving sprites (an achievement!) in Microsoft Basic. It’s a huge amount of work obviously, but so rewarding.

IGM – What are some of the pros and cons of working on developing a video game on your own…as opposed to working on a movie with a team?

Gallat - When you work on a big-budget movie the team is obviously very big. Quite a few people have their say, which is normal since a lot of money’s involved and the goal is to appeal to the widest audience in order to reduce the risks. Sometimes you run into the classic issue of “too many cooks spoiling the soup”. Also you are always in a situation were you do what you’re told, no matter your hierarchical position. Which is also very soothing in a sense, because you don’t really have to worry too much about anything else besides what’s on your workbench.

But for me, working on my own allows me to let my imagination roam free; I know where I want to go, I have an idea of where the journey’s going to lead me, but I’m not just doing a job. It requires a lot more personal discipline than when you work in a team. The hard truth is, when you work on your own, if you have a natural tendency of being complacent or if your motivation is only temporary you will fail.

So far that’s the main difficulty; only being able to rely on myself. I have spent my entire career collaborating with people on projects, so that’s a big change for me. So far I’m really enjoying the experience, although if I can manage to get a budget to pay some collaborators I’ll be a happy camper!

IGM had a chance to chat with Laurent Lavigne of Elefantopia on his hectic tower defense game, McDroid. McDroid is a gorgeous cel-shaded tower defense and 3rd person action adventure game where you collect strawberries. The game is currently still in Beta and available for PC, Mac and Linux.

When did you start developing games? What got you into programming and designing?
I started when I was 10, made a few rooms in a first person adventure game on my TI 97, then at 15, I completed the graphics for a game that was inspired by RTYPE, horizontal shooter with wave gun and modular weapon system in the back that doubled as a shield. Sold it to Thalamus, the company went under before the game became anything more than one level on the Amiga but it was a really fun level.

What game inspired you to make games?
RTYPE but MULE and Gauntlet are close second, what am I saying, Marble Madness and Buck Rogers, The Pawn, Tass Time… they all build such a rich canvas of feelings.

What is your favorite indie game right now that you are playing? Why?
I am not playing any indie game at the moment, the free time I have I dedicate to McDROID and the real world. But I did spend hours on FTL and loved it, it was scratching that grinding itch and showed me some really tight gameplay and subtle bindings I’ll re-use.

[This Content is Exclusive for Insider]

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – ‘McDroid’ Interview with Laurent Lavigne of Elefantopia

The duo of LeGrudge and Rugged recently released their first commercial game, Krunch.  This game is indie all the way created by two dudes, a musician, a sound wiz and an artist. It’s an incredibly challenging game about escaping and surviving.  IGM took a moment to interview this new and promising gaming duo.

I know that you guys created the prototype for Krunch for a Ludum Dare game jam, but what inspired you to take that game and develop it into a full commercial game?

Michael: I think overall we just saw lots of potential in the mechanics. I also felt “floating” left the door open for what we could do graphically and atmospherically.

Vieko: Lots of potential for sure – I’ve always enjoyed the rush you get when KRUNCH is about to kill you and you save yourself just at the right time… this spelled “commercial” to me.

What challenges did you run into evolving your quick prototype into a full commercial game release?

Vieko: Staying motivated / focused for a long period of time can be challenging, specially when life forces you to take lengthy breaks between milestones. Adding @twobitart (Sara Gross) to the mix, helped us get back into the groove and finish our game.

Michael: KRUNCH grew organically. I think one of the most difficult parts was just determining when it was done, that said I’m glad we took it to the point that it’s at now. There are still things we would like to add, but overall I think the game is a pretty complete experience.

[This Content is Exclusive for Insider]

For more information on LeGrudge and Rugged and Krunch, check out krunchgame.com or the developer’s official webpage.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – LeGrudge and Rugged Interview – KRUNCH

Jesse Freeman is an indie game designer and author. For Ludum Dare 25, his friend Sean McCracken and he developed Super Paper Monster Smasher for his company, Game Cook, using HTML5 on the brand new Windows 8 operating system. It’s free and available to play in your browser and on the Windows Store, with an iOS and Android version in the works.

When Freeman isn’t writing or designing games, he’s a Windows 8 game evangelist at Microsoft, focusing primarily on indie development. After his experience with the game jam, Freeman came to us at The Indie Game Magazine to share his experience working with HTML5 and how he sees this impacting the independent gaming scene.

What are some things that Windows 8 does better than other available resources for game development?

“I think the most important thing that Windows 8 does better than any other platform out there right now is HTML5. I love the power and instant gratification of programming in JavaScript. There is no other platform out there outside of a web browser that offers me a place to showcase my HTML5 games. And I do very little to get my web game running on Windows 8. Maybe less than 100 lines of code all in all so the ability to then distribute my game across a new and growing platform is a great opportunity.”

“One of the key things I stress about developing HTML5 games for Windows 8 is that you don’t have to change your workflow. Win8 is like PhoneGap on steroids. Since you are not running your game in a wrapper, it’s a native app on the computer. If you are designing a touch focused game using either the mouse or a finger you are good to go. If you want multi-touch you simply listen for a different event (that also handles mouse and pen). Just take your HTML5 game, dump it into Visual Studio and it will work. After that, you just need to make sure it scales correctly for multiple resolutions and that’s it. The best part is that you can take that game and publish it right back to the web or other mobile platforms using something like Ejecta (http://impactjs.com/ejecta) or CocoonJS (http://www.ludei.com/tech/cocoonjs).”

“One of the most frustrating thing for me as a gamer going through Ludum Dare submissions are games that won’t run in my browser. I always get a little nervous just downloading random apps to run on my production computer or if it’s PC only and I’m on a mac or tablet it won’t even work. I think the power of HTML5 is that it works everywhere. And while it’s still evolving on mobile (still poor audio support) I was able to build a web friendly version of my game that ran in any modern web browser or mobile device without a plugin or need to install anything. Just like Flash revolutionized online casual gaming, HTML5 gaming will pick up where Flash left off and continue to offer that kind of experience to people moving forward.”

I also asked Jesse if he had any final comments and he replied,

“I really would love to highlight onegameamonth.com as a huge motivator for me to continue working on my Ludum Dare submission and I am almost done with my next game. I believe game development is like anything else, you need lots of practice. Going to game jams and taking part in year round events like One Game A Month really push you to complete what you start and over time making games becomes easier and easier.”

Windows 8 seems to hold a lot of promise for the indie gaming sphere when viewed from this standpoint. What do you think? You can learn more about Jesse Freeman by visiting his website and join us in the forums for our discussion on indie game development and Windows 8.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Game Jamming ‘Windows 8′ With Jesse Freeman

A first in the IGM Greenlight series, we decided to interview the developers behind today’s game, and let them tell you why it is worthy of your vote on Steam Greenlight.

For this interview, I spoke with Harald Dosch, the lead developer at EpicBeyond Studios, about Crystal Kingdom, a pretty looking multiplayer RPG that pays homage to the classics of the genre but brings to the table its own sleeve full of tricks.

The Game – Crystal Kingdom
The Developer – EpicBeyond Studios

IGM – Hey Harald, so how long have you been at work with Crystal Kingdom?

EpicBeyond - My programming roots in multiplayer games go back to 1997 where I coded libraries for multi-user dungeon text muds at universtity and started doing fangames of established singleplayer RPGs at the time like Dragon Quest or Ultima. I decided to drop doing fangames and create my own thing around 2010. I grew tired of working on something that I wouldn’t even own in the end and never could advertise or sell as I would need to to increase the budget and workforce.

So it’s been roughly 2 years, but keep in mind that Crystal Kingdom recycles most of the code and tools done for its predecessor. At first [Crystal Kingdom] was called SEYKEN: Crystal Kingdom and later “SEYKEN” was dropped to avoid confusion with a fangame of the same title.
IGM – What was SEYKEN?

EpicBeyond - SEYKEN was an online multiplayer fangame that used graphical content from numerous 16-bit console JRPG classics. It was in development from about 2005 untill 2010, but never really took off because of its fangame restrictions and limitations. Also, the owners of these classics started to hunt and shut down quite a lot of fangame projects in 2010 to protect their rights and ownership. So we decided to drop doing fangames and started work on Cyrstal Kingdom.
IGM – What makes Crystal Kingdom such an ambitious project?

EpicBeyond - First of all, the size of the project compared to the quantity of people working on it. We are only 4-6 guys working on a project that usually a larger team would work on. To make it even harder, we also can’t afford to work on it full time. I’m a commercial airline pilot for instance, another developer is a software engineer, and another was about to finish highschool when he joined. Usually the teams meets in the evenings via Skype and will quite often work until early next morning or as long as real-life allows us to.  Don’t get me wrong – it’s fun, but it’s also very demanding on a social and physical level.

Then, the technological foundation Crystal Kingdom required. It took us years to create the gaming services needed to run the game on. Crystal Kingdom will be running inside a Cloud Service where things like a central database and game server satellites and data replication comes into play. We had put a lot of time into the technological aspect of the game and just recently brought it to a point where we can spend time on the game itself again.

IGM – Who is responsible for Crystal Kingdom’s beautiful pixel art?

EpicBeyond - Fabian, aka “Vierbit”, the background artist, joined the project almost 3 years ago when we decided to drop doing a fangame project and set out to persue our own title. Thomas, aka “Cyangmou”, the spriter and animator,  joined the project over a year ago and created all the player and monster sprites as well as all the animations, icons, and effects in the game.
IGM – How did you meet these artists?

EpicBeyond - No big story really. I searched through pixel graphics communities like Pixelation and Pixeljoint around 2010 and discovered Vierbit/Fabian’s art. I emailed him and later we Skyped at some point. I showed him a live prototype of the engine and game —fortunately it was enough to convince him join the team. Cyangmou/Thomas joined about a year-and-a-half later  —I discovered his sprites and animation work at Deviantart. Again, also mailed and Skyped at some point and like Vierbit I also showed him a prototype with some stuff Vierbit had done up to that point, and it was enough to get him join the team too.

IGM – Plans to port Crystal Kingdom to other platforms/operating systems?

EpicBeyond - We would love too, but we are running on a very small budget. Yet Crystal Kingdom is made entirely in Java which is very port-friendly and at the least supports Windows, Mac, and Linux right away.
IGM – Multiplayer indie games sometimes have small online player-bases, how are you ensuring that Crystal Kingdom will still be fun with a minimal amount of players playing online?

EpicBeyond - We never had planned for a huge amount of players. A small and dedicated community is just as fun, and since the maximum party size of people playing together is five, it doesn’t really matter. Also many of the maps are generated based on the player/party entering it to make it more of a challenge. Sure, usually, more players online makes a world a little more vivid, but can also be a burden.
IGM – Why the decision to go MMO, and not just single-player?

EpicBeyond - All projects I did before were multiplayer right away —my roots as a programmer go back to creating libraries for text-based multi-user dungeons running on my universitie’s mainframe. Also if its done right, a 16-bit OJRPG could be real fun, and prove to be a retreat and community hub for all the classic JRPG lovers out there.

The Boston Festival of Indie Games was recently held to celebrate Independent Game Development Day. I was able to go, and while there I sat down with Derek Bruneau of 10×10 Room.

Derek is one of the developers of a browser based game called Conclave. It is a game inspired by the 10×10 Room team’s love of roleplaying in their busy lives.  Conclave aims to make the roleplaying experience more convenient by removing the limitations of timed sessions.

“We were inspired a couple years ago to make this game, to have tabletop inspired aesthetics and story and tactical gameplay that we like, but that doesn’t require us to schedule gaming sessions.” Derek explains that “You can play it in realtime if you have time, but otherwise just have it fit into the free moments of your day.”

Conclave focuses on being able to be played asynchronously. Almost every mechanic that Derek mentioned was designed with the intent of being able to play when the players get a chance. Derek’s example was combat not being limited by waiting for others to complete their turns.

He adds that “One other advantage of that is if you do have time, and can coordinate things there’s a strategic advantage to that.  You can choose to go first, and maybe use an ability that weakens a creature, and use a combination with another character that way.”

10×10 Room acts as the Dungeon Master for the experience. Each quest is scripted by the team, and hosted on their website. Every action the player takes is stored on the Conclave servers, and because of that allowing modding is difficult.  When asked about modding, he told me “We hope to do it at some point, but we’re not planning on doing it in the next couple months unless something changes.”

Conclave’s open beta has had a positive response so far. Derek hopes his successful Kickstarter will help make Conclave even more popular.

“Definitely a lot of good feedback, most of it similar to our feedback in earlier stages of development. That suggests that we’re on the right path, and there has not been a big change in that.  A lot of the feedback is also feedback that is already on our existing road map. That’s been encouraging also.”

10×10 Room is inspired to make this game, because it is something they would like to play themselves.

We very much ‘eat our own dog food’, the inspiration for the game was we didn’t have time for the game we wanted to created. A game with depth, and also didn’t take over our lives. One that respected we had work or family or school. The game very much reflects what we as players would like, and being online is obviously a big part of that. We can’t play online since we’re scattered across the country.

Derek said there were two possibilities for his biggest challenges and triumphs in creating Conclave.

“One would be getting the word out. The game doesn’t fit into an established genre – it’s very tabletop’esquey but it’s a videogame. It’s kind of between the online and offline worlds.  In addition, there are some members of the gaming community or press that focus on particular genres, or triple-a games in general. So I think one of the biggest challenges is getting the word out as an indie developer. The other challenge is one I think people would expect. Creating an RPG with your own story and own mechanics, and adding in this synchronous and asynchronous play, and we’re hosting everything. There’s a lot of coding and infrastructure involved. So the other biggest challenge would be how to get this done with such a small team.

And in terms of triumphs I would say we actually have a completely playable beta that works.  There are some rough spots that we really want to improve. Like better graphics or adding a soundtrack, or discoverable items on quests. There are a bunch of them, but I think that we’ve demonstrated that it’s possible to do this. To be able to have an experience like this, and have it be fun and to feel like a tabletop game. Our players and playtesters have really responded to that, and that feels great.”

You can play Conclave at it’s website. You can also follow it’s development at 10×10 Room‘s development blog, or follow them on Twitter.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – From the FIG – Interview with 10×10 Room

Last week I published the first half of my epic interview with Colin Northway which can be found here, today I am going to conclude the awesome interview. Expect a lot more design talk, some information about the names uses along with Colin Northway’s fondness for Spelunky, hold on to you hats.

Me: Do you feel that the story or any of the messages in Incredipede reflects you on a personal level?

Colin: You know, last week I would have said yes. At PAX I was talking with Davey Wreden about his game “The Stanley Parable”. He puts so much of his personal experience into that game I don’t feel like I can compare myself to him.

The Stanley Parable is such an emotional journey for him. Incredipede is just a different thing. It’s about wonder at life and playing, but it isn’t about me personally as much as The Stanley Parable is about Davey.

Me: So where did the name Quozzle actually come from?

Colin: I was trying to come up with a name. Naming things is so hard, “Quozzle’s Quest” popped out of my brain at some point. Anything “Quest” is just silly and overused but the name “Quozzle” stuck. I think it sounds vaguely Central American, which is good.

Me: On the subject of names does the name Incredipede come from Incredible centipede?

Colin: Pretty much, the suffix means “foot” in latin. So Quozzle is an Incredible Foot. I think of the bones on the end of her legs as feet so I think it’s quite fitting. I was worried that it was too close to Incredibots, so I made sure the Incredibots guys were cool with me using it.

In the code it’s still called Novus Vita (new life). It had all kinds of names before I had to nail it down for Sense of Wonder Night. It was terrible coming up with a name. I got suggestions from friends, spent forever writing long lists of possible names, talked endlessly with Sarah about it. It just took forever, i’m really happy with Incredipede though. One of the first articles about it said it was the best name for a video game ever so that was nice .

Me: The art style in Incredipede looks fantastic and is quite striking. Was it hard to settle on the cut wood style from all the other possibilities.

Colin: I always wanted the style to be like a botany book from the 1700’s. In the 1700’s europeans were still discovering the world on wooden sailing ships. Often these voyages of exploration would include a botanist to document the plants they found along the way. When they got back sometimes the botanist would publish a book of plants from far corner of the world.

Imagine you’re living in a little English village (or Manchester maybe) in the 1700’s and you find this book about creatures that can make limbs appear wherever they want, you would totally believe it!

That time must have been amazing, when it seemed like you could find anything on the next island over. The problem was really executing that idea. Sarah is an artist but not that kind of artist and i’m hopeless. Luckily I randomly stumbled upon Thomas Shahan. He’s never even worked in video games before, but his work has been totally amazing.

Image of Thomas Shahan via http://www.thomasshahan.com/art/

Me: So how did you managed to find Thomas Shahan.

Colin: I was reading a Wikipedia article on spiders and his spider picture was used in the article. I followed the link to his site and found his woodblock prints. They were so perfect for the game I wrote him an e-mail. He was just finishing art school when we started working on the game together. He is also an amazing photographer by the way and has been featured in National Geographic. Just a stunningly talented man.

Me: From the art I have seen it does look to be an amazing fit for the game, I don’t think you two could of put that all together better really.

Colin: Thomas has made the game look better than I ever imagined. We’ve worked very closely together, it hasn’t been a matter of “Thomas, art this!”. We find a way to make the code support his art. Well as close as you can work with someone when you’re on different continents.

Me: So do the two of you talk a lot about many different aspects of the game and then try to decide on the best art for it as it grows.

Colin: There was a lengthy period in the beginning when we were trying to figure out what exactly the game would look like and what world it inhabits. Quozzle and the ground are both very dynamic, this is due to the level editor that allows players to change the shape of both Quozzle and the ground anyway they like. Making everything look good no matter how the player contorts things was a real challenge, it was a real marriage of code and art.

Me: To make a game so dynamic with so many ways to change everything must have really put the art and code under a great deal of strain.

Colin: It was a lot of work, especially as I had never done any real graphics programming before. But we pulled it off.

Me: You must be incredibly happy with the end result especially with the amount of people who have now gotten interested in the game.

Colin: I am thrilled with the result. The first thing Thomas sent me I thought was totally amazing and he just kept sending me better and better stuff. It was also really nice to have him push me on some of the little graphical glitches, I might not have fixed if it was just me. Not that there aren’t a few that are still in there. Sorry Thomas, I’m probably not going to remove the bones when a player drags out a limb!

Me: Has the design of the Quozzle been difficult to make all the limb mechanics work well together, especially with the unpredictable designs people can come up with?

Colin: The raw design of exactly how you make limbs, muscles and how they work took forever. You have to consider the UI, player expression, depth of gameplay and you have to make it as simple as possible. Always as simple as possible.

It’s one of those things. Now I look at it and think “yeah of course it works that way, how else would you do it?”. It took literally months to come to this point, hopefully players won’t even think about all that work though. Playing will just be like breathing, it will just work.

There is a little bit of secret sauce that i’m particularly proud of. I feel like game authors are always trying to fake stuff, like “I’ll add a little gust of wind here that the player won’t notice but will help them out”. When I do that it often breaks the game and makes things feel wrong. Incredipede has one great fake-out in this though. As you run around in a level your limbs would slowly get out of sync (as the limb in the air can move quicker than a limb pushing against the ground). So the game subtly changes the speed of limbs so that they stay in sync and your spider always looks like a spider.

Me: Did you find the level design to be difficult overall.

Colin: There are 60 levels in the game. The first 20 took literally months. The whole first world (there are three) is tutorial. Not a terrible pop-ups everywhere tutorial but each level keeps you learning with a new challenge. Getting that just right was a lot of work, I think the new player experience is incredibly important. Even the core building mechanics are written specifically from the point of view of a new player. Not to say the game doesn’t reward mastering the mechanics, the first world takes about 30 minutes to finish. To finish the rest of the game it takes more like ten hours, it gets hard!

Me: Was it difficult to get so many levels in the main story mode that kept the player entertained continually.

Colin: Not really, there are a lot of ideas to play with. Just moving around the terrain gives you a lot of options add in lava, collecting static as well as rolling fruit, wind that can lift you into the air, there are lots of options. Like Fantastic Contraption I expect people to make a lot of classic levels with the level editor.

Me: How has Incredipede compared to Fantastic Contraption in terms of the creation process.

Colin: I was very lucky with Fantastic Contraption, that game just worked. It fell out of the sky and was great being able to purposefully reproduce those results has been hard but fun. I’m kind of sad Incredipede is in the same vein as Fantastic Contraption. Every other game I tried to design was very different, I guess i’m just good at games where you build stuff.

Me: Although Incredipede is still in pre-release are you considering any future DLC.

Colin: All the levels and creatures people make will be kind of like DLC and that’s all free! You don’t even have to own the game to play with other people’s creatures. Only if you want to make your own.

Me: You don’t even need the game to play with pre-made creatures?

Colin: There will be a flash “player” online. When your friend makes a creature they can send you the link and you can play it.

Colin Northway Cosplaying at Pax 2011 as his Spelunky Character

Me: I am interested to know what are some of your favorite indie games, I know you love SpaceChem any others you hold great love for.

Colin: I may be the biggest Spelunky fan in the world. I was the first person to beat Hell and Derek actually based the blue spelunker on me, so i’m kind of in Spelunky. I cosplayed as myself (the blue spelunker) at PAX in 2011.

I have also been playing an early version of Steph Therion’s Faraway for a while now, I really love that game. I’ve watched him work on it for years now and while I wish he would release it the game is getting better and better. It has amazing depth I’ve sunk hours and hours into it and i am still getting better (my high score is better than Steph’s).

I would like to thank Colin Northway greatly, for his awesome interview he was a great guy to chat with for a few hours. Incredipede can be ordered from the official site here and expect the beta to be going live soon. Colin Northways official site can be found here, Thomas Shahan’s official site can be found here for all things arty! Everyone at IGM wishes Colin Northway, Thomas Shahan and Sarah Northway all the best with the release of Incredipede in the coming month, and I hope to hear more from them in the not too distant future.

Be sure to check back to The Indie Game Magazine for all the latest on Incrediepede!

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – IGM Exclusive Interview With Colin Northway Part 2

Colin Northway is the founder of Northway games, an independent gaming studio currently developing Incredipede. You to play as a Quozzle who is in search for her sisters, she has however a unique ability to grow new limbs to overcome all manner of obstacles. With the beta starting next month I thought it would be a good time to get a bit more perspective on Incredipede and Colin Northway in general.

I interviewed Colin Northway about all things Incredipede along with delving into his love for Spelunky and travel. The interview follows below.

Me: From what I have read you seem to enjoy travel but what places have you visited of these last few years?

Colin: Ok, lets see, in order: Turkey, Czech, Italy, Malta, Scotland, Paris, Honduras, Costa Rica, Philippines, Greece, South of France, Austria. We spent at least a month in every place so our list is more quality than quantity.

Oh I forgot Hong Kong and Tokyo, can’t leave out Tokyo!

Me: Tokyo has always been a place I have wanted to visit, one of my friends went earlier this year and loved it how did you find it?

Colin: I highly recommend it! Tokyo is one of our favourite places. One of the only places we’ve been to twice. It’s neighbourhoods are all different so it feels like having a whole country you can take local trains through, you can spend years exploring just Tokyo.

Me: I have heard that prices in Japan are much higher than average, did you find this in your experience over there?

Colin: We didn’t find the prices in Tokyo crazy. I mean we stayed in a tiny place and ate sushi exactly twice, but it’s definitely possible to enjoy Tokyo on a budget.

Me: How did travelling affected your game development overall?

Colin: Travelling is great for game development because games thrive on new ideas. When you’re traveling you are constantly being bombarded with new ideas. It keeps your brain electric.

People often think we must get no work done but if you spend a few months in the same city in the same house you get into a routine. There are a few weeks in the beginning where you get very little done. After that you can be very productive, this is more true on little tropical islands and less true in big exciting cities.

I love to see new things, people and places. Your brain is always making these little connections and drawing threads between things. It’s like a storm up in there. The more experiences and ideas you shove into it the more you get out.

Colin Northway in Honduras

Me: Incredipede really does have some interesting ideas, is it safe to assume a lot of the ideas do in fact come from your creativity whilst travelling. Was there any one place particularly that really ignited the game?

Colin: The game wouldn’t exist without Honduras. It grew up in a lot of places but it was born in the Bay Islands of Honduras. We were living in a boat-house slung out over the water in the middle of nowhere. We would go snorkeling every day and see these amazing fish, rays and cuttlefish.

Then we’d get home and have to fight off the local insects. I liked climbing around in the mangrove forests, climbing in trees over the water somehow feels great. Once I found that I was sharing the branch with a baby boa constrictor. That’s what Incredipede is really about, it’s about playing in that world. In the wet gooey world of life and movement.

Me: So the whole idea of the game was born in the mangroves

Colin: Pretty much

Me: So before this you didn’t really have any idea for a project? Or where you playing around with a few ideas?

Colin: Before that I had spent two years prototyping games trying to find something worth writing. I had just given up on a game called Clutter, it was kind of Captain Forever but on land instead of in space (Farbs was nice enough to let me use his amazing building mechanic).

After six months it just wasn’t developing how I wanted, I gave it up in Honduras and Incredipede walked into my life.

Me: So was this a dry spell in creativity before Incredipede the reason you wanted to travel away to Honduras or is that just unrelated?

Colin: We had been traveling the whole time. I worked on Clutter in Malta and Czech and a bunch of places, it just didn’t turn out. The thing about original games is that they are very hard to write. You can’t tell how good an idea is until you try it. You can guess, but you can’t really know how good a game will be just by imagining it in your head. Even a simple game can be too complicated, so having one good idea isn’t usually enough. You need to have a bunch and then hope one of them works out.

Me: So it seems to come down to the concepts and the way you try to portray them in the game, with some ideas not being workable or just won’t turn out how you want them too.

Colin: I’m a very mechanical designer so I always have some systems and interactions I think will be interesting. Often those interactions just aren’t interesting. There is a sweet spot where the game is just complicated enough to be interesting but not complicated enough to be confusing. It’s hard to find something right in that sweet spot.

Incredipede first concept

Me: So from what I can gather design is your favourite part of the development.

Colin: Design is definitely the best part of making games. It’s just so.. hard, no one has figured out how to do it well and the solution space is huge. Imagine how many amazing unwritten games are out there to find. You need a machete to cut your way through all the bad ideas but when you find a golden idol sitting amongst them it feels so good. It took me two years of machete work to find Incredipede.

Me: It must be very difficult at times continuing with design work, especially after a string of unworkable designs.

Colin: The pain of something not working out is always offset by the joy of working on something new. The number one enemy of finishing what you started is the siren call of the new. The hardest part is knowing when to give up. Sometimes it takes awhile to figure out if something is going to be fun or not. A lot of the time, it seems you’re just one idea away from making an idea really great. Some people spend a long time chasing that feeling.

Me: How do you know when you are onto a great idea? Does it require outsider opinion or is it just a feeling.

Colin: I think you can tell yourself how good a game is at its core. It can take a lot of work to make it fun for other people but if it’s fun for you then it’s at least possible. I like the idea that good games desing themselves. If the idea is truly good then you will be choosing between all the amazing things you can do. If an idea isn’t great then you’ll spend all your time trying to figure out how to make it better.

Me: Once you find a good game does it all just flow for you and did you have any problems with developing Incredipede, once you have the idea.

Colin: There are two prongs to game design. One is the raw idea (that’s the most fun and the hardest). The second is about bringing that idea to players. Imagine you are out in a desert and find an amazing oasis. You come back to town and you tell everyone “I found this amazing oasis, you should come see it, it’s amazing. It’s only a five hour hike through the desert”.

No one wants to come see the oasis you found, no matter how cool. So you have to build a road to that oasis, which can take literally years and a lot of hard work and ingenuity to build a road in the desert. When you finish however people will finally play in the oasis.

That’s the second prong of game design. Building the road. For Incredipede designing the road and writing the core of the game took about a year,the second year was pretty much all polish. It is kind of frustrating that people won’t hike out to the oasis, we’d have a lot more great games if they did.

Me: It must be difficult as you may have the greatest game concept in the world but it may only appeal to a very narrow niche.

Colin: I am in such a state of bliss about the indie game market right now. I am so far away from being frustrated, I can’t believe how much it’s grown in just the last four years. SpaceChem is my favourite example of this.

I love SpaceChem, I am one of the 2% who have beaten it. I tried to get all my friends to play it, I even offered a cash bounty for beating it but I think only one person I showed it to actually bought it. It is great but so hard to play, though it made enough money that Zach is paying a small team to work on his next game. If a game as hard to play as SpaceChem can be successful then it’s a wonderful world we are living in!

Me: How do you feel the indie community differs from the community revolving around the AAA titles.

Colin: I think a big part of the indie community being so good is that we don’t view each other as competitors like the AAA guys do. What’s good for SpaceChem or Spelunky or Minecraft is good for Incredipede. We don’t fight over the existing players, we’re all fighting to bring more people in.

Check back to The Indie Game Magazine next Monday at 5pm for the conclusion of the interview with Colin Northway. We just had so much fun talking there was way too much to just put into one article so I decided to split it up instead. Don’t worry the second half is just as good as the first as I explore Colin’s obsession with Spelunky.

Northway Games site can be found here. Incredipede can be pre-ordered from the official site here.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – IGM Exclusive Interview With Colin Northway Part 1

Antipodes are places directly opposite from one another on the globe, for example: the North Pole and the South Pole. The game Antipodes, developed by Lorena Casanova, involves digging from one side of the planet, to the other. Antipodes features dig-em-up gameplay and traditional side-scrolling mechanics with an emphasis on vertical descent.

As the player progresses down through Earth’s core, they are faced with either a mini-boss or a puzzle that break apart the layers into distinct levels. One of the earliest levels ends with the player dropped into a cavern with a giant spider, armed only with a burning torch. My spider-sense is tingling thinking about that one.

Recently I interviewed Lorena and talked with her about Antipodes, which is her first game.

You can pick up Antipodes for free on Desura, here. Antipodes is pay-what-you-want, but the recommended price is $3.99.

Interview 

IGM: Hey Lorena. So what factored into your decision to work solo, on Antipodes?
Lorena: I’ve been working with other developers before, and their support has been what actually made me step out of the shadows and give my own delusions a try

IGM: What was the most difficult aspect of developing the game on your own?
Lorena: Definitely, the art. The animation and the graphic aspects of the game have been a nightmare for me. However, my bad art makes me laugh so much that I end up emotionally involved with it and I have to struggle to give it up and work on something actually releasable

IGM: When you first started development, was the concept of Antipodes any different from what the final product turned out to be?
Lorena: The concept of Antipodes was very simple and it hasn’t changed at all, but the gameplay improved since the original idea was just a game about digging the right way to get to the other side of the globe.
Then later I decided to add some “mini-games” so it became more dynamic, making the player wonder what will be next.

IGM: Where can people buy Antipodes?
Lorena: You can download it or buy it from Desura (http://www.desura.com/games/antipodes) or Indievania (http://www.indievania.com/games/antipodes).

IGM: Why did you decide to release the game free, with the option to pay on the side?
Lorena: Unfortunately you need many hours to get a game done, and lots of hard work, but I want everyone to be able to support my hard work by having the chance to check it first.

IGM: Any plans for future titles?
Lorena: Yes! But at the moment that’s locked in a dark dungeon guarded by a dragon until I find another funny way to make people have a good time figuring [my game] out.

IGM: Would you want to work alone again, or on a team?
Lorena: I’m a sort of nomad traveling around from one country to the other, moving all the time, so I guess developing alone suits my lifestyle better, although I did get cooperation offers, and I would be pleased to make room for some of them, because they look very attractive.

IGM: Any advice for first-time developers, about to start working on their first game?
Lorena: Entertain your visions, start as many creations as you feel inspired to start, follow your artistic passions… But, hey, finish something.

IGM: Thanks so much Lorena!
Lorena: Thank you!

Follow Lorena on Twitter: @MissScripter and check out Antipodes on Desura, here.

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Digging-Based Vertical Platformer ‘Antipodes’ Developer Interview

This month, I made the trek over the DelMemBr (that’s the Delaware Memorial Bridge for those unfamiliar with the area) to New Jersey to hang out with indie developers, Island Officials.  After parking in quaint and historic Woodbury, I opened the door to Tiki Tiki Games, the board game retail store that makes up the front of Island Officials’ office.   After touring the offices filled with gaming swag, action figures, analog games, and more, I knew that this game developer story was going to be different.  Most of the indie games that we focus on are made for the computer by a small team of developers who work together virtually.  Their games are made for low-barrier of entry platforms like Windows PC, Mac, Android or the iPhone.  Island Officials has a very different story than most game developers.  Their first retail game was for Nintendo DS, they’ve funded two analog card game via Kickstarter, and they still have yet to put out a game for the computer.  After eating some pizza and playing a round of Languini, I sat down and interviewed Ryan Harbinson and Ryan Morrison, two of the executive team members of Island Officials.

[This Content is Exclusive for Insider]

Source: The Indie Game Magazine – Island Officials – A Different Indie Developer Story