James Silva grew up thinking about video games in a way that a lot of people do. How to break into the industry? Draw some Mega Man level maps and ship them off to Capcom and BLAM you’re in. Although this wasn’t the case, he’s made a journey from hobbyist to successful indie developer over the past ten years and you haven’ seen the last of him or Ska Studios yet.

After learning early programming tools like HyperCard and GW-Basic back in the day, he had his first success by getting one of his first games onto a PC Gamer demo CD back in 2001. The game was Zombie Smashers X, which he readily admits is a straight up River City Ransom clone. From there he kept putting together games on his own, but finally had to settle into a desk job. But after only two months of desk-jockeying, Microsoft offered him a contract to put together The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai. Silva says the game has sold “well enough” to do a sequel, and spent its first two weeks of release in the number one XBLA spot, but he can’t go into the specifics of numbers.

Before The Dishwasher launched, he began preliminary work on Charlie Murder, which follows a punk band battling to save the front man’s girlfriend from rival bands. It was going to wind up on Xbox Live Indie Games, but Microsoft ended up picking up the game for XBLA in 2012.

But the current focus is on The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile. A redesigned sequel to last year’s hit gore-fest. Silva was quick to admit that he was a poor programmer when he made The Dishwasher, and after working more with other programming languages, he’s really improved his technique. With these skill upgrades, he rebuilt the engine for the sequel, created new graphics and overall wants the sequel to be the best experience it can possibly be. The game’s modus operandi is “press buttons, do awesome.” Meaning, that while one can button mash their way through the game, they’ll be able to successfully pull off cool moves regardless. The game is “still pretty hard,” but he worked hard to give it a better difficulty ramp. You’ll be able to pull of combos more easily and to get a sense of the full game take a look at our PAX Preview.

And on top of all this, James also threw together a little game you may have heard of called I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1NIT!!!1. It just broke 310,000 in sales with its titular song jumping into the downloadable Rock Band Network recently. While it’s only sold around 1,000 copies, its success is undeniable. If you were to place a time period on how long it took James to make the game, what would you guess? Silva programmed the game in two weeks as a backlash to all the ludicrous games out there that showcase zombies. Not only that, it was only the second occasion he’d programmed anything using XNA as The Dishwasher was built using C Sharp. “I thought no one would play it,” he said. He also thought that it wouldn’t pass peer review for spelling issues alone. These thoughts were quickly squashed under the weight of its simplistic, solid gameplay and now famous soundtrack.

James admitted he’s working on another unannounced project, and that would be the third title we’re going to see in Ska Studios’ upcoming lineup. That’s a big to do list for a single developer, but if the past speaks to anything, it’ll be exciting to see what turns up. It’s safe to assume it’ll hit some branch of XBL as Silva is currently “all about XNA.”

Will he ever expand Ska Studios and begin working with other developers? “If the opportunity presents himself,” he says. But at the same time he can “see it all breaking down.” And that’s where things get difficult when working with a team. There are times where layoffs will hit and people will have to be let go, so for the time being he’s happy working alone. But then again, Ska Studios has expanded its work force by 100% as he’s recently brought on Dustin Burg, a new addition that’s handling marketing exclusively. And with two successful games on the Xbox Live Marketplace and at least three in the pipeline, Silva’s doing something right. And with Dustin’s help the only difference will be the fact that more people are going to hear about it.

At this point in time you’ve probably heard of the multiplayer airplane shooter Altitude. Nimbly Games released the title in May of 2009 and it was later picked up by Steam that December. While it originally fell under a lot of radars before the digital distributor behemoth picked it up, Apple actually helped the title by pushing it’s availability on Mac as well. But it really took off once hitting Steam almost a year ago.

Based in New Mexico, Nimbly Games is made up of the duo of childhood friends Erik Weather and Karl Sabo. Erik took a pretty standard route into game design by studying physics in school and moving into a software job, but Karl came from a job with Lockheed Martin before jumping into the development of Altitude. But they’re both coders so it’s not that much of a stretch, and that Lockheed Martin connection makes sense turning into an airplane game.

Altitude is the product of around a year and a half of development, which means they began creating the title around three years ago. Karl and Erik were prototyping the game in their spare time while they still worked other jobs, but were able to jump into independence and bring the title to life after realizing they had something great on their hands.

The community has only risen since the game launched, with a core group jumping in at the beta and a few key people spearheading the growing community of addicts. And if there’s anything that can kill a multiplayer indie game, it’s lack of community. But Altitude has hung on strong. And Erik states that the key to the game’s success has been the ability to “get eyeballs” on the game. Steam’s enormous numbers do just that. This PAX weekend the game went up for a free weekend promotion, and the numbers jump exponentially with people just wanting to see what the game is all about. And when it’s then available for 50% off its usual rate, the game does a decent turnover rate. Because after all, fun is fun and all game players realize that.

Here we are sixteen months after the game was unleashed on the world. Erik and Karl have unleashed over fifty patches on the game and do their best to handle the “juggling act of community feedback.” Because for any change they make to the game, there’s “lots of cross-talk.” For every person that loves it, there are people who hate it, and then there’s the small insane-contingent that will always try to get the developers to do something crazy to benefit just themselves. So it’s up to the developers to decide which feedback to take and which is going to take it down the wrong path.

They’ve considered porting the game to other platforms, but there are a lot of upfront costs that the developers don’t want to deal with. And with the success its found online and with user-genereated content, other platforms don’t necessarily make as much sense.

But Altitude is doing okay, as Nimbly have been able to pay the rent and have made enough money to bank roll their next project. While they haven’t announced their next project just yet, they’ve been busy exploring games to create next and making sure Altitude is still the best experience it can be. They want to do more with a heavy-multiplayer focus, but have also considered trying to do some kind of single-player game using the Altitude engine. Perhaps a 2D side-scrolling action game. But these were just ideas off the top of his head that Erik threw out to us. But we’re looking forward to what they have to offer next. But as Karl pointed out during Nimbly’s appearance in the PAX 10 panel discussion, Erik’s ranked somewhere in the top 200 of American Starcraft II players, which may lengthen the development time of their next title. Even indies need diversions.

Regardless of how long their next game takes or what it’s going to be, Nimbly Games deserve your “eyeballs” on what they’re up to. You can read more about them at their official website and snag yourself a copy of Altitude from Nimbly or Steam.

If you’ve ever ventured into the Xbox Live Indie Games channel, chances are you’ve seen one of their games. I am, of course, speaking about Silver Dollar Games, the largest XBLIG developer to date. With games ranging from Head Shot to So Many Girls, So Little Time and everything in between not only are they the largest XLIG developer, but they’re also the most diverse.

I was lucky enough to be able to ask co-founder David Flook ten quick questions about his company, their games, and what the future holds for both Silver Dollar Games and the Xbox Live Indie Games channel. Enjoy!

DIYgamer.com: How did Silver Dollar Games start? What was the original reason for creating the company?

David Flook: Silver Dollar Games was formed between my brother and I for the sole purpose of designing interesting and attention grabbing games for Xbox LIVE Indie Games.

DIY: At what point, if at all, did you decide to develop primarily for the Xbox Live Indie Games channel?

David: Immediately. That was the purpose of the company.

DIY: As a developer you’ve released more than 30 games to the Xbox Live Indie Games channel. Are you planning on slowing down anytime soon, or will the games keep on flowing?

David: The games will keep on flowing. [However] the quality of our games has been steadily increasing and therefore taking more time to create.

DIY: Are you targeting/developing for any other platforms? Could we see PC/Flash ports of some of your more popular games in the future?

David: We are not targeting any other platforms at this time. Currently we need to take advantage of the established Indie Games network on the Xbox 360.

DIY: Your games seem to feature an eclectic mix of genres, how do you go from developing a title like Head Shot and Ranger to a game like Cassie’s Corner?

David: Games come from different areas of our personality. Just like going to see a movie, sometimes we want drama, horror, or comedy.

DIY: And… who is Cassie?

David: If I told you, she would have to kill me.

DIY: Many of the games you’ve developed are attributed to developers of other names such as: North West, Silver Dollar Games 2, North Squard (sic), etc. Why is this? Are these actual independent developers (with you acting as more of a publisher) or are you simply using different names for different genres? If so, why?

David: Microsoft only allows us to release 8 games per XNA Creator’s Club account. Before Silver Dollar Games was official, we simply used “random” account names. Now we’ve established the “Silver Dollar Games #” standard. All the games are developed by us.

DIY: Many of your games vary in quality and user rating. Can you explain why games such as Blow, Ranger, and Headshot 2 seem to be more polished than some of your other, less well received titles?

David: Games sell based on their concept rather than their perceived quality. It’s up to us to judge whether a game’s concept can carry the extra development time and money. Many games we create have original concepts and therefore a greater risk in the marketplace.

DIY: You’ve been making games for Xbox Live Indie games for a while now. Would you say you’ve been a success for the channel? Have you turned a profit on many of the titles? Which is (or which are) the most profitable title you’ve created and about how many times has it (have they) been bought?

David: [Xbox Live] Indie Games is a beast, it’s a real tough nut to crack. Very few games see any real success. We’ve had a handful of hits and several more games considered profitable. “Try Not To Fart” is our most recent success. Successful games can sell copies in the tens of thousands.

DIY: Finally, given that you develop so much for the Xbox Live Indie Games channel, would you mind sharing with us your own personal outlook for Microsoft’s indie venture? What do you like about it, what you think could be improved upon, and where do you believe it’s heading in the future?

David: The Indie Games channel evolves very quickly. I have noticed a gradual incline in the quality and quantity of the games and I think that will continue. Further iterations of the XNA Game Studio we use to design the games will also help to shape the future.

You can check out more of Silver Dollar Games’ indie titles by visiting their website or following them on Twitter.

[Website/Twitter]

[Soenke Seidel, also known as Warby, and Friedrich Bode of Exit Strategy Entertainment dropped in this week to answer a gold pile of our questions regarding their upcoming title that caught our attention earlier this year, Pirates of New Horizons.

We were lucky enough to grab the first interview with the developer on the recently unveiled third person space pirates action adventure game that has us and much of the ModDB/IndieDB community abuzz with excitement.]

DIYGamer: Set the stage for us. Who are Exit Strategy Studios? Where are you based, and how many are working on Pirates of New Horizons?

Warby: We are 4 guys from all around the world …well Europe mostly: that would be Friedrich Bode from Germany who runs the business side of things (or will run that once it is a business,) Skjalg S. Maehre our lead-technical-software-engineer (is that a word?) who wrote the spectacular entity framework that i use to actually build the game content, Michael “Zacker” Schmidt from Denmark who helped me nail down the feel of the core mechanics over the last couple of weeks and me Soenke Seidel aka Warby, I make all of the actual game content.

We should probably give a shout out to 2 of our most valuable contributors too: Christian Wasser for the grappling hook feature and and Harry Mack for the swashbuckling soundtrack (no it’s not Dropkick Murphys although clearly inspired by it.)

DIYGamer: You have an interesting development schedule for PONH, first you plan on releasing a free prototype of the game (approx. 20 minutes/3-4 Levels) for PC, Mac and also playable in browser. How far away are we from getting our hands on that?

Warby: I have not yet given up hope that it could be by the end of August! There is only 1 more major task left that ill be done with this week but a million small things i want to change before releasing … so we will see how those turn out!

Friedrich: The last 10% of a game’s development often take up the longest time. There are all these “little things” that you had pushed aside before and that add up. Even if this is going to be a prototype, that is rough around the edges by definition, we want players to get a proper idea of what the final game would play like. If there are small, easy to complete tasks that significantly improve the way the game plays and feels we’ll try to get those done before releasing the prototype. We are doing a bit of user-testing with friends these days and there are some reoccurring topics that require little effort to fix. Still we would like to get this prototype out to an audience as big as possible, as soon as possible, so some things simply have to wait. End of August sounds optimistic, I would estimate end of September, but as Soenke said we have to see how fast we can get those final tasks done. Just be confident that it is rather a matter of weeks or months than years!

DIYGamer: You’ve also detailed that the response you receive from the prototype will determine whether a full version of the game will be worthwhile time and money wise to develop–mentioning that it would then be potentially shopped to consoles via digital distribution (XBLA, PSN, WiiWare.) Pretend I’m a big bad exec representing Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo, pitch to me why you believe the full version would be a great fit for my console download service.

Warby: Uhh I am gonna leave this to Frie I don’t like talking to business people I am all development. ^^ That said its my deepest conviction that: a good product pitches itself! So my dream pitch would work kinda like this: I enter a room, pop in the game, turn up the volume, hand the gamepad to one of those execs,walk over to the wall and lean against it with a smug grin on my face (all this without saying a word.)

Friedrich: The game is a great fit for online delivery services like XBLA, PSN or WiiWare because you can pick it up and get playing so quickly. There is no steep learning curve, the controls are very intuitive, in fact they are designed with a controller in mind. You need to know which button to press to move the character, which button to jump and which one to make the sword swing and you are good to go!

Everybody knows and loves pirates, but have you played a pirate “girl” before? A pirate girl on her flying ship venturing through a universe filled with aliens and robots to be specific? I think that’s what makes the game’s universe so interesting: there are enough familar elements to easily find your way around but also enough strange and mind-boggling stuff to draw you in and explore. Add to that there are not enough 3D Jump’n Run games out there nowadays. PONH mixes this with elements from popular games like Zelda and God of War, beautifully drawn visuals and content for all ages. Our plans for length and pricing of the game would make this a good fit for digital distribution too. Plus we are indie developers who invest a lot of our time, otherwise spent watching Starcraft II replays and debating interactive media as an art form, so we are really dependent on this kind of money…please?!

DIYGamer: Sold! Alright, let’s get into the game’s guts a bit. From what we saw in the announcement trailer, the title seems to offer a variety of different core mechanics. What can players expect with the free release gameplay wise? Would the full version mean a lot more of what’s in the prototype, or would it potentiality bring some new mechanics in as well?

Warby: We have a huge backlog with ideas for mechanics that didn’t make it for the prototype do to time constraints …and well let’s just say experience ^^ for the full game I’d definitely love to resurrect some stuff out of that spoils-bag of ours! As far as the mechanics in the prototype are concerned you can expect alot of puzzles platforming combat and grappling hook action and also some slight adventure/quest-ish stuff! This may drift a little into technical territory but our extended player controller/scripts allow players to swim in water, slide down from too steep surfaces and be passively moved by elevators and other moving platforms. This may not seem like a big deal, if you are a 3D jump and run player all those things are pretty standard, but Unity’s out of the box player controller does not come with these features so we are very proud to have successfully added them and we will release this for free to the Unity community after the prototype is out! Promise!

DIYGamer: While the game certainly has its own charm, one of the reasons it grabbed my attention was that both the look and feel of it immediately conjured memories of good times with several classic titles and series. Sonic and Zelda jumped to mind for me, and looking through the game’s comment section, Super Mario Galaxy, Kingdom Hearts, One Piece, Jak and Daxter, Psychonauts and Windwaker all have been mentioned. That’s a nice list of names to be compared to at this stage, but what media (video games or otherwise) have you guys actually drawn upon as influences for the title?

Warby: When I wrote the design doc, the first chapter was MUST KNOW TITLES and I embedded youtube links to a hand full of games that whoever wanted to work on the game must have intimate knowledge of. Let me see if I can find that for you …. *searches* … I doubt all of my mates know all of these games to be honest ^^:

• God of War (For its polish and just being the best game franchise EVER EVER!)
• Psychonauts (For its characters and humor … this is the game that sparked this project into being.)
• Monkey Island (For currently being the best pirate game…until we come along!)
• Cave story (For its “el mariachi of video games” holy shit i can’t believe one guy alone did this factor)
• Zelda: Windwaker (Art style and campaign structure)
• Jak and Daxter (For its seamless-ness and love for geometry)
• Portal (For its length and pacing)
• Jet Set Radio Future (The connection here might seem a bit nebulous because the features that linked the games got cut)

I’m also gonna take this opportunity and deny some influences:

• One Piece ( i had never heard of this until people started comparing PONH to it )
• Super Mario Galaxy (Although an excellent jump and run game i am going for something completely different!)
• Sonic (Not a big sonic fan especially not the 3d ones. That the sliding and picking up of coins has a sonic feel is pure coincidence.)
• Kingdom Hearts (I have no idea what this is. I have seen tons of promotional artwork over the years but i couldn’t even tell you if this is a jrpg or a beat ‘em up)

Anyway, yeah being compared to high profile AAA titles feels quite warm and fuzzy. I hope people will still do that AFTER they played the prototype. =^.^=

DIYGamer: As mentioned, the main character is a rather beautiful female sky-pirate. May we have her name and a bit of backstory? Also, does she have a love interest?…and as a follow up to that question: Could it be me?

Warby: Her name is annha ( yes thats an “h” before the “a” think of it as a fantasy name,) her back story is what the prototype is about so i am not gonna spoil that here. The only thing she loves is gold ! And no 4th wall breaking in my game this is not Charlie Kaufman’s adaptation!

DIYGamer: I’m heartbroken, but I’ll keep it professional…let’s continue. Any other games or projects in the works beside PONH at Exit Strategy you can let us in on?

Warby: Should this prototype not yield the interest in the project that we are currently hoping for, I have 2 or 3 different ideas for game prototypes that I am DYING to build but I am not gonna spoil what those are here yet. Also it’s not strictly an Exit Strategy release but Christian ”grapplinghookaction” Wasser and I did a little Facebook game during one weekend just to gauge if there is advertisement money in it.

DIYGamer: Anything else you’d like readers to know?

Warby: Thanks for the overwhelmingly positive feedback so far! I am always cautious not to get too hyped over a game pre release (I get burned quite often when i get too hyped for a game) so keep your expectations low for the prototype…so that we can then totally blow your minds!!!!!!

Friedrich: Thanks a lot for giving us the opportunity to get the word out about our game! Everyone who would like to keep up with our progress or would like to ask us directly is more than welcome to visit our website www.piratesofnewhorizons.com!

Lazy 8 Studios hit the ground running last April with the launch of their clever puzzle title Cogs. Featuring steampunk visuals and increasingly difficult challenges, the puzzle title did quite well on Steam and later would wind up as a finalist in the “Excellence in Design” category at the Independent Games Festival and in contention for the Indie Game Challenge $100,000 prize.

While Monaco ran away with the Independent Games Festival honors, Cogs returned home with the $100,000 prize for edging out its competitors at the Indie Game Challenge. Along with around $80,000 in sales on Steam, one could peg Cogs as a financially successful debut into the indie game world.

Rob Jagnow, Lazy 8′s founder, and I grabbed dinner in San Francisco recently to talk about the game’s success and what’s next for him and his cohorts.

Rob graduated from M.I.T. With a PhD in Computer Science and Photo-realistic Graphics, just before the inception of the GAMBIT Games Lab. Taking his knowledge with him, he spent a year traveling the world before landing in San Francisco with his partner where he first decided to start Lazy 8 Studios.

He conceived the idea of Cogs back in 2003, so between concept to completion, the development time for Cogs was around five years. But it wasn’t until he met artist Brendan Mauro that the stark visual design of the title you know today would come to be.

“[Brendan] is great to work with, he gets the technical side of things,” states Rob. He’d worked with artists in the past who didn’t understand both sides of the coin, and having an artist who was happy to work for next to nothing who did “get it” made the project progress much more smoothly. He’s keen to work with Brendan in any capacity possible going into the future.

Cogs was able to make the jump from its PC home onto the iPhone late last year and ended up as a launch title for the iPad where it now stands as a featured title. I had the opportunity to take Cogs for a spin on Apple’s new tablet, and it’s fascinating to see just how the game’s design works with tracing your fingers over the playing field and rotating the puzzle with a sweep of two fingers. It all feels very natural and even with my limited experience of the iPad game library, I’d say any iPad owner should get a copy.

But these weren’t always the platforms Lazy 8 had aimed for. When they submitted Cogs to Microsoft to gain approval for Xbox Live Arcade, they claimed the game was too casual. So when they changed directions and took it to Big Fish for PC distribution, they claimed it was too hardcore. So after consideration of who the audience was, they took it to Steam where it did quite well.

While Steam took 30% of the gross profits, in a year Cogs has made a gross of $79,000 and a net profit of $55,000. “The interesting thing is that it made $21,000 on a single day, though,” Rob clarified. The title went on sale for $2 last Christmas Day and the general populace snapped it up in droves.

The game has been released for over a year now on PC and Lazy 8 had to make a decision about how to handle the roll out. They could have either released it and never spoken of it again, or taken the route that Rob decided on. This route involved a year of upkeep on the game, making sure review sites were getting keys to the game, keeping the title mentioned in the news, and generally providing great support to the title. But the downside to such a course of action is that they haven’t been able to move on to their next game in thirteen months.

But because of the prize and sale money, Rob was able to compensate his contractors for their hard work on the game, and he himself has been contracted to design puzzles for an undisclosed company. These positive moves in the company’s financial department have allowed Rob to enter development on a new game…and it might not be what you’d expect.

Their goal is to “bring high fidelity content to a casual audience.” So what this all means is that Lazy 8 Studios is turning to Facebook, an arena dominated by the casual gaming powerhouses. “Zynga [operates by] hijacking flaws in the human psyche, [whereas we want to make] good content that is not purely addictive.”

So without giving away the entire concept of what they’re doing in front of a marketplace rife with copycats and stolen ideas, I can give just a tiny, teasing quote. They’re aiming to make a Facebook game with “more sophisticated visuals.” It just started coding last week, and they’re not entirely ready to disclose too much.

Any move away from the current market-dominating titles is a good move in my eyes, so I’m curious to hear what else Lazy 8 reveals as their development furthers.

We’re also giving away ten copies of Cogs alongside this piece. To enter to win, just drop a quick note in the forum thread saying something to the effect of “enter!” We’ll accept entries until 12pm PST on Friday, June 11th.

When hitting the web for free gaming, players generally accept that for the most part they’ll be pulling from a large library of bite-sized, casual titles; rarely does anyone expect to come across a flash game to grab them by the collar and really evoke an emotional response on some level. Twofold Secret is out to change that, with their goal to break the stereotype of the ‘play fast and forget’ style tied to the browser genre.

Recently, I had a chance to chat with TFS founders Chris Klimas and Joel Haddock about their work developing deep and engaging flash titles including the mysterious island adventure game Where We Remain, and their upcoming project Sanctuary (pictured).

DIYGamer: Indie studios come in all shapes in sizes, so first, tell us a bit about yourselves. You guys got day jobs? How many hours do you put in a week for development?

Chris Klimas: We both live in the Baltimore area — I have a day job as a Web developer. As for hours per week, I’d guess between five and ten? It’s tough to quantify because this is still very much a spare-time venture for us, so it depends on what is going on in our lives week to week.

Joel Haddock: By day I do Web Marketing/Content Management for a publishing company. The development hours are pretty flexible from week to week, but I’d say five to ten is a good estimate.

DIY: Chris you mentioned previously you had a bit of a development background before Where We Remain, what kind of games and projects were you working on prior to forming Twofold Secret? And, how did the dynamic duo come together?

Chris: I first got into games by creating a few text adventures. I enjoyed that a lot, but I was pretty terrible at designing puzzles, which are arguably essential to that genre, so eventually I drifted away from that. From there I tried writing hypertext — subtracting the puzzles from interactive fiction and focusing on just the writing. And that was a lot of fun, too, but I got burned out on it after a point. I just ran out of ideas that could take advantage of the medium.

There has been a long gap between when I was thinking about interactive fiction and when I started working on our current games, but more and more I’ve noticed how IF has influenced my design sensibilities. Well, first of all, I lean pretty heavily towards text when I’m trying to give a world depth, but it also relates to interaction design. The best IF gives the player a wide variety of possible actions and provides good responses to nearly anything a player will try — if only to tell him why what he wants to do isn’t allowed. So I certainly see that level of depth as a goal.

Joel: I’ve been fascinated by game design since I was in middle school, and I’ve been tinkering with it ever since. I am, to put it politely, a crap programmer, so most of my projects were usually with tools created by others; things like RPG Maker or GameMaker. Now, I know people can do amazing things with those tools, but I was using them at their simplest, “novice” programmer level, so I never was really able to get my designs to the full potential I envisioned. To give myself a little richer outlet, I’ve done a lot of board game design work, and spent a lot of time developing my own pen-and-paper RPG system.

I very much enjoy creating systems and mechanics for players to explore, and finding ways to harmonize those with narrative in ways that feel appropriate. I find that games with elegant mechanics meshed with wonderful stories are the games I enjoy the most, so that’s something I strive for.

Chris and I started designing games together back in college, actually, though our ideas far outstripped our abilities at the time. We had a lot of projects on paper, but not much to show for it when it was all said and done. After college, we kept bouncing around ideas now and again together, even as we each worked on separate projects. Once Chris became familiar with Flixel, we decided to scale down our goals and work on really seeing a project through to completion, and thus WWR came to be.

DIY: You certainly don’t come across free flash games with the depth Where We Remain has all the time, randomized cave entrances, multiple endings, plenty of storyline revealed in the dropped letters. I guess my question is what’s the motivation to make such deep games with high replay value for an area of the industry that’s mostly popular for its casual and bite sized products?

Chris: Thanks! Two things come to mind. First, the motto on Anna Anthropy’s blog: “We must make the games we wish to play in the world.” I want to have a longer relationship with a game than a few minutes. Ironically, though, by the time Where We Remain was ready for release, I was pretty sick of it from constantly playtesting each revision.

The other part of it is, I’d like to think there are the seeds of a backlash against superdisposable content on the Web. I was really excited, for example, to see longform.org launched recently. So I’d like to help that along if I can.

Joel: To echo Chris: we want to make the kinds of games we would enjoy. Short, bite-sized games can be a momentary diversion, but I’d much rather play something with some meat on the bones.

DIY: The goal of the game is fairly easy to grasp after a run through, but the relationship it revolves around is anything but simple. Letters of encouragement from your supposed love, mixed with your own poetry to her, mixed with other more alarming notes that piece together earlier struggles–even certain items that give the player a sharper perspective (glasses = the truth?). I almost want to ask if there were any girl troubles during the conception of the story…

Has the relationship portion itself produced any unexpected responses from players?–especially considering there seems to be no perfect ending.

Chris: Ha! — I can say for the record that there were no girl problems going on during the game’s conception. I wanted the protagonist’s messages to come off as lovesick, even cloyingly so. I wanted people to think at least a little that he was an idiot — sort of that experience where you discover an old love letter from when you had a high school crush on someone, when everything seemed like it was the end of the world, and you cringe.

What threw me off was that some people felt the game was misogynistic. We ended up tackling the question on our blog, and certainly I see their point of view. But, all the same, it’s pretty horrifying to feel like something you created espouses a viewpoint like that.

Joel: I was also a little taken aback by the misogyny angle, but in retrospect I could see where some people were coming from. Every player is going to bring something different with them when they sit down to play a game, but you can’t let that prevent you from trying to tell the story you want to tell.

DIY: Regardless of whether they played through once or several times, was there any particular thing you wanted the player to take away from the game?

Chris: Hmm. That’s a tough one. I think one of the key parts of the game is the question of identity. Obviously there are a ton of games out there where the protagonist lost his memory before the game starts, and he turns out to be a hero. And there are also a ton of games (but maybe fewer than the first category?) where he lost his memory, turns out to be a villain, and then gets to choose whether to redeem himself. But, I’d like to think there are not very many where the player has to decide whether the protagonist was a hero, a villain, or neither based on sketchy evidence — and what the “good” thing to do is, going forward. Or, I don’t know, if the “bad” thing is more appropriate either to the story or the character.

A friend of mind said to me while we were beta-testing, about one of the tablets she found: “Is this about me? Because if so, I’m a JERK.” I think that’s the most succinct way to put it.

Joel: I really wanted people to just freak the hell out when Notus or Boreas first showed up. I’d like to think we achieved that.

DIY: So you guys are entering beta on a new game which looks to be quite a bit different from WWR. From the screenshots you’ve passed along it appears to be a puzzle shooter of some sort, let’s get some details! What’s it all about? Does it happen to have a title, and when can we expect a release?

Joel: Our current project, which is in beta right now with our incredibly helpful playtesters is called “Sanctuary,” and it started as an homage to one of my favorite childhood games, but at this point I think has grown into something much more. It’s a little more arcade-oriented than WWR, with a lot of cat-and-mouse action with mankind’s oldest nemesis, robots. Still, like WWR, we’ve tried to create a deeper story for the player to discover, and some richer gameplay experiences that they can keep coming back to. We’re hoping to release within the next few weeks, and we certainly hope people will enjoy it!

DIY: Is there any other projects or games that are in the works that you guys can or want to mention?

Joel: We’ve already begun some groundwork for our next project, but we’d like to get Sanctuary out the door before we let ourselves get too distracted!

Chris: One of the best parts of working with Joel, actually, has been that there’s never been a sense of “Well, what next?” We’ve been sharing a Google doc of game ideas that we want to eventually pursue, and it’s become rather gargantuan.

DIY: Sounds great! Can’t wait to check out Sanctuary in the coming weeks and look forward to seeing what you guys offer up in the future!

You can play Where We Remain now for free via Twofold Secret’s website.

A Day in the Life isn’t quite an interview and isn’t quite a preview – it’s more of a story. It’s a day spent with a developer or studio without any outside structuring from our site. It’s like a job shadow for a job we’re not capable of doing. But at its heart, it’s an intimate look at the inner workings of a developer and whatever may arise during a day in their life.

I recently had the opportunity to head down to San Diego and spend a day with recent IGF winner Andy Schatz. His upcoming game Monaco won awards for both Excellence in Design and the Seamus McNally Grand Prize. As with the spirit of the piece, I drove to meet him with only a time and address, no real schedule or planning. I didn’t know if I’d be looking over his shoulder coding all day or if we’d be hawking copies of his older title Venture Africa to the tourists at the San Diego Wild Animal Park.

Andy lives with his fiance Tierney up near the University Heights section of San Diego, with a beautiful view of a lush green ravine from over the top of his dual-monitor work station. As I arrived I was pounced on by an overly friendly cat, whose name is an ever-changing title and has never quite landed on a single one with much regularity. I figured it was appropriate for a developer, with their work being in a near-constant state of change.

His wedding was a mere month away, so I was lucky to fit into the calm before the storm to talk with him. He pulled some strong cups of coffee for us from a new French press, an early wedding gift, then we sat down to talk.

BACKGROUND

Andy’s a San Diego native, having jumped to the East Coast to attend Amherst College for a degree in computer science and fine art before returning to the West. The walls of his apartment echo this, with framed pieces of his own artwork peppering the walls. Presto Studios hired him as a level-design intern for an old Star Trek game during his time at Amherst, and after graduating he jumped into an actual position working with them on online and AI programming. From there, he worked with TKO Studios who were contracted by Electronic Arts to do some work on Medal of Honor and Goldeneye: Rogue Agent.

It was around starting work for TKO Studios that Andy first developed the idea for Monaco. So while it sounded like a lightning strike of an idea a few weeks before the IGF submission deadline, that wasn’t the case. He drafted up an entire Game Design Document for the title and even included it in his contract with TKO so that if he could get them to develop it, he wouldn’t get screwed over. I caught a glimpse of the document which shared a lot of ideas with the game he’s developing currently. At the time he had compared it to Pacman and Hitman, and it head more of a massively multiplayer element in which each player had their own mansion which served as a lobby to recruit more players and go out on heists. Since Monaco didn’t release eight years ago, you can guess that the concept didn’t quite fly at the time.

When Andy aimed to return to school to get a Masters in business, things didn’t quite go as he planned. The rejection letters rolled in and he found himself in a different kind of position. Using the wait time between applications and rejections, he was able to create Venture Africa, which he released to sales of around 100,000 copies.

His animal games focused on ecosystems. He wanted to bring a Sim City formula to a small number of animals, so that players would be able to affect the game world in a manner akin to the real environments. As mentioned, Venture Africa sold pretty well for a game he created entirely himself, so he was able to bring on some hired help to complete Venture Arctic. The second game in the Venture brand didn’t sell as well as the original, so when it came time to start developing the third game in the series, things were getting even tougher.

Andy took a break after Venture Arctic to do some contract work for an online “green” gaming portal called green.com (no longer in existence). While it fit his beliefs of environmental protection, it just didn’t come together as a success.

He moved on to the third title in the Venture world which was called Venture Dinosauria. This proved to be the toughest project he’d undertaken and he found himself tearing it down and reinventing things to the point where it never quite settled on, well, anything. So he found himself taking breaks from the project to work on other endeavors.

In these breaks, he turned to another medium of gaming he quite enjoyed – board and card games. He pulled out a prototype for the Venture Africa board game and began setting up the board. He explained an intricate series of rules involving migration routes, movement amidst mountains, water and plains and showed off the prototype playing pieces that featured an array of animals from the African plains. He’d garnered some interest from a German board game publisher, but their biggest note was that his game left very little room for surprise. It’s a skill-based game, meaning that the underdog has very little chance to pull an upset victory over a better player. In the world of board games, this is a negative. The best-selling board games are the ones that have an outside chance of either side winning at any moment.

If there’s someone who knows how to use his idle time, it’s definitely Andy Schatz, because a Monaco card game also exists. The card game version of the caper game involves a series of draws from the type of character, to the loot stolen, and a “rat out your friends” style card which is similar to a get out of jail free. The game is played to gather the most loot cards, and deciding just how cooperative you want to be with the people you’re playing with. It’s almost the exact same idea as the current Monaco version in development, only with the physical aspect of the cards.

Later in the day I asked him about his favorite games, the ones that had the most effect on him. He had quite a few, but they were a balance of actual impact to the games he played for “sport.” Here’s a few from his list: Ultima 3 & 4, X-Com, Sim City, Fallout, M.U.L.E., and he “played the hell out of Command and Conquer and Doom 2.” But the latter fall more within the sport category, which did not have a deep impact on this developer. In his early years, gaming was a “bonding experience with dad.” I was surprised to hear he’d never played Sierra’s Ecoquest series, the educational games veiled as adventure titles that seem to fit somewhere near his own environmental philosophies.

When asked about where his passion for nature games came from, Andy told me, “My dad and I spent a lot of time camping and backpacking as a kid. Being in the wilderness connected me to the games we played as a kid, and so when I was outside, I could live those fantasy worlds from Ultima and King’s Quest. To me, the animals are really a vehicle for imagining the wilderness. The animals are just representative of the wild for me.”

DAY TO DAY

As he’s a lone indie without an actual office to go into, Andy balances his time working in his home, his dining room and nearby coffee shops populated with curious eccentric people. He claims that despite the beautiful view, he actually spends the least amount of time in his office proper.

His actual work flow involves an extremely organized bug list, stored in the always helpful Google Docs, which allows him to jump from one job to another, depending on what interests him on any given day. While a lot of the day was a compression of his life for example’s sake, he was able to get some solid work done while we idled in a coffee shop to the light serenading of a trumpeter outside the window.

There’s a notebook of sketches Andy carries around, from which he showed me some new concept art he’s working on for the game. He’s looking at taking it into a graphic-novel-type area to really showcase the characters’ personalities and differences. From “The Rat” sketch which depicts a snitch, hands up in surrender and fingers crossed, to “The Locksmith,” which is the lumbering powerhouse that might pull you out of some tight situations in the game. From the simple graphics revealed at the Independent Games Festival, this is definitely a new direction for the game.

Andy asked at one point, “have you heard of local minima?” I hadn’t. It’s a theory of discovery, in which if you view a medium as a two-dimensional plane, it’s a series of peaks and valleys which depict different levels of discovery. In terms of gaming, if you consider the platformer, we’ve almost gotten to the bottom of its valley. Even Braid only gets a little deeper in the same formula, Andy points out. “We haven’t found the Marianas Trench of gaming,” he says with a smile. So for every indie game that feels completely “out there,” it’s really just a new peak that others will begin exploring downward. As each new peak is explored, it turns into a situation where we’re discovering the best of that type, not the best of all types. This leaves a lot of room for growth in the medium of gaming.

On a note on creation in general Andy stated, “Innovation is cut by numbers. When you have two people, you have half the innovation.” It seems like the right sentiment for someone working alone, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t worth noting.

Halfway through the day, we headed out for lunch and met up with another indie developer, Matt Shores from Empty Clip Studios. This is an element of the indie world that truly showcases how approachable it is. Where else can two people who are technically competitors get together to air their grievances, talk shop, gossip and help solve each other’s problems? Matt’s currently working on a game called Symphony that Empty Clip announced last fall. It’s a space shoot-’em-up that uses your own music library to generate the levels and enemies. The real kicker is that it encourages you to explore a wide range of music, in such that you might discover a new type of weapon from an obscure track. As an example, he suggested snagging your sister’s Beyonce track. All in all, it’s fantastic to see two guys who had paid their dues in the AAA industry (Matt has worked with LucasArts, Stormfront and Electronic Arts among other companies) now working on projects they feel truly passionate about.

THE GAME

While his past speaks volumes to where he is today, Andy’s main focus these days is working on Monaco. I previewed the game back at IGF, but he’s added a lot to it and still has plans for many more changes before he takes the game out to show again. He won’t be at E3, but he’s planning the next big showcase to be at PAX this September.

The biggest change to Monaco that I was able to witness was the implementation of vector-based lighting. Rather than using the negative space to cover up what you can’t see, Andy’s added a system of lighting that shows off the positive space and only shows what you can see. So as your character moves around the game world, you’re able to see jagged sight lines where walls and columns are blocking your path. The negative space created by this new graphic system gives the world almost a three-dimensional feel, where the shadowed posts seem to reach out of the monitor toward you. He was working on adding a blur effect to the jagged lines to make it more realistic, so I couldn’t snag any new screens to show you…just yet.

Also he’s trying to decide how to implement a blueprint system to each level. Currently, the areas you can’t see are just darkly shaded, but you can still see the basic layout. He’s considering dropping that visibility to zero, so that you have to enter into each level looking for a blueprint before you’re able to see a bit more about your location. The same effect may be acquired by hacking into a computer.

Other new additions are that of dogs. While the art wasn’t complete, he showed off a test level in which the character could both hide in an air duct, and rush around trying to avoid a dog that chases him by scent, rather than site. So you have to escape pretty far from a dog before it’s unable to chase you anymore.

There is also now a disguise system that makes you invisible from guards. The on-screen character dawns a suit and tie in order to blend in. This change doesn’t dissuade dogs from trying to chew your leg off, though.

While he’d mentioned a few on his Twitter and Facebook pages, this was my first introduction to the four characters not shown off at IGF. He’s simplified each class down to two skills, one active and one passive. The new characters I saw were:

The Redhead – This sultry go-getter has the ability to seduce her way through the guards in a mansion.

The Gentleman – This classy fellow has the ability to disguise himself at any time and can heal other players with a whiskey flask he carries.

The Rat – The main ability of this class is just as the title says, he can rat out his teammates so that guards will pursue them leaving himself unharmed.

Boom Boom – This non-subtle class carries C4, another new item to the game. With explosives, characters can create new entrances to previously inaccessible areas.

From what I saw in March to now, these additions bring great balance to the title. And with mid-level drop-in, drop-out co-op, the ease of multiplayer should be fantastic.

Andy’s currently adding a World Map to the game, which will flesh out the story side of the title. I was shown the final level of the game, which is an epic multi-level palace which to this layman looks impossible. Its design is tight and full to the brim of items, secret entrances and a final prize in the basement. The final game should ship with twenty to twenty-one levels when all is said and done. The game will also include a level editor so that players can build and share their own heist stories.

A frustration for Andy is the fact that there’s no surprise in playing through levels he’s built himself. He’d love to hire a level designer (if he could) so that he might get a fresh look at his creation.

On the story front, Andy’s been concocting a series of descriptive texts which feel poetic in tone that will help shape the arc of the story from inception to end. And as mentioned before he’s aiming for a graphic novel approach to the way its told in between levels.

He’s doing a solid job of keeping the Facebook Fan page updated, so between now and PAX, that will be the best source of new information outside of DIYGamer’s own musings on its progress.

THE FUTURE

So what’s next for Andy?

As gamers we’re hoping it’s all Monaco all the time, but in reality he has a wedding in his near future. I got the opportunity to meet his lovely fiance at the end of our day, so I wish them all the best.

On a hint of where things are headed, Andy told me he’s in talks with a well-known artist to bring a new look to the game. For me its logo and iconic block characters have been ingrained in my mind, so I’m quite curious to see who might be coming to the table as well as how they’re going to make things look. He’s also still in talks with a variety of platforms, so there’s no confirmation on which system the game will land on.

Special thanks to Andy and his fiance for letting me into their home to chat.

For more information on Monaco, you can visit its official website, the Facebook page or follow the game on Twitter.

MMOs seem to be a dime a dozen these days, with the mainstream market getting a new release every other week, be it AAA or Free to Play. But one indie developer has been chipping away at the same game for over seven years now. It’s Zack Johnson, the creator and continual head of Asymetric Publications and the long-standing indie MMO Kingdom of Loathing.

I got a chance to talk to Zack about his game recently, just to see where things are these days and what’s next.

DIYgamer: What’s the general outlook on Kingdom of Loathing these days?

Zack Johnson: We seem to find that any time we try to do any promotion or talk to anyone about it, people say “yeah, I played that five years ago,” and seem to be surprised that it’s still around, that we’re still doing what we’re doing.

Personally, I’ve been playing Kingdom of Loathing for five years. When I first got a desk job out of college, and the hours dragged and my soul shrank, a friend of mine sent me the link over email and suggested I sign up. Shortly thereafter I was born as a stick figure in the Kingdom of Loathing. For anyone new to the title, it’s relatively simple. You’re given a finite amount of turns each day, which can be augmented by eating foods or drinking booze, and once you’re stomach is full, or you drink beyond your alcohol threshold, you’re done for the day; though you can continue chatting it up with other cohorts in the game or gambling. The currency in the game world is literally meat, and a lot of enemies and items in the game are making fun of RPG and MMO tenets that haven’t changed in years. It’s all illustrated in simple sketches and in black and white.

DIYgamer: When did the game launch?

Zack Johnson: You know, I don’t remember. I feel I wasn’t keeping the announcements that early. Late January or early February of 2003. I thought of digging through all my old emails and reconstructing it. I have old backups from March and April of ’03, but it had been around a little while by then. Quarter one 2003…The fact we’ve been around longer than World of Warcraft surprises people sometimes.

DIY: On the same sort of spectrum of “yes you’re still around,” what would you peg as your biggest breakthroughs across the past seven years that have given some momentum to moving the game forward?

ZJ: It was bringing in just enough money to allow me to safely quit my day job after about eighteen months. One of the first things I did was implement Mr. Store. Because before that you just got the Mr. Accessory and that was it. And implementing Mr. Store spiked the revenue tenfold. That was basically the point that I hired everybody that I hired and it’s kind of remained stable since that point.

For anyone curious what Mr. Store is, it’s the arena where players can get a fancy new item of high value each month. To trade in Mr. Store, players need to acquire a Mr. Accessory. These accessories are gifts given when a player donates $10, but they can also be bought and traded in-game. So to get a new item each month, a player will either need to donate the money and trade in their Mr. Accessory, or be savvy enough with the economy or casino to purchase the item in-game and trade it for the monthly super item.

DIY: Weren’t you one of the first games to implement a kind of micro-transaction market like this?

ZJ: At the time I did it micro-transaction didn’t really mean that. I don’t know if its to our benefit or detriment, but I’ve continued to keep it as donations. The less we claim we’re actually selling someone something, the less legal issues we have to deal with. There’s a lot of weird stuff like that in China where people get a lot crazier about it. As an MMO we’re barely big enough to be on any kind of radar. There’s a secondary currency market, people sell meat for real money. It’s not against the rule, we don’t condone it and we’re not going to do anything if you get ripped off. We’re not going to dedicate a lot of resources to trying to put a stop to it. If we had someone whose full time job it was to stop that, it just wouldn’t be worth it. There are a number of people who gives us money out of the goodness of their hearts and want us to succeed, but I’d say ninety to ninety five percent are the ones who want the stuff in-game. When we’ve gone to any industry stuff, there’s a lot of people talking about doing free-to-play MMOs right now. It’s understood there are these rules you can’t break if you’re doing them. One of them is that you can’t have your micro transaction stuff in the same economy as your in-game stuff. The reason we’ve been successful by doing the opposite of that. It lends us a certain measure of credibility what we try to do with everything is that you can definitely play the game for free, you can see and do everything in the game without giving us money. When we design the donation content we definitely keep that in mind. For a long time we thought would be nice to do a premium content, a bonus for those giving us money, it took us a while to figure out a method of doing that. What you get for the money is the ability to generate a sort of ticket for the additional content which you can then trade with people.

There’s free to play “rules” that say you have to separate your cash store from your in-game stuff, that you can’t let people trade that stuff. In a lot of cases you can’t sell anything to the player to get a competitive advantage. It’s a crazy shoot yourself in the foot kind of thing. Breaking both of those rules at the same time has made KoL possible. It does give you an in-game advantage, but because we don’t have the rule that you have to give us money, you can just play the market or farm meat until you get the thing. It doesn’t actually generate a will or create a situation where you have to give us money in order to play.

DIY: How many people do you have working on staff?

ZJ: [There's] me, Kevin, Josh and Riff, which is the core creative team. Then we’ve got Erin the business manager and a contractor programmer who replaced a full time employee who quit and we’ve got another guy who does abuse tracking and customer service stuff. So there’s seven full time people, eight including me. We’ve got a couple of like barely above volunteer moderator coordinators, people who we pay but not a whole lot. Then we’ve got a second team who is working on a second game, three additional people who have nothing to do with KoL.

DIY: Fueled entirely by donations?

ZJ: Yeah.

DIY: How many active players do you have now?

ZJ: It’s hard to say, because you can make multiple amounts. While we do track that for abuse, we don’t count everyone. A business person would look at the way we do things and shake their head. We don’t do nearly enough tracking and metrics kind of stuff as we probably ought to, from a user retention and actually knowing the audience we’re serving standpoint. And this is just largely my laissez faire approach, I’m just making a thing that I like and enjoy working on. As opposed to actually implementing any marketing stuff…In a given day these days there are probably twenty to twenty five thousand accounts being logged into, half to a third of that is probably a good number for active users. We have a high churn, people don’t stick around for this kind of thing forever.
DIY: What about in the beginning? What were the milestones of growth?

ZJ: I didn’t expect it to get to the point it was at eighteen months. I’d worked on a couple of other projects that never got past a few friends. When I started doing it, my goal was to get out my bullshit idea. If enough people knew about it, I could go in for a real job at a game studio. Not an entry level job. [I thought] if I can get one thousand people playing it, it would be a success. [Then it was] holy crap, there are ten thousand people playing it. It’s been a never ending series of astonishments.

The way that we have to develop the game has evolved over time. In the beginning, I, while I was at work, over the course of a break I’d sketch out as zone and go home and draw it. A monster consisted of a name, a description and a single verb for how it attacks you. The game wasn’t difficult o or important to balance. There was a lot of seat of the pants stuff thrown in very quickly. Whereas now, we’ve got a lot more to lose if we introduce something that’s broken.

DIY: What’s the biggest new content?

ZJ: Part of the deal is we’re also trying to get this other game off of the ground. It’s proving to take a lot longer and be more expensive than we were expecting. The focus for the past few months has been to try and get enough stuff ready and in the pipe, so that we can do updates on a fairly regular basis without having to dedicate ourselves fully to KoL. It will take up all the time there is, if we let it. We have so many more workable ideas than we have the time or energy to implement them. The amount of work we can do is infinite.

In the beginning of this year, I said “this is the direction of the first quarter of the year,” I was hoping would be done in the first quarter. Everything takes three times as long as I expect it to, even when I take that into account.

We queued up a year’s worth of traveling trader items. They’re ready to drop in. We’re putting them in on a schedule. We’re doing one-off bursts of content via the maps in the antique store, my goal is to have a year’s worth of those queued up but they’re taking a lot longer than I expected them too. I’m almost done with the next one. I didn’t want to create another monthly deadline for us. I want to try and get a year’s worth of these in the pile, so we can work on the larger project.

We keep developing tools to make it easier to add content to the game, but at the same time we keep making the content more complicated. So that everything we have just takes a lot longer. The pace stays pretty regular, the next big project is finishing up the underwater stuff. Making that an actual coherent real thing with some kind of carrot at the end. A lot of people aren’t messing around with it because it’s not finished, there’s no payoff. We did a tremendous amount of work on it at the end of last year in the hope’s of getting it done before Crimbo. But it didn’t happen.

Crimbo is KoL’s version of the holiday season, in which players are given an advent calendar full of gifts and play out a unique Crimbo-themed storyline each year.

DIY: What would you say to anyone who hasn’t played the game since the early days? Why Kingdom of Loathing?

ZJ: The advantage Kingdom of Loathing has over other games is just the sheer breadth of content. You either take it as a joke and play it casually, or you realize that there is actually a deeper fundamental gameplay structure and get really into it. The fact that we’ve been really enthusiastically adding stuff to the game for seven years, other games might look prettier, but if you want to play something that gives you a novel experience for as many days as possible, I feel that’s a great strength of our game. Basically all of the work is in there, we’re not replacing the old stuff with shinier stuff or slightly changed stuff. If you’re gone for a year, you probably have a month’s worth of stuff you’ve never seen before.

We’re just starting to send a ping email to people who haven’t logged into their accounts for a long time. Saying “here’s what we’ve been up to.” I feel a little weird about that. A little squeamish about the ethics of sending an email to people, which is ridiculous because everyone does it. “You liked the game once, clearly, if you got bored, here’s what’s changed.”

DIY: What can you say about the new game so far?

ZJ: Basically it’s a single player flash RPG. We’re shooting for an hour, hour and a half to playthrough completely. We’re going for a large scope flash game, but small scope game. We’ve basically got this engine built, we can add content, we can release it as a standalone thing. Gauge interest to see if people like it. I’m pretty pleased with it. I’m excited about the possibility of putting it out there and showing it to people. Theoretically our long term plan for the next few years, is to use the mechanics of the single player version to do an MMO that actually has a revenue model. And doing something similar to KoL because it’s what we know.

DIY: And how would you say it holds your company’s “seal?”

ZJ: We’re trying to take a more serious tone to it. It’s important that the game be funny, but not silly. Mechanically as a single player game it’s a lot more straightforward. KoL grew very organically over a long period of time. I don’t know if it would be better if it came out all at once. Just seeing what kind of things people respond to. Skating the line between challenging and boring. The new game is a lot more skill based and a lot less number based.

The fun that people derive from KoL is in the “I just killed this monster and got all this stuff.” The actual fighting of the monster isn’t that fun. With the new one we’re trying to get a puzzle quest type ethic where the core mechanic is actually fun on its own. This is an idea that’s been brewing for a long long time. It’s interesting to see it play out in actual development. I have notebooks from three or four years ago outlining the rules of the game.

We’re going to DragonCon, so we’re thinking we might do a sneak preview there. If we do that, we’d be wrong not to show it to our people at KoL Con in late September.

In terms of content, there is still a lot to do. Not a lot of writing has been done, we have yet to bring Josh and Riff in. We need to write this new dialogue, doing a lot of this tone setting, a lot of polish stuff is still necessary. in terms of playing from start to finish, it’s probably 75-80% done. Writing has always been easy for us, it’s implementation that’s the actual challenge.

The new game is a little weird because this is the first flash project that our programmer has done. Our artist was not particularly adept, or never that interested in computer art, so this is their first project. The first six months was overcoming a lot of hurdles, the year since has been getting better and more polished with every weekly build.

DIY: What does the future hold?

ZJ: I’m still enjoying doing [Kingdom of Loathing], and I’ll continue to do it as long as there are people interested in it, and I feel everyone else feels that too. Everyone is sort of thrilled this is what we get to do for a living. Just kind of keep on trucking.

Anyone interested in trying the game can sign up (for free) at kingomdofloathing.com.

I’ve been following the two-man team behind Boss Baddie’s games for a long time. They’ve been working on an epic platformer called Tormishire for a long time, but they released Lunnye Devitsy last summer, and Wake just over a month ago. After Wake’s release, I asked the team if they’d be willing to sit down and talk with me, and they obliged.

Since a sea separates me and them, we had to converse through other means. MSN was the intermediary, and it gave up on the connection at least three times. But after some heavy stitching, I’ve managed to put together the words we exchanged in some semblance of order.

If this is your introduction to Boss Baddie, you can find demos for their released games here. A review of Wake will be somewhere on this website tomorrow.

DIYgamer: First things first, can you introduce yourselves and tell me a little bit about what each of you do for Boss Baddie?

James Whitehead: I’m James, I do all the graphics, coding and website stuff. Sometimes music too.

Alex Sumesar-Rai: I’m Alex Sumesar-rai, aka MrPineapple, and I make music a lot. I tend to throw idea sin and test as well, but I started as a musician. I didn’t test before we started Tormishire.

DIYgamer: What brought the two of you together?

Alex: Well, thats a long story. Long and dull. I’ve known James for nearly 10 years now, but we’ve never met in real life! How very progressive of us.

James: Gamemakers! An age old MSN Group. Alex was pimping his MrPineapple game and I was causing trouble with the admin.

Alex: Haha.

James: Then when Tormishire was being made I dropped in one of his tracks and we decided to team up and just make beautiful games and music together.

DIYgamer: You guys released a new game earlier this month called Wake. What’s it about?

James: Last summer I saw that horrible Poseidon remake. All throughout it I imagined playing it as a game, I’d just finished work on Lunnye and thought “why not!”

DIYgamer: OK, and why should people buy it?

James: People should buy it because it’s awesome. One of the players described it as an escapevania, so it’s in fashion too.

DIYgamer: Do they escape from a sinking ship in the Poseidon remake?

James: I think a few survivors do. They don’t get a high score though.

Alex: They don’t get that title screen either. The title screen alone inspired me to make the soundtrack.

DIYgamer: The title screen is hauntingly beautiful.

Alex: And it should be, James spent literally days on making it look that way. You should see all the half-finished versions of it I have on my desktop!

DIYgamer: You’re selling Wake and your first game, Lunnye Devitsy, together and calling it the Lunar Pack. Is there something that ties the games together?

James: Their themes just seemed similar. In Lunnye you play a moon damsel who has to find abstract methods to get home in an open world. In Wake you have to travel through a large open ship to get to safety. They both just seem to be about a person making their way home any way they can, with the moon being a continuing theme. Tormishire follows this too, except you’re running around inside a moon.

DIYgame: Hence the term escapevania?

Alex: I do like that term.

DIYgamer: So do you consider Tormishire the third in a series of thematically related games?

James: Definitely, and once it’s released there will be a bundle containing all 3 games. Tormishire is what binds them.

Alex: Although it’s more than capable of standing on it’s own.

DIYgamer: When did you start working on Tormishire?

James: December 2006. What seems like a lifetime ago!

Alex: I think i joined it about a year in, which isn’t that far in really considering the scale.

DIYgamer: Has it been in constant development, or do you take breaks to work on other games like Lunnye, Wake and the one you just announced?

Alex: Well, there’s only really been one break so far, it’s just been a large one in which yes, we’ve worked on Lunnye and Wake.

James: We have made some minor updates along the way. The next big one is to enable DirectX graphics and shaders and all that.

Alex: That and add the other two chapters.

DIYgamer: So far you’ve made 2D games with pixel art, but you’re dropping the pixels for the next project. What brought on the change?

James: The next game is going to use a different art style again just because I can’t settle on a single style. I like to experiment whenever I can and this next game required a HD resolution. Seemed the perfect opportunity to try something new.

Alex: Hopefully the music side will reflect that too.

DIYgamer: How do you approach the music when working on a new game?

Alex: It depends. Usually I’ll wait until James has a test level, or even a title screen, then work off that. But sometimes it works the other way round. There are a few areas in Tormishire that he made from listening to tracks i made.

DIYgamer: You released a sampler of music from Tormishire a few months back. Is the soundtrack basically finished?

Alex: More or less. I expect we’ll find a few places to stick some more songs in along the way, but we do have a lot of music for it already from both of us, and a few which we both worked on together.

James: One of my favourite tracks that too.

Alex: Ditto.

DIYgamer: Which track is that?

Alex: The one used on the Hi, Boss Baddie! video. I believe that was a collaboration.

James: Also used in Boss 5.

DIYgamer: You developed an online scoreboard and achievements to work with Wake. The game hasn’t been out for long, but have they been busy?

Alex: Melcadrien’s score impressed me.

James: The scores haven’t, though we did have to remove all our test scores. We want that board filled up so we’ve dropped the price of the game.

DIYGamer: Have any users beaten your own high scores?

James: It seems a bit unfair to put my own time on, not that I’m bragging or anything!

Alex: Well, being able to ace your own game isn’t that much of a thing to be proud of. More a fact of life.

DIYgamer: It would give players something to brag about.

James: One of the achievements is a time I set on hard mode, but that’s to do with getting to an exit under a certain time rather than getting a high score.

DIYgamer: So which game can we expect first, Tormishire or the new project?

James: The new project, oh yes! We’re hoping for a short development time with this one. Tormishire will hopefully be back with a vengeance after that.

Alex: Even though we still haven’t thought of a name for it yet.

DIYgamer: When you announced the new project, you also called off the Satan Sam 2010 port. How much work had you done on that?

James: The visuals had been updated and we were still redesigning the powers and upgrades. But Sam’s time had been and gone. If we could click our fingers and have it magically ported, that would be great. For now we’re busy with bigger projects

DIYgamer: You guys certainly seem busy enough.

Alex: Thats just James being a workaholic, I think. Always with a million projects up his sleeve.

DIYGamer: Well, I think that’s all I meant to ask about, unless there’s something either of you want people to know about.

James: Just that Wake’s entrance fee has been dropped and there’s a patch out. Our next game should be out within a couple of months so stick around or something!

DIYgamer: Thanks for talking to me, guys.

Alex: Thanks for letting us type at you.

James: No problem, its been fun! Barring the connection and messenger problems. Always with the problems.

Alex: I blame Microsoft and BT respectively.

When GLPeas first contacted me about their newly released title, BlindGiRl, they gave me absolutely no gameplay details or information. I was simply asked to post up the exclusive screenshots if I wished. Knowing the English studio’s earlier work since reviewing Carcophony, I actually developed high hopes for their latest effort. As they unveiled more details to me, the intrigue was clear and there were many questions that needed solid answers.

Luckily, I decided to write up a list of those questions and send ‘em on over to our boys in the UK. They chimed in with thoughts on developing for XNA, trying to incorporate colorblindness, and unveiled some surprising details along the way. What results is a feeling of familiarity with GLPeas and a desire to play BlindGiRl, which was released today before I even got a chance to put the interview up. Here’s everything you need to know:

DIYgamer: Greetings to you boys (I’m assuming) in the UK! Please introduce yourselves to the rest of the DIYgamers.

GLPeas: Hi DIYGamers! We’re GLPeas – friends based in and around Derby which is in the East Midlands of England. Near Nottingham. Where the Sheriff came from.

DIYgamer: How are you enjoying the success of Carcophony? Do you feel as if your debut was successful from a financial standpoint?

GLPeas: Carcophony was a great success for us in as much as we went through the development process from start to finish, got a title through peer review and on the marketplace, and learned a hell of a lot in the process. From a financial standpoint, the game has not been a success at all. Despite universally positive reviews, sales have been poor. This time around, we’re increasing the PR effort so that we can get as much coverage of the game in the press as possible, and hopefully more people will know about the game.

DIYgamer: What’s it like developing for the XBLIG platform? Any comments or complaints about the way things are run at all?

GLPeas: The XNA framework is very good and it allows us to get ideas up and running very quickly. The community is great, and there are a lot of very helpful people on the XNA forums. There are some issues though. The first one is with the peer review process, which can be a bit subjective at times. The other problem is with the Indie games channel itself – when you release your title you might get a bit of coverage on the front page, for a week or so, but after that it disappears into the catalogue of hundreds of games. There’s very little opportunity for promotion after that, so most of your sales come in the first week and then drop off significantly. There needs to be a better way of browsing through and choosing games, which avoids titles disappearing into the ether like they can do at the moment. As more and more titles come out, this problem is only going to get worse.

DIYgamer: Not too long ago, you guys sent me an e-mail with some exclusive screenshots of your upcoming XBOX Live Indie Game, BlindGiRl. That was much appreciated and I have to admit sparked an interest in your upcoming title. How and when did you guys think of the game?

GLPeas: The wave propogation mechanic of BlindGiRl is an idea we’ve been knocking around for a long time now -  in 2008 we had a prototype working but back then it was based around a radio controlled car rather than a character. We liked the idea of only revealing the level gradually, it gave a great feeling of discovery and adventure and also created some tension and anticipation. It also gave us that minimal look which we like – when you start a level in BlindGiRl, your screen is entirely black, apart from your character – there’s something about that sense of the unknown which is quite enticing, even a little bit spooky, especially in some of the later levels.

DIYgamer: What can you tell me about it? Any exclusive details you want to share regarding gameplay elements? What genre would you classify BlindGiRl in?

GLPeas: We would class BlindGiRl as a puzzle/adventure game. At first glance, it might look like a simple maze game, but there’s a lot more to it than that. Every puzzle has a solution, everything is there for a reason. At its core, it’s a game about discovery and embracing the unknown – and the player will learn more about BlindGiRl and her world as the game progresses.  We don’t spell it all out this time.  As with Carcophony, it’s very easy to play (just one stick and one button) but there’s enough depth and strategy there to keep players entertained.  We’ve also gone for a very non-linear approach  – from the outset the player can choose any level, but will only be able to complete some of them when they have learned the skills or techniques necessary.

From a design point of view, one of the main cornerstones of the project for us was that we were prepared to risk some love/hate with features that don’t follow convention. With Carcophony, we very much stuck to typical game design rules, but in BlindGiRl we’re taking some more risky options. We’re looking forward to seeing and hearing how these design statements are received by the public.

DIYgamer: Where did you get the idea for the colorblind options?

GLPeas: When Carcophony was released we had a few people complain about the colour scheme – it was hard or even impossible for colour blind players to differentiate  between red and green traffic lights, for example, and that was an integral part of the gameplay. We thought this was an important issue, and one that is relatively easy to fix from a development point of view. You may be aware of Helen Hodson (hodsey77 on Twitter) and her petition to get Infinity Ward to add a colour blind option to Modern Warfare 2 – another game which is largely unplayable for colourblind players. We applaud Helen’s work and implemented the colour blind modes into BlindGiRl (in which colour is a vital part of gameplay) to see if it was still possible to play the game with altered colour representations. We found that it was, and so left the colourblind modes in the game for people to try out for themselves.

DIYgamer: Is there a set release window for the game? When can we expect it?

GLPeas: BlindGiRl is now out and available via the Indie Games Marketplace. The peer review process can take weeks, but we breezed through it this time with no problems in just a few days.

DIYgamer.com: What’s the plan for the studio’s future? Are you developing something on the 360 or maybe a different system? Or are you much more focused on finishing BlindGiRl?

GLPeas: BlindGiRl was completed in 20% of the time that it took us to make Carcophony. We worked at pace to deliver an exclusive entry for the DreamBuildPlay 2010 competition, and it was a tight deadline, but we’re very pleased with the result.

We’re familiar with the 360 platform and development environment now so will be sticking with that for the foreseeable future. We’ve got loads of possible ideas for what to do next, a few are already at the prototype stage. That’s what’s so great about indie game development – we’re not restricted by a license or the requirements of a publisher. If we think something will work, and it fits within our mission statement, then we’ll make it! Our aim is to build a consistently high quality body of work on Xbox Live Indie Games, each game demonstrating originality and the essence of the indie movement. So, if you liked games 001 and 002, we hope you’ll be interested in what 003 has to offer!

DIYgamer.com: Finally, will the title be priced in the 400 MSP range as was Carcophony when it was first unveiled?

GLPeas: No. That was one lesson we learned the hard way. What few negative reviews we did get for Carcophony seemed to centre around the price, people felt that 400 MSP was too much, and so we took the step of dropping it to its current 240MSP price point as soon as we were allowed to. Learning from that experience, from the outset we decided that BlindGiRl was to be an 80 MSP game and we developed it with that in mind.

DIYgamer.com: Is there anything else you’d like to share with the indie community? Random thoughts, philosophies, words of wisdom?

GLPeas: Just to keep doing what they’re doing – keep playing the games, and keep looking for those hidden gems.  If you look hard enough there are some original and experimental thoughts on the marketplace , and we hope you find and support them . Oh, and we hope you enjoyed Carcophony and if you did we’re sure you’ll enjoy BlindGiRl.

For fellow XBLIG developers, we would hope that everyone’s games are original, experimental, or have something to say. It’s perhaps better put in the excellent game design bible, “The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses” by Jesse Schell, in which he asks:

“Is making this game worth my time?” and “Why am I doing this?”

We always make sure we have very clear answers to these questions before we embark on anything.

The interview was actually conducted two days before the game came out. Originally, these questions were intended for pre-release and GLPeas had answered “Well, at this exact moment the game is finished and is in the final stages of peer review. This can take a few days or a few weeks, but it all seems to be going through very quickly this time around. Therefore, BlindGiRl will be out very soon, it might be sooner than you think!” to the seventh question. I guess they really did go through peer review extremely quickly this time! We wish the best of luck to GLPeas and I personally look forward to reviewing the game (keep your eyes peeled if you’re interested). But why wait for my review anyway, it’s 80 MSP ($1) on XBLIG now!

Long live indie!