You can’t help but notice Shane Neville’s lust for life when you meet him. Once a pro-BMX rider, he has spent most of his gaming career working on the AAA side of the industry. He worked for Electronic Arts, Relic and Longtail Studios before jumping into making Flash games himself. But unlike a lot of other independent jumpers, Neville never gained an overly negative view of the mainstream side of the industry. While EA may have put some pressure on his free time by having him work for over three months without a day off, the other studios he’d put time in with rekindled his love for making games. “Relic was fantastic,” he recalls, having been a producer on Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts. But once married with a family, the overtime becomes more of an issue, and once he went indie has was able to spend half his time watching his daughter.

I first mentioned Shane Neville after previewing his Flash endeavor called Ray Ardent: Science Ninja. The game is complete and it just launched on Armor Games. From what I played I highly recommend giving the game a go.

But Neville’s journey into independence has been an interesting one. He set the hard date of January 1st, 2010 to “go indie.” From there he has a two year plan that will lead him on a journey of releasing games and seeing how he can fare in the wild waters of self-creation. If he can’t scrape together a living after that time frame, he freely admitted that it would be time to reconsider and might head back in the other direction.

Once leaving the mainstream industry, he had to teach himself how to program, because he hadn’t actually coded anything since he was in high school. As a producer and project manager, you’re not necessarily the one creating the game, just making sure they get done. So with his first game complete, and quite good, Neville’s already come a long way in less than a year. Working alone, he’s had a lot of time to learn Flash while still taking care of his family. He’s not opposed to collaboration in the future, but for now he’s excited about where he stands.

Based in Vancouver, he also teaches several Game Design classes at the Vancouver Film School, as the two mediums are often closely related. Sharing his knowledge of Visual Storytelling, Project Management and Handheld Game Design, students are able to learn a lot from this industry veteran. And without looking back, Neville has dove headfirst into the Canadian Indie Scene, being an integral part of the recent OrcaJam in Victoria (we’ll have his take on the event as an exclusive write-up soon).

But why did he turn to Flash gaming instead of looking at additional mediums? He sees the platform as a unique opportunity for a lot of people to see his game. Oftentimes a good Flash game will get passed around and have over a million unique players within days. But because the platform is “unpatrolled” generally, it’s up to the developer to find the audience and its a task he’s not taking lightly. He had been seeking out the best possible sponsor for weeks before settling on Armor Games. And with their track record he’s sure to notch a lot of players. And the other reason he was drawn to Flash gaming, is that there are no politics in it. It’s all about the players and their experience, not the behind the scenes drama that may directly effect the final product. For instance in the world of AAA, they own all of your ideas. So he’d never even touched his own projects before completely severing his ties to the mainstream.

Ray Ardent: Science Ninja is the product of a lot of inspirations. The villains that map out the not-so-complex-but-funny story of the game are drawn directly from the covers and pulp fiction of Doc Savage and other such adventure tales. And with hilarious moments in dialogue throughout, you’re going to enjoy some comic moments that drop throughout the game. The game is fifteen different levels that are primed for speed runs and along the way you unlock eleven different powers that you can combine in different forms to help you pull this speed off.

With Ray Ardent now available, Neville is already off working on his next project. And he also wants to create four procedural games inside of a four month window. The idea of having four projects that you can play forever was fascinating to him. So from what I’ve seen of his first big project and the promise of more, Shane Neville is a developer to keep an eye on in the indie scene. He’s also a reminder that we don’t talk about nearly enough Flash developers around here.

As you take Ray Ardent: Science Ninja for a drive, just remember that Shane himself did all the voices. That might be the better look at who he is than any words I can write down. You can also find out  more about his company Ninja Robot Dinosaur at its official site. And you can also track his progress via Twitter.

From Mr. Bounce to the award-winning Spirits, the success that Berlin’s four-piece, Spaces of Play, has had in the indie scene speaks for itself. Seeing as how we’re only days away from the release of the studio’s second title, Spirits, we at DIY HQ thought a nice e-sitdown with the auspicious devs would offer some insightful information regarding the game’s and studio’s future. Observe below:

DIYGamer: First off, let me congratulate you guys on the fantastic response that Spirits has received prior to release; you guys won the Aesthetics Award at IndieCade and got nominated for TGS’s Sense of Wonder Night. How does it feel?

Spaces of Play: Great! There was a tough competition at IndieCade which makes the honor of winning this award even bigger. Traveling to Tokyo for the Sense of Wonder Night was amazing as well. It was the first time we visited Japan, and we took the opportunity to look around a bit.

What’s the story on how Spaces of Play came to be? How long have you been working on games together?

We have known each other for a long time, we first met around 6 years ago at the Design Department of the University of Applied Sciences in Potsdam, Germany. Mattias was teaching Game Design and Andreas and Marek took some of his classes. Last year Andreas and Mattias started working together to create the iPhone version of Mr. Bounce, which was originally a Flash game designed together by Andreas and Martin. Even though we have worked all together in different constellations, Spirits is the first project that involves all four of us.

Seeing as how Spirits is Spaces of Play’s second official game, I think it’s safe to say you have already set the bar really high. Do you guys intend on expanding the team? Did you do so for Spirits?

Spirits was a very dynamic project, we didn’t know exactly how we wanted the final game to be, but we did know what we wanted it to feel like. Being a small team allowed us to experiment and work in a flexible way that would not be possible in a larger team. Therefore, we don’t know if we’d want to include more people in the next project.

Where did the idea(s) for Spirits originate from? It’s certainly unique, but did you guys draw influences from any other games?

We are influenced by other games that we love to play, but none inspired us directly to do Spirits. Instead, we mostly draw inspiration from life and other non-game sources. We tried to design Spirits from the basic design goals of creativity, player freedom, and indirect control over the characters. This last part is of course similar to Lemmings, and when people start out playing Spirits they often notice the similarity, but once they progress they see that the gameplay of Spirits evolves into something quite different.

Marek and Matteas at IndieCade. Photo by Mimi Haddon.

I know the game hasn’t even hit the App Store yet, but what are your intentions with its future? Paid downloadable content? Free updates? Are you planning on having any Game Center, OpenFeint, Plus+, etc. integration?

There will be updates to the content, but it’s too early to say exactly how they will look.For a long time we didn’t have scoring in the game at all. We feel the game should be what you do with it. That said, we do provide a custom world ranking system per level, as well as for your total game rank. We don’t have any external API integration, because we feel it doesn’t fit so well with our game.

What makes the iOS your platform of choice? Do you intend on releasing the game on other platforms?

The iPad fits the game perfectly, but we are considering porting the game to other platforms. For the next weeks our focus will be on finishing the iPhone, iPod touch and Retina Display version of the game.

I’m really interested to know what your favorite games are and what you spend your time with when not developing. What does Spaces of Play do on its days off?

What are these “days off” you’re talking about? Seriously, when we don’t work on the game we try to go outside and have a walk in the park, play some soccer, go to concerts or exhibitions, or just grab a beer with some friends. But to name a few of our recent favorite games: “Braid”, “PixelJunk Shooter”, “Sixteen Tons”, “Every Day the Same Dream”, “Sleep Is Death”. We also had the chance to play a preview version of thatgamecompany’s “Journey” when we were in LA, which blew our minds.

Let’s take it back for a second, what did you feel Spaces of Play accomplished with Mr. Bounce? Is there a sequel or new content planned for Bounce-fans?

Mr. Bounce was our first project for the iPhone under the Spaces of Play label, so we learned some things about self-publishing a game on the AppStore that should help us with the release of Sprits. Like Spirits, it blends known game mechanics with new and unique ideas, which maybe is a good way of describing how we work. If time allows, we’d love to come back to it and maybe do an update that has native support for resolutions of the iPad and iPhone 4.

Do you have any other games you’ve been working on? Any ideas for what happens after Spirits?

Everyone of us has a couple of ideas, but we not working on another game yet and haven’t decided what kind of project to do after Spirits. We will try to get some more sleep though.

Is there anything else you would like to tell the indie fans, the mainstream fans, and the world in general?

Being still is not the same as doing nothing! Rush into things slowly, and thanks for making it possible for us to work on games like Spirits.

Thanks, gents! Congratulations again. We wish you the best of luck with Spirits and hope to hear from you soon.

–

There’s Spaces of Play talkin’ games, development, and even sharing philosophies. You can read our preview of Spirits here, and keep an eye out for our upcoming review. For more on Spaces of Play, check out their awesome blog which documents the creation process for Spirits.

Indie Links is (predictably) all over the place this time around. New avenues revealed, debates started and chances taken all fill out the list. Tread heavily upon it.

PSA: Sign the ECA’s Petition to ‘Protect Video Games Under the First Amendment’ (Xav de Matos/Shacknews)
“On November 2, the State of California is taking the fight against the video game industry to the U.S. Supreme Court, despite being struck down at district court. With only a few short weeks separating that fateful day from now, the Entertainment Consumers Association (ECA) is reminding U.S. citizens to sign its petition, arguing that video games be protected under the First Amendment.”

COLUMN: The Gaming Doctrine: Gaming and Confronting Our Humanity (Richard Clark/GameSetWatch)
“The Gaming Doctrine is a monthly GameSetWatch column by Richard Clark about the intersection of gaming, religion, spirituality, and morality. This month – how games can make us acutely aware of our own humanity.”

Indie gaming, meet Kindle… (Blitz1UP)
“Triple Town by Spry Fox is an match 3 puzzle game in which you are trying to grow a city. The larger the city you build, the more points you score…All pretty standard stuff. But what’s really interesting is that this is the first independently published game for Amazon’s Kindle e-reader and it’s one of only a handful of games available on the platform. This is virgin territory, especially when compared to the 300,000+ apps now available on iTunes!”

Are simpler video games better? (Scott Steinberg/CNN)
“The holiday season is always a win for video gamers, as software makers jockey to one-up each other with slicker graphics, deeper play and more expansive 3-D worlds. But the larger and more complex modern-day epics like “Fable III” and “Fallout: New Vegas” become, the more it often pays to keep things simple.”

Blockman Dash mod mixes Mega Man Legends and Minecraft (David Hinkle/Joystiq)
“In Minecraft, you can pretty much build anything, so some fans set out to ease the tension of waiting for Mega Man Legends 3 Project by creating a Mega Man Legends-based mod called Blockman Dash.”

GDC China Adds Angry Birds, Monaco Creators To Summits (Gamasutra)
“This December’s Game Developers Conference China is debuting a host of new Chinese and Western speakers for its December 5th-7th Shanghai event, with all talks simultaneously translated between English and Chinese languages, and multiple new Summit speakers now confirmed.”

Interview: Supergiant’s Kasavin On How Lifelong Game Love Led To Bastion (Simon Carless/GameSetWatch)
“GameSpot veteran Greg Kasavin describes how a lifelong love of games and dreams of making them brought him from writing through development — now going indie with Supergiant Games, creator of the intriguing Bastion.”

Wot I Think – Winter Voices: Avalanche (Quintin Smith/Rock, Paper, Shotgun)
“The prologue to episodic indie RPG Winter Voices, Avalanche, was released over the weekend, available for the pocket-sized price of €4.49. Even for an indie game Winter Voices has a standout concept- you’re a girl simply trying to overcome the death of her father.”

Indie Games Arcade: Skulls of the Shogun (Mike Rose/IndieGames)
“When I first posted the above trailer last month, we didn’t really know much about Skulls of the Shogun other than it was a very pretty-looking Advance Wars style strategy game. I got the chance to play it at the Indie Games Arcade recently, and oh wow… now I must talk about it more. I really must.”

The amazing and humble success story behind iPhone game Trainyard (Ben Gilbert/Joystiq)
“Going from the barebones outline seen above to the top of the iTunes App Store in approximately 16 months, Matt Rix’s Trainyard is a runaway success. Rix details the game’s development — and astronomical sales — on his blog, showing its humble beginnings scribbled in a notepad, development delays due to his other job (he developed Trainyard at home in his personal time), and how the birth of his son allowed him to finish the game last May.”

["The Backbone of the Indie Industry" is a feature series where we talk about, discuss and interview the general support structure/people covering the indie developers.]

Typically, you wouldn’t expect a developer interview to fall under our Backbone series, but Ron Carmel isn’t just making games these days. Since March, he–along with six other notable devs–have been busy setting up and carrying out their Indie Fund business/investment, hoping to support up-and-coming indie developers who have the idea and the drive, but lack the finances.

Ron was at IndieCade earlier this month as a panel speaker and after all the hustle and bustle of the event was nice enough to answer my questions on the fund, as well as provide some other musings on different indie happenings and items.

Though the mic was on the fritz during the Indie Funding Models panel you took part in, I believe during your update on the business that you mentioned there are currently three games receiving funding. Is that correct?

Ron Carmel: Yes, we are currently funding three games.

During the discussion, you mentioned that the fund is entirely experimental, and you wouldn’t necessarily be surprised if it didn’t work out down the road. Have you been encouraged by the submissions? If things go as hoped, could we see a methodical indie factory of sorts? And is that ultimately the best case scenario in the long term?

Wow, did I say that? I actually would be a bit surprised if it didn’t work out. I think our investment strategy is sound. We pick small games with small teams that can live cheaply and in return we give the developer much better terms than they could get from a publisher. We can offer these terms because for lower cost games our break even risk is much reduced.

Ultimately, our goal is to help developers get and stay independent. In the short terms that means actually funding them with our own money, but longer term it means sharing our process, legal documents, financial data, and experience with the rest of the game development community as a way to encourage others to start their own Indie Funds. It would be nice if one day all promising indie games could get funding on friendly terms from other indies, instead of going to publishers.

Should we expect an accepted submission announcement anytime soon from the Indie Fund team?

That’s up to the developers. We’re ready to announce whenever they are and we leave it up to them to figure out the proper timing. It’s my guess that there will be an announcement by the time GDC rolls around, but don’t hold me to that, it’s just a guess.

Some indie devs/teams are more open with the development of their game than others. Do you see the updates you receive on the selected developer teams and games’ progress as something that should be shared with everyone? And could there potentially be public alpha/beta builds for selected games that make sense for that development route?

That’s really up to the developers, and I think whether it’s a good idea or not depends a lot on the nature of the game itself. With a game like Crayon Physics, for example, releasing early didn’t turn out so well because it’s a game that’s easy to clone, and many people cloned it. For a game like Overgrowth, where the success of the game is about good execution rather than a good idea, I think releasing early and often is a great way to build up a fan base.

Taking the focus off of Indie Fund a bit…Lately it’s been a very loud discussion on the net, games like LIMBO and Minecraft exploding in sales, a much heavier interest in less expensive (not $50-$60) titles from smaller teams. What’s your take on the supposed “indie boom” we currently find ourselves in?

I personally have a hard time getting into AAA games. Red Dead, Arkham Asylum, and other critically acclaimed games are very impressive, but they don’t hold my attention. Indie games tend to have much greater diversity and the larger range of experiences I have playing them is very compelling to me. I care about the quality of the experience and whether a game is worth my time. I don’t care if it costs the equivalent of $2 an hour or $5 an hour.

You were one of, if not the first developers to stick your neck out and try the pay-what-you-want sale for World of Goo. The trend has caught on and continued steadily over the past year, with several devs offering up there games for the buyer’s choosing and seeing good to phenomenal results. Based on your experiences with the model, is it something you’d encourage others to try? And is there a line with the model and when in the game’s lifespan would you draw it at?

Pay what you want is just one kind of flexible pricing model. I think it’s as far from being an ideal pricing model as the dominant fixed price model. I think better questions to ask would be “what kind of flexible pricing model makes sense at this point in the game’s life cycle?” and “What kind of flexible pricing model would work well with this game?”. There is so much room for experimentation in this area and I really want to see where it goes. Pay what you want was successful for us because it was novel and got a lot of press. As a pricing strategy, assuming everyone were using it, i doubt it would be more effective than the fixed price model. We need something a little more subtle and sophisticated.

You’ve been a solid indie representative for years, you seem to have tons on your plate with the process of the IndieFund, have you found the amount of time you’d like for developing your next project(s)? And is there anything you can share with us about the unannounced project 2D Boy is working on or any other endeavours you may be pursuing yourself?

Indie Fund took a few months of full time work to get going, but at this point it only takes up about a day a week, maybe less, so yes, it’s easy to find the time to invest in other projects. Kyle and I are working on separate projects right now. He’s teamed up with two friends and developing Little Inferno as part of Tomorrow Corporation, and I’m in the prototyping stage of an entirely different game that I’m not ready to talk about yet because it’s too early to tell if it will turn into an actual game or if it will end up in the pile of dead prototypes in my back yard.

–

Thanks to Ron for taking the time to share. Looking forward to both what he and Indie Fund produce over the coming months and beyond.

Well maybe not an infinite amount of questions. Were that the case, we’d still be going back and forth at this point and, probably, talking about such inane topics that really it wouldn’t even make any sense anymore. Instead, I decided to just ask him ten really, really good questions.

For those that don’t know who Evan Balster is, he is the developer and primary programmer behind the new art-focused canvas game Infinite Blank. The entire premise of the game is to simply expand on an ever growing, ever evolving canvas of art. It’s a very unique project and one that I’ve particularly taken an interest in, despite the fact that my art skills are best left away from any sort of official medium.

Anyway, if you haven’t tried it, I highly suggest you do. Either way, enjoy this fascinating interview with a developer who is probably going to end up somewhere big.

Can you explain who you are and what your primary duties are working on Infinite Blank?

My name is Evan.  I’m a college student in Iowa who sleeps too much.  I designed Infinite Blank, and programmed it.  It’s pretty much a one-man affair, though I have lots of personal friends I call on for feedback and help with tasks like “seeding” new worlds.  They’re credited on my site under “Who?”.

I’m trying now to get into the swing of managing a community while reliably updating the software each week, thus far on Saturday mornings following Friday code crunches.

What were your primary inspirations for doing such an ambitious project such as this?

Back in the day, I was in a game development forum called GMClans.  Don’t look for it; it’s quite dead.  At any rate, the goal of the site was to organize people from different game development disciplines into teams.  Now and then the artists on the site would organize pixel art collaborations where each person in turn would draw a piece of a larger artwork, incorporating it with its neighbors and typically making a nifty little world.  (Or the beginnings of one; they were usually abandoned after a few squares.)  Pixel art communities still do these today.  Anyway, I had the humble goal of taking that and making it a game where players could pass around a file with the pixel art as well as collision masks and create gameworlds together.

How did the project get started?

Fast forward four years.  I’ve gotten out of GMClans, into C++, coded one engine and the beginnings of a game, and abandoned those.  I’ve written a new engine complete with a draw tool for its special vector graphics format, and recently added to it a network engine made for another game (under wraps) that I’m collaborating on with a friend.  That friend gets a little busy and I get nonproductive for a while.  At some point I remember the drawing game, and eureka!  I think to myself how I’d love to make it an MMO.

I started programming the game at an Iowa Game Developers’ game jam (Josh Larson throws awesome jams!) and eighteen passionate days later I launched the server and got a few people started trying the game.  A day or two after that I posted it up on my game development community and the prototype world got to growing, expanding to a size of around 200 cells.

I stopped maintaining the game for a while and focused myself on something else (less productive) for a while, and fewer and fewer people played the game.  When I moved from my summer residence to my school-year one, and unplugged the ancient desktop that was acting as the server at that point.  That marked the end of prototype world and version series 0.1.

Just before that and as things were winding down, my friend Ted Martens told me about Sense of Wonder Night at the Tokyo Game Show.  With a “why not” attitude, I entered the game.

When I was contacted about a month later about going to SOWN with my game, I got the unproductive monkey off my back and got back to work. I solved the 0.1 series’ biggest problem and made a nicer drawing tool which acted more like MSPaint and less like a vector editing tool.  Since this one was made for Infinite Blank, it incorporated tools for walls and provisions for transitioning more naturally with cells adjacent to the one being drawn.  (I feel equal measures of pride and indignation when people see the game and say “So what?  It’s just a big bitmap.”)

Giving my speech at SOWN, amidst the bizarre sounds of smile-hammers, I employed the tactic that had led to my initial productivity and lit a fire under my butt by announcing I would have the game relaunched within about a week.  I was busy for that week.  And, after many critically-important technical tweaks and struggles to update the Linux and Mac versions of the game, I re-released it as 0.2.0, eight days later.  I’ve released one update, 0.2.1, since then, and 0.2.2 will probably be out by the time this article is published.

The rest of this story is written in what players make.

Players have already created all sorts of art.

Now, obviously, the game is currently primarily focused around art and drawing. How do you plan on expanding this in the future? What features would you like to implement for artists in the future?

It’ll maintain that focus, but I want to improve the system so people have a better time making better worlds, minimal regulation can be deferred to moderators and the community at large, and so the game offers a wide variety of variations upon its own mechanics.

Regarding this last item, I’ve imagined lots of things and gotten a lot of nice suggestions too.  Themed weekly collaborations.  Ambient animation.  Scripted objects.  Useless pickups.  The community has added a lot to the list.

The game also has a small platforming element to it. Nothing too advanced, but you are able to take an avatar of your selection and jump around the world. Are there any plans to expand this gameplay to make it more of a game and less about just drawing?

I’ve been planning things to that effect for a long time, and have gotten lots of requests since release.  I’d like to widen the game’s appeal beyond the “want to make things” crowd, and strengthen the fun and opportunities for interaction between existing players.  But priority one is to make the game encompass its basic design well, and I don’t think it’s there yet.

I like to note the wide gap between “grand ideas” and “clunky software” which exists with this project. 

Infinite Blank is completely free. Why did you decide to go with a free distribution method as opposed to charging people, even if it’s a nominal fee?

I wrote a little manifesto about that, which now features as a link on my homepage.  Essentially, Infinite Blank couldn’t be payware and work like it does.  By making a game commercial, you impose restrictions on its design.  In this case, Infinite Blank aims to let absolutely anyone create.  If I restricted that to people who paid, I would compromise that goal.

Being that the game is multiplayer, how do you support a game that is free when there are server costs?

Donations from the players.  I’m running a Kickstarter at present to get money together which should sustain the project for a while.  After that, I’ll scrounge for donations and sell prints of the world and its contents.

I’m also offering private worlds which can be used for collaborations between groups of people or as fully “public” privately-controlled worlds.  They’ll be editable or simply explorable by anyone who has been given a requisite access code by the purchaser.  They’ll continue to be available for donations after the Kickstarter ends.  I’ll probably make them free eventually, though.

One last thing I’m interested in but not counting on is the possibility of Infinite Blank being used in an art exhibition, as a unique type of crowdsourced work.  I’m going to develop a special piece of software for this purpose.

The Infinite Blank community has already established a large overarching canvas.

How would you say the gaming community has reacted to your game so far?

It’s to my satisfaction.  And my expectation.  The greater portion of people hear about the project, query “so where’s the gameplay?” and leave it at that.  A smaller group gets excited and thinks “I want to create a flying disco boat!” (actual example) and immediately grabs the game.  Those are my players.  Well, those and the last group who eagerly defaces things, but it’s not difficult to clean up after them.

I got an excuse to go to the Tokyo Game Show and talk about the project, and I’ve gotten various bursts of attention.  I’ve got a small and healthy community of feedback-givers and I can communicate with them comfortably.  At week two, I’m quite comfortable, and mainly focused on getting work done on the code.

Obviously Minecraft exploded with popularity a couple months a go and is largely due to the fact that the game is entirely customizable. Do you anticipate something similar happening for Infinite Blank? Do you want something like this to happen?

I’m hoping the “organic” increase in attention to my game continues at a fairly regular pace and doesn’t hit me too hard until I’m ready.  Managing a community can be a lot of work!  The software also needs lots of improvement; I’d really like to have a nice client version out when and if I ever get a big surge of traffic.  The server is also more likely at present to crash with a large number of users.

Come to think of it, I need to slap the word “Alpha” somewhere on my site as a disclaimer.  I think I’ll go do that.

Let’s be honest, since Infinite Blank can’t really pay the bills, at what point do you plan on “moving on” from the game?

I don’t plan to commit in a big way to other game development projects for another month or two.  I’m a first-semester Junior in college, though, and staring down the chute into either the real world or grad school.  I want to take the former route and do the indie thing, I think.

I’m tinkering with prototypes for a few potentially-commercial game collaborations, and also plan to resume the project I was working on before Infinite Blank.  If I can use my college time to make a game, sell that, and support me while I try the indie thing, it would be a dream come true.  (If Infinite Blank donations are somehow enough to fund my costs of living, I might try to do the Tarn Adams thing as thanks and make it my job for a while.)

If the ‘indie thing’ dream works out, my super-dream would be to have the time to make more free things like Infinite Blank.  I love free games; there’s a whole world of design ideas that are wonderful, but not commercially viable, and I want to make them.

Where do you want Infinite Blank to be this time next year?

Alive.  If things swell up and settle down and I end up with something like twenty-odd people who love the game and stay together as a community, I’ll be happy.  Hell, even if they don’t swell up.

If I end up with a massive community, well…  I’ll have learned a lot about working with one.  And maybe I’ll have some folks to look at my new projects, too.  Heh.

–

Huge thanks to Evan for taking his time to answer my questions. I wish him the best of luck with Infinite Blank and his future projects.

Once again, if you haven’t checked out Infinite Blank I highly recommend it. It really is a unique experience amongst the traditional games we see everyday.

[Infinite Blank, Kickstarter]

["The Backbone of the Indie Industry" is a new feature series where we talk about, discuss and interview the general support structure/people covering the indie developers.]

As we begin with part two of this series, I’d like to just point out there , while there are plenty of people out there who have done many things to help indie and small developers reach success, I’d argue that nobody has done as much as the guys behind DesuraNET, the owners of both the incredibly popular ModDB and the brand new IndieDB community websites. Hell, without ModDB, I’m not sure we’d have the kind of indie community we have today.

Anyway, I was lucky enough to be able to score an interview with Scott Reismanis, the founder, and Dave Traeger, the editor, for an extensive look into how things took off and what the future is for DesuraNET.

Enjoy!

Can you explain who you are and what your primary duties are at DesuraNET, ModDB, or IndieDB?

Scott: I’m the founder and so the jack of all trades, doing everything that Dave (our editor), Mark (our programmer), Josh (our designer) and Greg (our server admin) don’t do. This usually means legal, accounting, project management and all the boring but important roles. I also dabble in the site code (something I enjoy doing) and chat with members of the community whenever I get the chance.

Dave: My job is to keep the sites running efficiently, maintain the new content that comes into the database, manage the community and answer any support emails we have and create any videos or media the site needs.

How did you get into the business of supporting custom mods through your website ModDB?

Scott: Back in 1998 / 2000 there were only a handful of FPS games to choose from (Quake, Doom, HL, UT etc) and that wasn’t enough for my mates and I who always enjoyed trying tons of games at lans. Mods fascinated us and provided tons of super innovative and crazy ideas to try out (many such ideas people now take for granted). Problem was, back then, Google also didn’t exist and so finding mods was a challenge. Hence the idea of ModDB (a database for mods was born) and I haven’t stopped working with mods since. It is kinda the same with indie games now, so we look forward to helping indie teams promote their work for many years to come.

Dave: Started out as a volunteer fresh out of university and just grew into more important roles over the years, I was mostly interested in this position as the content and community are diverse and it makes an interesting work life. Plus I get to play games for a living so that helped.

What do you see is your roll in supporting these types of mods? Do you simply provide an expansive community, or do you go above and beyond in helping them establish their own fanbase via promotion?

Dave: Well over the years we have put on many different hats as to what we think we should be offering our community, from being the team that reviews the mods and tells people what they should and should not play to a blog of modding news that is run by the staff. What we have settled on for now is just being the site that can offer teams a place to advertise their works with complete creative control being offered to them, everything we do now from Desura to the monthly Spotlight videos is to bring more presence to the work people do. After all who are we to tell people if a mod or indie game is good or not? If they put in effort they are rewarded.

Scott: What Dave said really. We have tried many things blogging, reviewing, interviewing, etc. but, in the end, we decided that experts like you do a better job of that, so instead we chose to focus our efforts on creating a site which puts the developers and community in charge of the content. This means that all teams have to do to get instant PR exposure to thousands of people is spend 15 minutes writing a news post on ModDB/IndieDB instead of sending out press releases blindly and praying they get coverage.

IndieDB.com is an important part of DesuraNET's growing focus.

Recently, you launched a second site called IndieDB. Obviously this is something we are more focused on here at DIYGamer.com. Why did you decide branch off from ModDB and create an entirely new site strictly for indie games?

Dave: After our annual trip to GDC in San Francisco I had the opportunity to talk to a lot of creative independent developers who either fell into one of the two possible categories they either knew about ModDB and didn’t know that we also support indies or didn’t know about ModDB at all. While all three of our sites (ModDB, IndieDB and Desura) use the same database we felt it was important to create another website that Indies could call home just like how modders find ModDB. So we created a brand new site that filtered our database content to show only Indie related news and downloads.

Scott: It is hard to deny the success of indie games these days and the growth that is occurring, especially as former-modders are realizing they can make standalone games with tools like Unity and UDK. Plus for years indie developers have used ModDB so it just made sense to create their own dedicated site. My only regret is that we didn’t do it sooner.

Has IndieDB done well with respects to how old it is and it’s apparent niche focus?

Dave: For the most part it has been quite effective in getting more Indie developers to use our services, every day we have a few new games being added which is around the same amount of new mods we get. However the teams still do not know how to use the site all that well. While we get new profiles and media quite often, the site lacks any news from the teams. Everyday it’s getting better and it might take some time before we see the same daily numbers we see on ModDB.

Scott: I’d hardly call indies a “niche” anymore. 2 years ago maybe but not now. IndieDB has a ton of growth yet to come, what we are doing well at is building a comprehensive database of games, videos, images and files (indie developers add your games!). The next step is to start connecting players and fans with the indie developers and helping them get feedback and customers they need to succeed. With mods this is easy because say you own game X, you go and search for mods for game X. With indie games this seems to be a real challenge, as without marketing budgets people usually only hear about and become interested in an indie game once it is already released. With time we are hopeful that people will start to browse DIYGamer, IndieDB and other indie themed sites to find out news about both released and upcoming titles.

Other indie game communities offer contests that developers can enter into to win cash or, in some cases, publishing deals. Does IndieDB have or plan to have anything like that in the future?

Dave: Like with ModDB our focus is more to bringing a much better set of tools and community features, and running a smoother site. After all we are a small team of 3 with only myself and sometimes Scott doing any sort of content related to the site it’s hard to devote any man-hours to anything else. If we were to do a comp it would be a big one that’s for sure.

Scott: Most of these competitions are about finding indie talent and publishing their game which is not something we do. Our focus is as a website that promotes indie games. We do run challenges from time to time and get on great with Unity, UDK and other sponsors so if an opportunity to coordinate a promotion like that presents itself, rest assured we will run something cool. Mind you we are working on a competition which will launch soon (no prizes just prestige) so keep an eye out for that.

Desura is planned to open up to a wider audience very soon.

How is Desura coming along? I know the service is currently in a private beta right now, but are there any plans to open it up anytime soon?

Dave: Yes, Scott is the guy to talk to about that.

Scott: It is getting very close actually so we are getting quite excited about opening it up and providing digital distribution for mods, indie games and commercial games. At the moment it is in total lockdown, and we still haven’t decided if we will limit access to it (i.e. invite only). We shall be making that decision before the end of the month and will begin to get more people on board then.

Does Desura plan to operate strictly within the ModDB and IndieDB niche? Namely, do you only plan on selling indie games and mods? Or is this a direct competitor to the other various digital distribution shops?

Scott: Our area of expertise is with mods and indies so we will launch with titles from these guys, however our plan is to expand with time and fill our catalog with great titles. Make a great game and rest assured we will want to talk with you about releasing it via Desura.

What’s the ultimate goal of Desura? Do you want to be the go to place for all indie/mod downloads/sales?

Scott: Unlike consoles the PC is an open platform and should be treated as such. Despite this we feel that digital distribution on the PC really doesn’t harness its true potential and is trying to behave like a “console”. Our aim is to provide a much more open experience for both our customers and the creators of games. This means being able to review games, 3rd party sites can plug into APIs, developers can post news, videos and images and can interact with their fans directly on the service should they so chose. All in all we want to run a service which brings players and developers closer together and enables them to create better games (by harnessing this feedback loop) which are then sold very successfully on Desura.

Finally, where would you like DesuraNET to be this time next year? Five years?

Dave: Personally I would like DesuraNET to reach out to a more diverse community of players rather than developers, while having a like minded community is great, the only feedback developers get is from other developers. Reaching out to people who just play games would be the best solution to help out the teams even more. I think Desura is our way in. Oh and if possible an office on a space station would be rad.

Scott: Sites like DIYGamer, TIGSource, IndieGames are doing a great job of covering the indie scene, however browsing a catalog of indie games, videos and images remains a challenge. ModDB already is the goto place for browsing a database of mods (both obscure and popular) so I’d like to see IndieDB become the goto place for browsing a database of indies (on all platforms, PC, console, mobile). More importantly though we want to run a leading digital distribution service in the form of Desura which provides a great store for gamers to find and play new titles. I’m just looking forward to the continued success of indie games and happy to grow with them.

–

Great stuff. I’d like to thank both Scott and Dave for taking their time to sit down and answer a bunch of my questions. Without guys like them we really wouldn’t have the kind of indie or modding community that exists today.

While stumbling through different areas of the sprawled IndieCade festival of sorts, I spent a good amount of time playing games over at the WWA Gallery on Culver Blvd. Spotting one of the simplistic yet beautiful Limbo shirts, my immediate inclination was to ask this gentleman whether he was involved in the game’s creation. Well, lucky for me, I managed to get in a nice chat with Dino Patti, one of the two co-founders of Playdead (the other being Arnt Jensen). Limbo was visibly one of the most popular titles at IndieCade. And really, should anyone be surprised?

Having won the Sound Award, Dino seemed to be riding a high. I hesitated to conduct a full interview simply because the public was enjoying Limbo and I would have felt like an asshole directing Dino’s attention away from prospective Limbo-lovers. That being said, however, I managed to score some cool details about Playdead’s success with Limbo and the company’s future.

Initially, I asked Dino the obvious question of whether a PC or PS3 release was imminent. He replied by mentioning their exclusivity contract with Microsoft (which seems to be up in the air regarding how much time it is in effect for), but he did agree with me that Steam would be a great platform for Limbo. I suppose at the moment the door is shut, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see a release in the future when Microsoft has released its stranglehold.

I questioned him about the game’s success, specifically financially. As it so happens, Playdead managed to make back all of the money they initially invested into Limbo (around 2.5 million) and then some. To somebody like me — who isn’t necessarily tied into the business aspect of the game development world — this could seem like a lot of money. However, 2.5 million seems to be the rather “standard” amount devs invest in this kind of work. Perhaps some gamers will feel more at ease with the $15 price tag knowing this: it was a risk for Playdead but you guys helped them prove yet that fresh ideas are always welcome into the gaming world.

I asked what he thought of the game’s popularity. Dino indicated some surprise, adding that Microsoft had pushed Playdead to up their marketing regime. However, Playdead stuck with their method of minimalistic marketing and ended up being more successful than any other title in this Summer of Arcade. What do you guys think of this peculiar detail?

Finally, when I asked Dino whether they would be adding any downloadable content, perhaps an extra level or two, to Limbo or whether they felt the game was complete, he replied by telling me that Playdead is working on a brand new IP. Of course, I went on to ask him what the hell it was about or what it was called, but Dino responded: “All I can say is if you liked Limbo, you will like the next game.” There was no mention of a platform or dates either.

So there you have it, folks. Even after hitting the level of success that would have jaded many other developers, Playdead’s Dino Patti was more than willing to have a chat with us — the little guy. I thanked him for creating amazing games and he thanked us for the coverage. You can bet your ass we’re going to follow this next game till release just as we did Limbo.

Following our interview with Orb author Joshua Turcotte, we turn our information thresher to another isolated game, the closest that Game-Maker ever got to a respectable scrolling shooter, Hurdles. The game is short on presentation and deep in ingenuity; it does what it sets out to, and then moves on. To contrast with that focus, its author Roland Ludlam is something of a polymath: hacker, musician, illustrator, photographer, poet.

Most recently, Ludlam has co-founded a small game design company, Studio Walljump, with the aim of producing a new puzzle-music game for WiiWare. We caught him with a dual-edged interview; come for the moldy game, and get a preview for the bargain.

Taking a shot here, and assuming that this address works. Are you the Roland Ludlam who designed the Game-Maker game Hurdles, about fifteen years ago?

Roland Ludlam: Hi, yup, you found me! I have to tell you that was probably the last e-mail subject I was ever expecting to see. It’s not every day someone dusts off a 17-year-old shareware game that takes about 2-1/2 minutes to complete. I was always way more focused on designing level tiles than on actually finishing anything.

Brings back some good memories, though — I used to adore Game Maker. I must have dozens of unfinished games collecting dust on a 512MB hard drive somewhere.

Ha, that’s swell! I’ve been pulling together as much information as I can about Game-Maker, and tracking down and talking to as many old users as I can. I know it was ages ago, but do you remember how you first encountered Game-Maker?

RL: I asked for Game Maker for Christmas when I was 12 — it must have been in a catalog I had lying around or something. No idea which one at this point. At any rate, it was one of my favorite Christmas presents of all time for sure. That was (I think) the original version of GM. Several years later I purchased Game Maker 3.0, but most of my time and energy was spent on the first one, because at that point Windows was starting to take over and I eventually moved up to using Klik & Play, which was a totally killer game dev. environment for Windows. A lot harder to draw level tiles for 640×480 though.

So you used Game-Maker through all its phases of development. Just clarifying the point — did you move on to Klik & Play when it became clear that RSD was no longer going to be supporting Game-Maker, or was the transition already happening by the time that 3.0 came out?

RL: For me, the switch to Klik & Play was motivated more by frustration with Game-Maker’s logic & flexibility than anything else. I was feeling more and more like the kinds of games and ideas that I had were just flat out impossible with GM. The upgrade to 3.0 was welcome and improved things a little, but it still felt very 1-dimensional to me. It’s funny — one of my other “complete” game maker games was a remake of Pharaoh’s Tomb by Apogee Software, which was my favorite shareware title (so much so that I registered it!).

That’s really interesting. I haven’t seen many puzzle games made with Game-Maker. How closely did you imitate the original?

RL: Truthfully it was incredibly difficult. The size of the tiles in Game-Maker and the inflexibility to change that made it pretty hard to do things like spikes with decent collision detection. It was kind of fun, though. I ended up making a game that played like the original Pharaoh’s Tomb, but didn’t actually mimic the level design exactly. It was probably way too hard though. If I can dig it up, I’ll send it over to you so I can get sued by Apogee.

Anyway, it was a serious endeavor in GM to figure out how to restrict the screen so it didn’t scroll — Pharaoh’s Tomb was based around fixed one-screen puzzles. But more than that, there really wasn’t any provision for writing sophisticated logic or control setups with GM. Klik & Play had a very intelligent and powerful logic writing system based on events and reactions, and truthfully, I credit it with properly introducing me to how programming works.

Klik & Play’s biggest weakness was that it didn’t support scrolling very well (at least not when it was first introduced), so that was unfortunate. But it had much more sophisticated collision detection, excellent audio support, mouse control, the list goes on and on. I must say I always enjoyed developing graphics and level artwork much more with GM, though. The simplicity of the palette / tile editor was just the right amount of structure. Klik & Play was a major purchase for me — I think that I actually saved my money and ponied up $50 for it. At that point I was very sure of what I needed to move ahead, and the features that I had read about in the catalog I had were exactly what I was looking for.

After Klik & Play, I started programming in Flash, and then moved onto DarkBASIC and Blitz BASIC 3D some years later. Blitz BASIC 3D is probably still my favorite environment for game development — it is the most powerful, straightforward framework. Once you’ve made the jump over to being OK with writing some code, anyway. The prototype for Liight that we pitched Nintendo with in order to get our WW license was actually written in BB3D, and it was really sweet!

I’ve got to ask, how do you pronounce Liight? Just as if it had one “I”? l337? Licht?

RL: Nick always just says “light”, so that’s it I guess.

Tell me a bit about Liight — the basic concept, and where it came from.

RL: Liight was a collaborative work that I undertook with a high school buddy of mine. We were chatting on the phone one day and he mentioned to me that he wanted to prototype a game idea that he had and then try to use it as a jumping off point for starting his own games studio and trying to get it onto a console. He didn’t realize that I’d been programming as a hobby using Blitz3D for quite some time, and I offered to help him out, hoping we could work together some.

Liight is a puzzle game that focuses on color, forcing you to combine colored spotlights together to illuminate sensors with the correct (or no) light. It seems very simple at first, but gets punishingly hard in the later levels. Nick designed the game, the graphics and the original idea, and I implemented it and provided some feedback about things and ideas. One of the best aspects of the game is the integration of music. Each sensor on the map is assigned a loop of music, and when you solve them the music is added to the mix. So as you solve a puzzle, you’ll eventually get a really good techno groove going. It’s a neat effect.

I’d say that Liight is all about a sort of soothing, fun playing experience that combines really slick visuals and sounds. Rather than anxiety provoking puzzle games, or twitchy action games, it’s more of a sensory experience. It’s also incredibly original — I don’t think there’s anything else quite like it.

I see that you’re including a sort of level editor with the game.

RL: We did add the ability to create puzzles — actually we started with building the editor feature so that Nick could even use it to design the levels that are present in “Solve” mode. Using WiiConnect24, you can share your puzzles with friends too — I hope people do that!

Lastly, we added an arcade mode called “Nonstop” which is like the polar opposite of “Solve” mode. In Nonstop, you are given a steady stream of sensors that drop onto the board and you have to light them correctly for five seconds before they disappear. If too many build up, you lose. Nonstop focuses on scoring — by lighting multiple sensors at once, using all your lights, chaining things together, you can build your score very quickly. In my opinion it’s completely ingenious, and I hope that people will spend some time figuring it out.

I’ve seen some players play for ten minutes straight just staying alive, and wind up after that time with a score of 10,000. And then you watch someone play for points who ‘gets’ it, like Nick, and he’ll have 200,000 points in the first 25 seconds. After ten minutes he might have 2,000,000 points. The subtlety and difficulty of nonstop mode, combined with it’s fast-paced heart rate raising gameplay should really appeal to hardcore gamers, whereas the puzzle mode of Liight is much easier for all types of gamers to enjoy.

What was the process like, of prototyping and pitching the game to Nintendo?

RL: The prototype flew together — Blitz3D is a fabulous language for writing games and is almost too easy. We ended up going overboard and even added Wiimote support using Bluetooth and GlovePIE, which can translate the Wiimote instructions into joystick / keyboard / mouse actions. So the prototype played exactly as we anticipated it would on the Wii hardware. Nick had formerly worked for NOA, so he had some good connections there and pitched them on it. They were really positive about it and ended up granting us our dev license.

What did Nick do at NOA?

RL: Nick worked mainly as a interface designer. He did a bunch of menus and interface designs, including helmets & huds for Metroid: Prime, etc. I don’t know if he still does, but after he left he did some contract work for them on various projects and stuff.

From a development perspective, [Liight] presented some really unique challenges, and that was really my favorite part of it. The engine that drives it and makes it work was so much fun to design, because the lights themselves all needed to be able to cast shadows and accurately illuminate objects and determine what they had illuminated. After that was all working, I ended up re-architecting it several times because of performance as well — I found that certain operations on the Wii were much more expensive performance-wise than on the PC, so I spent weeks lying awake at night trying to figure out different ways to handle the light effect.

The way we landed on is really smooth and looks great, I think. It was also several times faster than the initial version! I’m probably boring you now, but I could go on and on about Liight — it’s been so incredible to work on a project like this, and I have been so impressed with Nick’s ability to take a simple idea and turn it into something so professional and fun to play. If you haven’t already, you can read more about Liight on WiiWare World (Nintendo Life) too. I hope you’ll get to play it after it’s out!

So what influence, if any, has your experience with Game-Maker had on your later design work?

RL: I would say the biggest influence and take-away for me from GM was getting involved and investing serious amounts of time into graphics and tile creation, animation, etc. At that time there really weren’t very many good tools (that were inexpensive) for doing that sort of thing, and without programming experience, I wasn’t about ready to start coding my own game in C. I designed literally thousands of tiles and tile sets, etc., many of which were never even used for anything — it was just fun to do. As to actual game design takeaways, I don’t think there’s anything specific that I would cite. More the fact that I learned that I enjoyed making games much much more than I ever did playing them! Still do.

Beyond RSD’s demo games, did you chance to study anyone else’s Game-Maker games?

RL: Afraid not! Maybe one or two that I might have stumbled on, but none that I can remember. Both GM and Klik & Play were pretty much lone-soldier projects for me. Part of what I find so much fun and engaging about working in Blitz3D is the community. It is incredibly active and helpful. I actually continued to solicit help with programming questions and approaches in the B3d boards during the Wii project long after I’d stopped working in B3D simply because there were so many smart and helpful people there!

Back then there wasn’t really any opportunity for community around it other than local BBSes, which is how Hurdles somehow found its way out into the world.

So you were a part of BBS culture. I figured as much, given the amazing FILE_ID.DIZ included with Hurdles:

HURDLES: Outstanding New Arcade Game!! Written by 13 Year Old Wiz Kid, Roland Ludlam! 256 Color VGA Graphics, Excellent Soundtrack, With Sound Blaster Support! Best New Game!

Did you ever dial up the Frontline BBS (which served as a sort of semi-official
Game-Maker distribution site)?

RL: Ha ha! That .DIZ file was written by the sysop to the local BBS. I interacted a little with a few of the sysops in the area and on a whim, asked if I could upload my game to the user area so that other users could play it. He was delighted and prepared that file. Little did I know it would then make its way onto shareware CDs. I think he eventually uploaded it to the Internet as well — he was the first person I was aware of having an Internet connection. He used it to download the latest shareware games so that we could get them.

I don’t believe I ever logged onto the Frontline BBS, but I would have liked to, if I had known about it. I was sort of on my own as far as GM was concerned — I don’t think I’ve ever talked to anyone else who used it (until now). You’re making me want to dig up some of my old projects for a little nostalgia. That will be fun!

Was Hurdles the only game that you distributed at the time?

RL: I think so. I might have released a few others, but at that point, BBSes in my area were closing left and right because of the Internet coming to town, so all of that activity sort of started to go away. I also began focusing much more on graphic design and web design, and it was years before I developed games again!

It’s a curious game, as it plays very much like a shooter — except without the shooting. Which makes it feel like a sort of side-scrolling F-Zero or OutRun. If you can recall, where did the design come from? Was it another response to the engine’s limitations?

RL: OK, so here’s the confession: the Hurdles idea was stolen completely from the speeder level stage in Battletoads from the NES. I’m (still!) a huge NES fan, and have to say that NES games are my favorite games. Battletoads had this great area where you did exactly what I tried to mimic in Hurdles for a short while. I loved it and thought it deserved to be expanded into more than just a tiny sub-stage.

Unfortunately, I was totally bummed about the fact that Game Maker’s map size only allowed for a short level in Hurdles before it would wrap around on itself. If I had my way the levels would have been much longer. Oh well! I put the points in because after I finished it initially, I found that people would just cheat and buzz through the level on the top or bottom and avoid the obstacles. Rather than try to prevent that and make them die, I decided to provide incentive to ‘do it right’.

Something that just occurred to me is that you could have introduced a sloping section to allow the level to wrap around to the second “floor” (if you will).

RL: I totally made a level that did exactly that! But ended up tossing it out for some reason. I think it might have been possible to see the previous area you’d passed through down below or something. At any rate, it was a good idea. Now it seems so weird that that was a limitation of the game engine. But as you’ve said, part of the brilliance of GM was that it drew enough boundaries that even kids (like me) could use it and learn to make it work. And I think that problem solving is always the most satisfying aspect of programming or creating anything, so you might as well sell it as a feature!

I’ve also got to mention the sound test, which on the one hand is an awesome touch. Then one realizes that all of the music is borrowed (thanks to RSD’s weird choice of music format), so it’s… kind of funny to see this gallery for it.

RL: Wish I could remember this. I think I did it mainly as a joke. I was just tinkering with GM and wanted to try to fake a mouse pointer, so that’s what I did it for. I know the CMF’s were cheesy, but as you said, we weren’t left with many options. If it’s any consolation to you many of my later projects (not using Game-Maker) contained original scores — I love to make music too, and feel like it’s one of the most important parts of video games (and often overlooked).

It really is. So I take it you never figured out the CMF file format? I think I only know of three or four people who ever managed to write original music in that format.

RL: I don’t think I ever invested much in the CMF format. I was mainly using MOD trackers back then, and they were so much better than CMF I wasn’t really interested in figuring out more for the CMF format.

What sorts of scores did you write? These were to later games of yours?

RL: I write lots of music — I’ve played guitar and written songs, played in bands, and so on since almost as far back as my Game-Maker days! But I had so much fun writing electronic music for Blitz3D stuff too. I sometimes wish I’d tried to do that for work instead of programming & design.

Did Hurdles ever have a title screen or story? Because the version I’ve got is lacking those.

RL: Nope. I made a few other games that had stories, but Hurdles was just really about the arcade gameplay!

Have you been paying attention to recent trends in game design? A bunch of small-scale and indie games, like Passage and Braid and Pac-Man Championship Edition, have been stripping away the last 25 years of clutter, and studying how to express ideas through simple game mechanics.

RL: Yeah, I think that this new trend is so exciting. Not to mention stuff like Mega Man 9 for WiiWare. So cool. I can appreciate what people like about huge immersive games like Half-Life, but for me there’s nothing quite like playing a round of Contra, Double Dragon II, or The Adventures of Lolo. The list goes on and on! I think that there were so many great games for the NES — a lot of bad ones, but so many good ones. I play my NES more than my Wii.

I’ve been talking with one old user who has been working on porting some of his games to the Nintendo DS. Would you consider going back and tinkering with some of your old projects again? Even now Hurdles feels pretty fresh, and could maybe stand an update.

RL: Nick and I have talked about DS development and I would love to do some of that! I doubt I’ll go back to Hurdles, though. Nick and I have a few ideas for what’s next, but nothing totally solid yet! It would be pretty awesome to remake Hurdles in B3D though — and I doubt it would take long.

You can ogle at Ronald Ludlam’s current work at Studio Walljump. Alternatively, you can download his teenage work here.

If you’ve been following our Game-Maker Archive series, you may recall a swell little Metroid-style adventure called Orb: The Derelict Planet. Thrown into an alien environment, you wander vast caverns, collect upgrades, and traverse hidden passages to deactivate an ancient, killer computer. As one of the better Game-Maker games, Orb has always been a mystery. It seemed to have been developed in a vacuum, and with an unusual amount of planning. It then appeared out of nowhere on the Game-Maker 3.0 CD-ROM, the only known game by its author. After a bit of detective work we managed to track down that author, the writer and illustrator Joshua Eric Turcotte.

Hey, shot in the dark. There seem to be several Joshua Turcottes in Maine, curiously enough. Are you the guy behind Orb: The Derelict Planet?

Joshua E. Turcotte: Yeah, actually… we’re talking about the little glass-encased eyeball dude bouncing around a dozen or so sidescroller levels, no?

Right. Metroid-style level design. Very effuse text files.

JET: Hah, not sure how to take that; I made that when I was in 10th grade, and rather quickly lost all my files after the shareware CD makers I submitted it to vanished off the face of the earth (trying to call them got me a college dorm room instead.) My mind would explode a little bit to discover there was a working copy floating around out there somewhere.

Well, cracka-boom.

Your game was on the v3.0 CD-ROM, in the shareware directory. For what it’s worth, considering we’re all quite different people now, I think it’s one of the best Game-Maker games I’ve played. I don’t suppose you’ve any remaining artifacts of the time?

JET: That’s something to see; I’m almost mortified at the ‘aaalriiight’ and ‘theres another one’ sound effects, but still I’d say its not bad for a teen’s work. And no, I wish I still had stuff remaining… I’ve lost entire 3DCG shorts from my college days, too.

I know, right? There was a time when the mere presence of digitized sound seemed impressive. “ELF NEEDS FOOD BADLY” and all. I know it was ages ago, but do you have any recollection of your experience with Game-Maker? How you came across it, if you had any contact with other users, and so on?

JET: You know, I’m not sure… I recall they were based out of New Hampshire, though I don’t know if that had much to do with how I found them. I don’t even remember how the program worked, anymore. (memory is not my best strong suit.) I know I used a lot of graph paper to map out the entire project, even down to goals, benchmarks, etc, and used these to deliver the product in pretty much exactly 10 months. Thereafter I started working on a sequel which I abandoned after the first level in favor of ‘another world’ of fiction which I STILL tinker with to this day.

There is an ancient chest at my parent’s house that may contain mythical remains of productions past (including ORB, perhaps) but I did just find an oaktag folder here (work’s yanked be down to D.C. against my better judgement.) that contains another complete mapping out of an unrelated game concept called Cube; some 25 or 50 4-room levels inside of each of which is a puzzle to be solved given objects available. I may have even detailed that before ORB, and yet here it is.

Old design sketches and diagrams are good stuff. For my part, I found Game-Maker in an ad in the back of Videogames & Computer Entertainment.

JET: I suppose it is possible that I saw it PCM, but they might have gone out of business before then, I cannot recall for sure. It’s also possible that I saw some other demo/half-game made using game-maker on those old night-owl shareware CDs that I tried to get ORB put out on in turn. I recall seeing another game on the shelves once called O.R.B., though it really had nothing at all to do with mine. Made me think of it, though.

I think something just clicked, that I didn’t pick up on before. You’re saying that Orb is set within what is now a sort of larger mythos? Also, you were surprised that the game was still bouncing around out there. Were you aware that the game was included on the Game-Maker 3.0 CD?

JET: Actually no to both counts; ORB predated the new mythos, I’ve just been working on the new mythos ever since; it kinda takes various human mythologies and weaves out a plausible history to given then their ‘kernels of truth’ before extrapolating forward into our future, etc… With Earth In Mind and To Gather Stars are set in this “universe”, but one might not know that, since they are set so far apart from one another.

With Earth In Mind got written but is in dire need of real editing (before I add more by way of sequel) and TGS needs a new design doc something fierce. It takes hints from ye olde Starflight, and I see it being delivered via flash or HTML5 such that it can be plugged into Facebook or updated casually smart phones and the like (while being secretly educational and being the first real product in the setting that’s been on the back burner since ORB.)

I recall [RSD] asking if they could use my game, I just did not know how that turned out. Better than I thought, it seems… I sorta wish now that I’d handed the whole thing over to them as freeware instead.

Okay, I see. This Cube game — did you ever get around to inputting that, or did it only ever exist on paper? And how did the RSD thing come about? Did they contact you? Were you already in contact with them?

JET: Nope, never got around to inputting; it’s just miraculous to me that I still have all the designs for it kicking around in an oaktag folder, especially after so many moves… there it is, intact. Looking back I’d probably find many of the ‘puzzles’ to be more or less, you know, young-teen level, but even so.

As for [RSD], I don’t recall; I know they asked, but I’m not sure if it was after I’d contacted them about something else, or maybe even submitted it unsolicited or based on a general printed invite (if you’d like to ____ send it to ____ sort of thing.)

That’s interesting. Now that you mention it, I may recall a leaflet or letter suggesting that users send in their work if they’d like RSD to eyeball it. That would clarify some things. How extensive is the Cube documentation?

JET: Cube‘s documentation details a grid of 20×20 rooms, with 4 rooms per ‘level’ (looking a bit like Tetris pieces on the map.) Each level has a puzzle, some items, etc… and some of those carry over from level to level. So there’s a map, there’s a handwritten page for every level, every object is detailed, there’s even lists of graphics and animations needed. I’m not entirely sure this was designed with Game-Maker in mind, though it might have been.

That sounds pretty detailed, then. If you remember, was the design process for Orb at all similar? Orb’s design especially reminds of Metroid II, for the Game Boy, where you spend a huge amount of time rolling around confined spaces with the spider-ball power-up. Do you recall what games, if any, may have influenced the design?

JET: Orb was similar, yes… minus embellishment and maybe corrections along the way, I had the whole thing laid out and a series of goals that I met in about 10 months. Worked out rather well. And yes, I did have Metroid for the Game Boy (I don’t recall if it was II or not, but the opening scene with the ship on the ground seems awfully familiar to me. I do also recall the music for the ending sequence of the game was kind of haunting… wish I had it kicking around.) Other than that, I don’t identify with Metroid really… The influence had to be rather immediate. My strongest influence comes from ye olde 1986 game, Starflight, really.

When you say it had to be rather immediate, you mean you must have just played Metroid recently for it to have stuck in your head?

JET: Yeah, I had to have played that game somewhere in the same ballpark of time… or maybe not. I seem to recall having bought the Game Boy back when I still lived in the Bangor area, which would be 1991 or previous. But ORB would have gone underway in 1993.

I think the amount of planning comes through in the finished game. There are a few oddities that I’ve always wondered about, though. Why the eyball in a glass orb? And what’s the deal with the plant roots that the player can climb on, with a little difficulty? It’s almost like a secret solution to vertical navigation.

JET: I don’t recall why the eyeball; Probably came from frustration with the size of sprites in the game. Roots may have been either planned for in some spots or added later when the game physics just wouldn’t allow someone to make a crucial jump. I recall somewhere in the later levels there was one spot that really gave me a haaaard time when playing it. It was possible, but it took a lot of tries to get the jump just right.

From what you say, it sounds like you did in fact finish the full game, beyond the shareware demo. Did anyone ever register?

JET: Yeah, the whole thing was made. Pretty sure it ended up with 12 levels. The last boss was some giant computer thing with conveyors pulling the character one way or another, and clamps and spikes and such so that you had to concentrate as much on staying alive as you did on having to hit just the right part of the machine that would set off my little ‘chain-reaction’ large-(multisprite)-monster solution.

That sounds pretty great. Muti-sprite monsters were a fun kind of headache. It’s always neat to see how different people get around a system’s limitations. Aside from the demo games, did you have exposure to any other Game-Maker games besides your own?

JET: The one with the guy swimming around shipwrecks came with GM when I got it.

Barracuda, yeah. I thought I remembered that coming with Game-Maker, on a separate disk. I wasn’t sure, though. I take it you didn’t make use of the Frontline BBS? It was based in Kennebunkport, so it probably would have been a long-distance call. The guy behind that game was also in charge of the BBS.

JET: Nope; I was net-ignorant back then. No, to answer an earlier question, I never got anything back from the game. I set off a copy to [RSD] and a copy to what was then called ‘Night Owl,’ a shareware CD maker… that was the last I heard about ORB till you. Like I said, I’d almost rather have sent the whole package off as freeware.

Hey, I might as well ask — before I dredged all this up again, when’s the last time that you thought about Game-Maker, or Orb?

JET: I don’t think I’d thought about Game-Maker since I got into my new ‘universe’ really; though I probably thought about ORB maybe once or twice a year since then. I saw another game hit the shelves once with a similar name, so I couldn’t help but think of it then… Early 2000s, I’d have to guess.

Have you looked at any other design tools, like Mark Overmars’ Game Maker? (No hyphen.) That’s a kind of hot thing in the indie development scene these days.

JET: I’ve really not spent any time looking at any game design engines lately. In some ways, probably because I expect my requirements to be so different that no engine is up to it. TGS 1st draft I doubt will be all that amazing LOOKING, but if one thing has become evident in recent years, game mechanics trump graphics. If it takes off an earns its own revenue, then I can worry about making it look like EVE Online or something like that. First, gameplay.

We do seem to be passing a threshold where people are finally getting over the visuals, even adopting low-tech presentations to affect a certain style. Have you been paying attention to the sort of deconstructionist designs that have been popping up lately, like Pac-Man Championship Edition and Braid?

JET: Granted, I do like visuals… EVE for example is very pretty… but it also has good game mechanics. I keep going back to things like Civ3, though, due to mechanics more than visuals. Game’s gotta be fun, first. And no, I’ve really not paid anywhere near enough attention to anything related to my aspirations, largely because the day job takes its toll. If I ever want to wrest myself of it and do this stuff full time, though, I probably should delve more, rather than just daydream, doodle, and occasionally tinker. TGS, for example, needs the ORB/CUBE treatment in terms of design documentation.

Portrait provided by Katherine Morgan. You can browse some of Joshua Turcotte’s portfolio at Deviantart.

["The Backbone of the Indie Industry" is a new feature series where we talk about, discuss and interview the general support structure/people covering the indie developers.]

The indie development community is one that is filled with all sorts of developers, artists, programmers and dreamers. These are the people who keep the indie “industry” running. However, while those guys may be the primary cog, there is a significant amount of support that’s been lain in place in recent years to help indies out. One such support structure is indiePub, a new indie community that was born out of the ashes of 2Bee Games.

We were lucky enough to be able to ask them a few questions and Terence Lee, the community manager, was all too happy to answer our questions in great detail.

Before we begin with the official interview, can you explain who you are and what your primary tasks are at indiePub?

I am Terence Lee, an indiePub alumni – I won the first Community Favorite prize for my prototype Storm – and now I am running the website as the indiePub Manager. I make sure the website heads in the right direction and that the community is happy.

Now you guys used to be 2BeeGames, when did the indiePub transition begin? What was the motivation to launch indiePub as opposed to retaining your former name?

IndiePub is still in its infancy – we have big ambitions and are taking steps to build our community and reputation. Changing our name was one of these steps: we felt that the name ‘2Bee’ didn’t make sense for our long term goals. We wanted something that better defines the site and the community.

Has the name change transition been smooth? Are your community members happy with the new name and website?

The transition was a bit rocky; we had so many big ideas and struggled to bring them all to life in a short time period. However, at this point we have stabilized quite a bit and we are happy with where we are at and where we are headed. I think the community likes the new name, although they don’t get to enjoy the great ‘bee’ puns anymore.

What is your primary goal for the website as a whole?

Even something as diverse and open as the overall indie game community can sometimes feel exclusive and intimidating. We want to be a place where anyone interested in game development can learn, collaborate, and engage themselves in a community of people with the same goals.

IndiePub is running a number of contests primarily aimed at developers. Aside from the prize can you explain a little bit more about what you offer the winner? For example, do you opt to publish the game, or support it afterward, or is it a simpler process whereby your just picking the winner?

Publishing deals are not limited to our winners; there are a variety of deals in progress right now and we will announce those soon! The deals we offer are separate from the contest decisions. We have done publishing deals with games not even in a contest, and to games that were entered but didn’t place in a contest. It’s a great opportunity for every developer on our site, knowing that all their games are always up for consideration. We know that not all developers are interested in publishing opportunities, so we try to be respectful of that and we welcome them all equally.

How is a winner chosen at indiePub? Do you guys have experts from the field (if so can we know who?), or is it merely based on your own criteria?

Our judging panel consists of indiePub staff, indie developers such as the team at Strange Loop Games (currently working on the IGF finalist Vessel), former indiePub contest winners, and some industry experts such as John O’Connell, who led the creation of the Indie Game Challenge, and Mark Seremet, co-founder of Take2 Interactive and CEO of Zoo Games.

We played through all 150 games (whew!) and narrowed it down to a list of semi-finalists for each category. Then we all discussed in depth which semi-finalist should win the category prize, and voted for the winners. We based our decisions off of the game concept, visuals, audio, design, execution, and innovation.

Speaking of contests, how is the current crop of developer contests going? Is there anything you can/want to share about the various games that have entered so far?

The finalists for our third development contest have just been chosen. It wasn’t easy! There were so many awesome games and the final decisions took a lot of time and deliberation. We are happy with our final list and we’re taking the developers to GDC Online in Austin, where we’ll be revealing who won which award.

You recently branched into mobile gaming contests. Why did you guys offer a mobile competition in the first place and what advantages do you see in the mobile space that lead to your inclusion of it?

During our submission period for the traditional development contest, we found that there was some interest in having a separate contest for mobile platforms. Traditional and mobile games have significant differences in their user experience and scope that we felt it was most fair to judge them within the same contest. The mobile contest is still currently active, and we’re looking for submissions!

You guys seem to spend a lot of time attracting developers to your site in order to have them show off their game to your users. How do you go about attracting developers?

At this point, our contests are the main attraction: $100,000 is a lot of cash. However, we want it to be about more than the money, so we’re currently building out some features that’ll help keep indiePub to be a bustling community even when contests aren’t running.

What, in your opinion, is the most difficult part about running an all encompassing community such as IndiePub?

Indie developers are very diverse: they are from different countries, speak different languages, develop for different platforms, and have varying levels of experience. Yet, the biggest difference is that everyone has a different goal: some are out to share deep artistic insights; some are focused on building a business; others are just starting out and seeing if it’s the right path for them. It is difficult for us to reach out to all these groups without diluting the experience. Our goal is to be a community for all independent developers, so this is one issue we are working hard on.

Finally, where would you like to see IndiePub be in a year from now? Five years from now?

In one year we want indiePub to mature into a valuable resource for developers: it’ll be a place where you can find people to test your game, make money through contests and other financial opportunities, and find ways to connect to the rest of the industry: publishers, the media, and consumers.

Five years from now is a long time. Many parts of the industry will change significantly, especially (and because of) the indie game movement. Our goal is to become a part of that movement and help steer indie games to become the dominant medium of 2015 artistic culture.

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A huge thanks to Terence for not only taking his time to answer our questions, but to also help us kick off this series where we’ll be speaking to prominent members of all sorts of support structures.

If you are interested in indie games, and, more importantly, wish to enter your game into a contest I highly recommend checking out indiePub.

[indiePub]