Getting To Know Your Developers

SuperVillain Studios – Getting to Know Your Developers interview feature [GTKYD]

by GamingBits on March 5, 2010

Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake is about to debut on the Sony PSP, from game developer SuperVillain Studios. It’s just recently gone gold and here to give you a little introduction to Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake is Chris Rausch, from SuperVillain Studios. Chris shares how SuperVillain Studios squeezed the Fat Princess experience into the PlayStation Portable format, gives some tips on the game, and some tips on a career in game design as well. Without further ado…

Please introduce yourself and tell us what you do in the gaming industry.
Hi! My name is Chris Rausch and I am the Chief Creative Chiefing Chief at SuperVillain Studios. Basically I’m an overblown game designer.

What game were you just working on or have recently released?
Our latest project to be released is Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake for the PSP, which is due out very soon! We’re currently hard at work on a second PSP title that we have been working on for several months, which is due out later this year. And we’re always working on various pitches and demos as well, trying to make sure we can keep the electric bill paid.

Can you give us a synopsis of the game? What type of game would you say Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake is or to whom will it appeal to?
Fistful of Cake brings the excellent Fat Princess game to the PSP and expands it, since the online PS3 market and the handheld PSP market have some distinct differences. Sony loves the game and wants to make sure they make it available for all of the Playstation fans. Fistful of Cake has all of the features of the PS3 game, and lots of new content, including an expanded single player campaign, new levels, new character creation items, new game modes, and some other new surprises.

If someone missed out on the PS3 release of Fat Princess, will they be able to pickup Fistful of Cake fairly easily?
Absolutely! I’m really excited with how well our team was able to wrap an identical play experience onto the PSP.

For those that did play Fat Princess on the PS3, how does this tie into it?
The play mechanics, weapons, tactics, look and feel are all intact! The expanded single player campaign takes the player to some new locales to meet some new characters as well, but it’s all well within the popular Fat Princess world. There are also some new game modes and rule sets for familiar players to check out, giving them new ways to play something that they know they are already fans of.

Can you tell us some of the unique features in the PSP release versus the PS3 release?
The PS3 version focuses primarily on the multi-player aspect of play. On PSP, you have a much larger single player and on-the-go crowd. To that end, we beefed up the single player campaign quite a bit. It incorporates several of the new levels and new game modes along the way. We also have included an extensive list of multi-player options as well, and all can be played via both ad hoc (local) and infrastructure (online) modes.

When you bring a game over from a robust home platform on the PS3 to the PSP, how do you decide what features to keep?
We basically start at the top and evaluate each and every core feature and how it was implemented on the much stronger PS3 platform. Then we decide the order of importance (look, feel, features, etc.) and start tackling everything. We prefer to have an answer for all of the features, and if something just can’t be done on the PSP, we offer an alternative. We always strive to not just cut things completely.

What would you say is the biggest challenge in getting a game on the PSP platform?
Memory and processing power. The PSP has much less memory available than the PS3, and certainly isn’t powered by cell technology. Even games that may look simple on PS3 tend to use all of that power under the hood. We rebuilt the game from the ground up on our own Automaton game engine, so we paid a lot of attention to detail in creating the same look and feel.

How many players and what sort of multiplayer modes (adHoc/Infrastructure) are supported in the game?
Multiplayer matches support up to 24 characters, with 8 of those being human. We support both ad hoc and infrastructure modes. The game itself has all of the game mode available on the PS3, and a few new ones, like Jail Break (capturing jail towers to free your comrades and bolster your headcount), Grim Reaper (a 1 vs. 7 stand alone mode on its own map, ala soccer), and Demolition (a mode in which each team is trying to deliver a huge bomb to the other side’s throne room).

Any hints or tips you can share on Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake?
Never go it alone! If you’re going to take a run at the Princess, grab a hat, grab a bomb (upgrade the worker hat machine) and gather up a balanced posse (warrior, archers, and a healer).

From your personal experience, any tips you have on landing a career in game development?
Wow, that’s a tough one right now. I’ve been in games for almost 17 years, so the climate was very different when I got in. Schools are offering some really worthwhile courses in game development these days, but make sure that the instructors have relevant experience to pass on. We look a lot to the local art institute, and have brought in several folks from programs like Full Sail and Animation Mentor. Competition is super tough right now, with the downed economy and several studios closing or re-organizing. But if it’s what you want to do, stick to your guns and keep pursuing a spot. There are lots of different avenues to explore in gaming right now, like casual games, traditional games, indie games, and so on. So make sure your search is nice and broad too. You can learn a lot from working in any of these places and they all vary wildly in how they operate, but they all are looking for talented and motivated team members.

Switching to your personal gameplaying habits, what are some of your game influences?
My influences go way back to arcades, Intellivision, Atari, Pong, and so on. I’ve been a videogame-head since I was a kid. I still tend to grab every “retro” collection that comes along, and for me, the games still hold up really well, probably based a lot on nostalgia, but also a great respect for making something so fun out of practically nothing. These days I have been focusing a lot on the more artistic and polished efforts. I really dig stuff that doesn’t subscribe to the same 3rd person armored space marine routine. There’s certainly room for the better games in that category too, but stuff like Castle Crashers, Shank, Little Big Planet, Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet (name?), and…Fat Princess (PLUG!) tends to draw me in quickest.

What game(s) are you currently playing?
It has kind of been all over the place for me. Uncharted 2 (man is that game impressive), and I’ve played some Wii Sports Resort, Ghostbusters (couldn’t resist), gone back to God of War II, Scribblenauts, and a bunch of the IGF stuff (I’m on the judges panel). I’m kind of all over. I rarely hunker down and commit to games long enough to beat them anymore, I just want to consume everything and take note of the stuff that I like the most.

What is next for you at SuperVillain Studios?
We’re working on a really exciting PSP title right now that I hope we can reveal very soon. We’re also currently working out what’s next for the Fistful of Cake team, so there is plenty going on!

Anything else you’re itching to tell us?
Well, I have this rash…oh wait…wrong interview. You said “itch” and I jumped the gun. ;-p\

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Thanks to Chris Rausch and SuperVillain Studios for making this interview possible! Keep a lookout for more details on Fat Princess: Fistful of Cake and
SuperVillain Studios at svsgames.com.

For more of our game developer interviews, look here.

Sabarasa – Getting to Know Your Developers interview feature [GTKYD]

by GamingBits on March 3, 2010

Game developer Sabarasa stops by for this GamingBits Getting to Know Your Developer [GTKYD] feature. Sabarasa is a DSiWare and WiiWare game developer as well as publisher. They are about to release a new Nintendo DSiWare puzzle game in North America, Save the Turtles. Sebastián Koziner, a artist and Project Lead at Sabarasa, shares his experience in making Save the Turtles, some insight on game development and his game influences. Read on for some interesting bits from inside Sabarasa!

Please introduce yourself and what you do in the gaming industry.

My name is Sebastián Koziner, I’ve started in the industry a few years ago here at Sabarasa making art for games like Mazes of Fate, but I’m currently working as Project Leader. The company itself was founded back in the 90s and is currently based in Buenos Aires and Mexico City with over 80 employees working on several retail and digital distribution projects.

What game(s) are you currently working on or have recently released?

We are working on a nice line up of WiiWare and DSiWare titles, but our most recent one is Save the Turtles for DSiWare that has already been submitted to Nintendo and currently awaits a release date. It’s a cute puzzle game with time management mechanics that tasks players with the survival of baby sea turtles.

Do you consider Save the Turtles to be a "serious game" for kids (a bit of educational/learning with entertaining gameplay)?

The game certainly contains information about different kinds of sea turtles and the dangerous process they go through right after hatching, but to call it “educational” is a bit of a stretch. We focused on making a really fun and addictive puzzle game first without being heavy handed about the ecological message we wanted to get across. I think subtlety goes a long way when trying to get a point across.

What was one of the biggest challenges in developing Save the Turtles?

Fortunately we had previous experience with the hardware and our team is composed of very talented people, so the technological part was not a big hurdle. I would say the hardest part was fine tuning the gameplay for it to be accessible but not easy and later hard but not frustrating. Tapping the full potential out of an idea is always the most difficult job.

What is one of your favorite things about Save the Turtles?

Everybody seems to love the cute baby turtles and the cartoonish graphics, but to me it’s the addictive gameplay that seals the deal. Through play testing we had a lot of people approaching the game like it was something for kids, only to be sucked away into the game for hours. Apparently, it touches some of the more obsessive-compulsive parts of the brain; people can get really neurotic about saving turtles!

Was Save the Turtles developed specifically for the DSiWare platform?

Oh yes, when we sat down we were thinking specifically about DSiWare. Since we were already developing for WiiWare and have previous experience with the DS, DSiWare seemed like a natural market to dive into. We are even handling publishing duties for both digital distribution partners and it’s been an incredibly rich learning experience so far.

Do you see Sabarasa bringing Save the Turtles to other platforms?

It would be great for Save the Turtles to be a hit on DSiWare and pave the way to multiple versions of the game. But to be honest, the current design would only work with touch sensitive devices, so we would have to play a lot with the core gameplay in order to make versions on other platforms. For the moment, we rather focus on experiences tailored for each platform.

What would you say is the biggest challenge in getting a game on the DSiWare and WiiWare platform?

We were already certified developers for both systems, but I imagine a lot of indie developers may have some tough time getting that certification. The good thing about Nintendo is that geography is not an issue for them and you can get that certification literally anywhere. Other platform holders have a lot of legal restrictions that you can’t get past if you operate in a developing country like ours.

Does each region of Sabarasa work on a different game, or is a game developed across the different regions (US, Argentina, Mexico)?

While the core teams for each project are divided between the two studios, we really benefit from the opinions of the other guys across the continent. In a way, no single project is done completely without the help of some of the people from the other studio. And it’s been a great experience so far. It allows us to look at projects from different perspectives and to draw from a more varied pool of talent and points of view.

Is there any advice on landing a career in game development you could share from your experience?

Education is most certainly the way to go for a good foothold on any career, but our industry in particular is very permeable to talent and hard work. You don’t need to work for a huge company to make games; you can start by joining a mod team or doing free independent games. If you can show something good that you did on your own you can probably land a good job, even if you are still halfway through your degree.

Switching to your personal game playing habits, what are some of your game influences?

The Nintendo Classics, Pokemon, Zelda, Mario. I’ve started playing games during the 8-Bit era, so my “first love” was with all the Nintendo Classics (Mario, Zelda, and later Pokemon). Super Mario Bros. 3 for NES freaked me out back in the day and led me to do game art and that introduced me to game development.

What game(s) are you currently playing?

Right now I’m hooked on the Ace Attorney series, but I switch a lot between PC and DS. The last PC games I’ve played where Batman: Arkham Asylum and Torchlight. Back on the DS front I play every Pokemon, Zelda and Layton that gets out there, and I also do a lot of research to find great games and expand the concepts I have of what is fun in this platform.

What is next for you?

Honestly, I love DS and portable consoles in general, so the DS Team and I are already working on a new game for DSiWare. We have a lot of ideas in progress, but I can’t talk very much about it without the marketing guy killing me (Damn right! – The Marketing Guy). So, more DS for me, and I wish that all the gamers out there have as much fun with Save the Turtles as we did making it!.

Anything else you’re itching to tell us about Sabarasa and its upcoming games?

I can’t really say anything specific. We are working on some really cool things on WiiWare and DSiWare, and hope to deliver a lot of good and original games. We plan to be around in the Nintendo Shop for long time, since it’s such a great opportunity to put out quality content without much of the cost and hassle generally associated with console game development.

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Thanks to Sebastián Koziner, Sabarasa and The Redner Group for making this interview possible! See more details on Save the Turtles at savetheturtlesgame.com. Keep a lookout for Sabarasa’s upcoming games at their official website, sabarasa.com.

For more of our featured game developer interviews, look here.

Getting To Know Your Developers – Republic of Fun

by GamingBits on February 2, 2010

Republic of Fun is a game developer you should definitely get to know, if you haven’t already heard about them. Their games are available on various platforms, including the iPhone, Wii and PC. Republic of Fun recently released the iPhone and iPod touch game, Slug Wars. Republic of Fun is also responsible for the addictive Tiki Towers, available on the iPhone and WiiWare. They have a vision (and Manifesto) that sees the gamer, and game creator, in everyone. Seeing no boundaries between labels such as "hardcore" and "casual" gamers, Republic of Fun is on a mission for creating games with fun in mind.

Read the GamingBits interview below with Mike Rasmussen, President of Republic of Fun, and Rett Crocker, Lead Game Developer, for some insight on their experience, how pricing can shift how games are received, the importance of "crowd-sourcing," and what Republic of Fun is planning on next.

Who are you and what do you do in the gaming industry?

Mike: My name is Mike Rasmussen, I’m the President of Republic of Fun. We’re a small game studio that has done some Wii games, PC games and iPhone games. We just released our second iPhone game called Slug Wars. I have about 14 years of experience in the game industry. Most recently I was at Real Networks where I headed up their console publishing business.

Rett: I’m Rett Crocker, and I’m the creative guy, or game designer, of the bunch. I’ve been in the industry since 1991. I’ve done games across all possible genres, from advergaming, console, mobile, and lots of web games.

Is there any one platform you start developing on and then translate over to another?

Rett: It’s dependent on the project. In the case of Tiki Towers, we designed that initially as a Wii game and that got ported over to the iPhone. In fact, it’s a pretty different game on the iPhone to the Wii. The Wii version is 3D, there’s the gestural interfaces that you use on the Wii. The version on the iPhone is straight up 2D and it’s a simplified interface. Interestingly the iPhone version is more popular than the Wii version.

Do you have an estimate on how many units of Tiki Towers were sold on the iPhone versus the Wii?

Mike: The history on Nintendo consoles is that first-party games do really well and everybody else really flounders. We hoped that it wouldn’t be the case with WiiWare, but it ended up being the case. On the iPhone we almost hit the top 10 with Tiki Towers. We were number 11. It’s still selling pretty well. It’s currently .99 cents on the App Store. When [Tiki Towers] was at the peak, Real Networks raised the price to $4, and then it just tanked. We would have been in the top 10, and probably did even better, if they just left the price at .99 cents. So there’s really strong price sensitivity, especially on the iPhone.

Rett: Even on Xbox LIVE Arcade and WiiWare, the price sensitivity is very apparent. When you release a game for $10 versus $5, that’s a pretty small difference in terms of the size of people’s wallet. People will say "oh, what a rip-off, that game should have been $5 instead of $10," we see an even more amplified version of that on the iPhone where a $2 game will get ripped because there is another game that is similar to it, but not as good, for .99 cents.

What about bringing iPhone games to DSiWare or PSP minis? Have you considered those platforms?

Rett: We have. We’re considering doing Slug Wars as a PSP mini. Doing it for the DS, maybe we’ll do it, maybe we won’t. Frankly it’s not really on our radar, because the iPhone is such a powerhouse at the moment. And it is so easy to develop for.

Can you give a rundown of how a game goes from its initial concept to delivery?

Rett: All games are the same, except if their for existing IP, or branded games. Those are a different animal. You come up with a concept. Once you got the concept you go through this stage of design where you work out the details of how it actually plays or figure out the game mechanic. Every game designer is different. The way that I work is always make these little paper tests, where I basically turn each game into a little board game. Once you got that stuff worked out and a pretty firm concept, the result of that is the game design document that becomes the bible for the team. At that stage, the artist do the art, the programmers do the programming, and the writers write. At the end it hopefully culminates to something that is a working game. The next stage is the tuning process, where everybody plays the game a lot and tries to figure out how to make it better and make it feel right for someone who is a beginning player and someone who is an advanced player. That process takes a bit of time. Eventually you go through all the Q/A cycles, until you ultimately release a game.

Is the Q/A process like a focus group?

Rett: Yes and no. The tuning and Q/A process is this interesting mix. There’s a lot of people in the game industry nowadays that use this project management process called SCRUM. For Slug Wars, for instance, we had this mammoth session one day where me and several other people were trying out different things in the game. We would change the power of this unit versus that unit. For example, the Tank Snail was too powerful so we changed him into something less powerful. Then we’d all play it for a little while. Most games, it is a focus group of the team, but then you also have beta testers and Q/A people. Additionally, [Republic of Fun] has a different approach to game development where we might have a large community outreach. Over the course of our development process, we’re constantly pushing out concept art, early prototypes, videos of the gameplay. Way before you would normally show it to people.

Mike: So that was actually a really interesting process with Slug Wars and sort of a departure from the way that games are normally made, and something that we’re pretty excited about. Rett mentioned the normal game development process. Well, with Slug Wars we didn’t even create a game design document. It was a simple enough idea that within a few days Rett had a prototype up and running. We spent most of the time getting feedback from the community and tweaking the game and making it look pretty. It’s a much more enjoyable process than typically where you just have this giant game design document that can get kind of cumbersome sometimes.

Is that what you call "crowd-sourcing"?

Mike: Absolutely, that is one thing we’re really excited about. We think that there is some potential there to generate some ideas from the powers of the crowds. There’s a couple of different levels of crowd-sourcing that we’re looking at. All the way from just letting people submit their ideas on YouTube and getting people on Facebook to come and vote, to what we did with Slug Wars. We came up with the initial idea in Slug Wars. We would crowd-source elements of a game like Slug Wars throughout the process. If you go to our Slug Wars Facebook Fan Page, you can see the results of this right away. We put everything up about Slug Wars on our fan page. Sketches, animations, logo designs. Everything went up there. We’re looking to formalize that and have that on our actual website.

Did you guys feel that Slug Wars may have shifted from what you thought the game would initially be?

Rett: Slug Wars is a kind-of simple enough concept that it stayed pretty true to itself. The community pretty obviously got what we were going after. I never felt that people were suggesting that we completely change the game or do anything really different. As we do this process more, I’m sure there will be instances where the game will change pretty dramatically over the course of the development.

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Thanks to Mike Rasmussen, Rett Crocker and
Wendy Beasley for making this interview possible. Visit Republic of Fun’s official website at www.repfun.com and their official Facebook page to keep up with their latest games in development.

Getting To Know Your Developers [GTKYD] – Muzzy Lane Software

by GamingBits on December 2, 2009

Today’s featured game developer interview is from Muzzy Lane Software. David McCool, President of Muzzy Lane Software, and Ralph Gerth, Game Designer, share their insight on their work in the upcoming game, Making History II: The War of the World. Read on to find out what their experience and challenges are in creating a web-based game, their approach to games in a historical context, as well as what are some of their game influences.

Who are you and what do you do in the gaming industry?

Dave: My name is David McCool and I am President of Muzzy Lane Software. I am also the Producer for Making History II, a turn based grand strategy game we are developing and will be publishing in February 2010.

Ralph: My name’s Ralph Gerth. I work primarily as an art director/game artist but in the last several years I’ve also been the Making History game designer.

What are you currently working on or have recently released?

Dave: We are working on a number of projects at the moment. On the commercial side we are working on Making History II, a WWII grand strategy game with an innovative multiplayer solution. We are also working on Serious Games projects with a number of partners including McGraw Hill, DARPA, Health Games Research, and the Macarthur Foundation.

Ralph: We are in the process of finishing up a game called Making History II: The War of the World. It’s a WWII themed grand strategy game covering a broad variety of nation management gameplay.

What is the biggest difference making Web only games as opposed to standalone or console games?

Dave: One of the biggest challenges in making 3D games for the browser is getting access to hardware acceleration. Without that access the ability to render 3D, games is severely limited. We have developed technology that allows full 3D DirectX games to be run in a browser, including a back end service to allow multiplayer on the web. Our games can also run standalone on a PC. One difference with our engine is that we have integrated Javascript, which gives us the ability to create full hardware accelerated 3D games entirely in Javascript.

How do you like living and working in the Boston area, which has a large and growing gaming community?

Dave: I have lived in the Boston area since I came to MIT in 1982 and I love it. When we started Muzzy Lane in 2002 I was surprised to find out how many game companies were in the area, and it has only grown since then. The state has recently become very involved in promoting the game industry in Massachusetts, which really helps a small independent developer like us.

What game(s) are you currently playing?

Dave: Recent releases I have been playing include Dragon Age, Torchlight, and Solium Infernum. I also recently started playing Bioshock again – I’m hoping to finally finish it!

What is your favorite game you have every played on any console and why?

Dave: The console game that I have spent the most time playing would have to be Mario Kart. My daughters and I have played many hours and we always have a blast.

Which games are you looking forward to playing in the next year and why?

Dave: I am a big strategy gamer, so I’m really looking forward to StarCraft II, Victoria 2, and the Empire: Total War expansion. I’m also very curious to see what Civilization on Facebook looks like!

Ralph: Of course I’ll be playing Making History II but I’m also interested in Napoleon: Total War and the new Victoria II. Games that present an historical context or theme

What did you all learn from Making History I and are putting into Making History II?

Dave: Making History I was Muzzy Lane’s first game, so we learned a lot about the process of developing and publishing a game from that project. We learned the importance of settling the design early in the process and allowing enough time for content development and balancing.

Ralph: We definitely felt a need for a greater amount of game content and detail. Luckily Making History I was pretty solid as a game concept. So for the follow up MHII, we’ve been able to focus more on new features and aesthetics. The map has evolved from board-like look to a lusher 3D playing surface. We’ve also put a lot of work into crafting the nation AI to perform with more character specific qualities. The basic gameplay should still be recognizable to our current fan base except that every area of the game has received some measure of improvement.

Since you are close to your ship date of February 2nd, 2010, how long has the project taken and how many people are on the team currently?

Dave: We had a couple of false starts with Making History II, but the current project has been underway for about a year. The game team has varied but is about 6 full time developers/artists, and they are supported by our engine/platform team.

How do you plan on improving and supporting Making History II after its release?

Dave: We see Making History II as the first of a line of historical strategy games we plan to develop on our engine. Like with Making History I we will provide mod tools to the community and also release new scenarios ourselves. Since future products in the series (Cold War WWI, etc.) will build on the same codebase we will continue to patch and improve Making History II after its release.

What is next for you?

Dave: We plan to continue to release games that appeal to gamers with an interest in history. We will expand the Making History line with games in other time periods, such as the Cold War and World War I. We also plan to develop other games with similar appeal, perhaps moving into more tactical or role playing genres.

Anything else you want the Gaming Bits readers to know about Muzzy Lane Software or Making History II?

Dave: We had a couple of design goals for Making History II that we felt would differentiate it from the other WWII strategy games that are out there. First, we wanted to give players a full military/economic/diplomatic strategy game experience, not just a wargame. We also wanted to make multiplayer much more accessible and easy to use. Strategy games have their roots in board games, which were generally played by friends sitting around a table and interacting. When they moved to computers much of that was lost – multiplayer support in strategy games has been uneven at best over the years. We felt that by moving the game (including matchmaking, hosting, and notifications) to the web we could bring that back. Players can use our www.making-history.com social networking site to build friend lists, play games with them, and compare themselves against other players. The service allows for asynchronous multiplayer play, and notifies players by email when it is their turn. We feel that by taking advantage of the advances in social networking on the web we can bring a more enjoyable multiplayer experience to strategy gamers.

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Thanks to David McCool, Ralph Gerth, Luis Levy and Muzzy Lane Software for making this interview possible! See recent screenshots from Making History II here. Keep a lookout for more on Making History II here at the official website.