We talk Raiders of the Broken Planet with Game Director and MercurySteam co-owner Enric Álvarez25/4/2018  Raiders of the Broken Planet's outlandish design has had us enthralled since the episodic adventure began late last year, so naturally we jumped at the opportunity to interview the team behind it. Game Director and MercurySteam co-owner, Enric Álvarez (@Enric_Alvarez), answered the call and joined us to discuss the game's inspirations, community, future and much more!
With a successful track record for handling legendary third-party properties (Castlevania, Metroid), what prompted MercurySteam to strike out on an independent project? We are immensely proud of the games we have created for both Konami and Nintendo (you could say MercurySteam is the only true Metroidvania studio!), but Raiders of the Broken Planet is a passion project, and those kinds of projects demand nothing less than total creative freedom in order to keep their essence intact. Working with publishers in the past has made us better game developers, and we are now putting that expertise to use in Raiders of the Broken Planet. "We are immensely proud of the games we have created for both Konami and Nintendo, but Raiders of the Broken Planet is a passion project, and those kinds of projects demand nothing less than total creative freedom..." This is the team’s first independent venture - one with a large budget (relatively speaking) and plenty of eccentricities - do you feel like you're taking a bit of a risk? Risk is like fear: Most people in the industry want to move away from it and that is a perfectly reasonable action to take. However, can you imagine, Indiana Jones running from danger instead of facing it? What a boring movie Raiders [of the Lost Ark] would have been! Maybe the first - and right - question to answer is how confident are you in your own ideas and how capable do you think you are in making those ideas happen. Depending on your honest answer to those questions, then you can properly judge the real risk you are entering into… We felt confident that we could make something exceptional that people would be interested in, despite the risks. Whilst the team have been active in optimising the game for storefronts (rebranding the free starter campaign, releasing bundles), they’ve been even more committed to in-game updates. How important is it for Raiders to keep evolving over time? It’s not only important - it’s essential. Raiders of the Broken Planet is an ongoing game, an evolving project. In order to keep the community engaged, you need to update the game regularly. That not only involves launching new campaigns, characters, weapons and skins on a regular basis, but also adjusting the game to your community’s tastes, constantly tweaking and rebalancing characters and missions as they get affected by the new content we add to Raiders of the Broken Planet. As Raiders’ continued support has illustrated, you take feedback from the community very seriously. Just how important are players and critics in shaping a game under continued development? Community feedback is the base of the game’s evolution. The best part of the radical redesign that accompanied the third campaign’s launch was a direct answer to the fans’ feedback, potentiating what they liked and getting rid of what they didn’t. We are in contact with players every day, interacting with them on Twitter, Facebook, the official forums or in Discord, and the advice they offer is absolutely brilliant. We can say that Raiders of the Broken Planet is a better game now thanks to them. Enric discusses the changes implemented in Raiders of the Broken Planet's recent redesign, which you can read our thoughts on here. Microtransactions are currently a hot-button issue within the industry; from an independent developer’s perspective, just how much has their implementation impacted the project? For example, could the ticket system (which allows players to join friends on premium missions they haven’t purchased) exist in their absence? Microtransactions are part of most videogames nowadays. We have included them mainly to acquire cosmetic character skins that don’t affect the player’s performance in the game. But our business model is based on offering premium content for a very reasonable price – 9.99€/£/$ per campaign. We also gave away a sizeable part of the game for free, with the Eternal Soldier campaign, as well as introducing the ticket system and the Mission of the Week to allow them to invite friends to give those free to play gamers more freedom and options to explore the Raiders of the Broken Planet world and decide if they want to invest more on it. With recent changes to the game’s ecosystem, namely halving the cost of every character, has that changed at all? The introduction of the new progression system has been incredibly well received by the community. Characters are now unlocked as part of said progression, depending on the player’s level. That sets goals for the player to plan their advance through the game, always having something new to achieve. Halving the in-game currency cost of every character was also something our community demanded, and we happily obliged. How do you feel the audience response towards Raiders has changed over the nearly seven months since it first launched? Raiders of the Broken Planet has a really strong, committed and proactive core of fans who have been involved with the game since the early beta process. They have seen the game evolve since we launched in September 2017 and kept on playing even if they didn’t agree with all the design decisions that we took. Now, with Hades Betrayal’s launch and the new redesign, they feel that their opinions are being heard, and that we take these very seriously when deciding our next moves and how we’ll take the game forward. Raiders of the Broken Planet is now their game as much as it is ours. "[Fans] feel that their opinions are being heard, and that we take these very seriously when deciding our next moves... Raiders of the Broken Planet is now their game as much as it is ours." Can you give us a taster of what to expect from Council Apocalypse, the fourth and final premium campaign in the current Raiders season? Council Apocalypse will be the final campaign of Raiders of the Broken Planet's first season. Harec and his band of Raiders will be pitted against the Fifth Council, the most calculating and technologically advanced of all the factions fighting for the control of the Broken Planet. As it happened with the previous campaigns, there will be a new Raider to recruit from that faction, Valeria. She will be vital to put an end to the Council’s insidious plans. Similarly, can you offer any kind of hint as to what to expect after Council Apocalypse? Post-campaign cutscenes have offered some tantalising glimpses into the Broken Planet’s past - could we be in for a prequel season? Once the players complete Council Apocalypse, the whole picture of the post-credits sequence will be revealed. Is it just an echo of the distant past, or does it have something to do with the future of the Broken Planet? Only time will tell! Are there more Antagonists or Raiders on the dev team, and who’s the most popular character for each role? There are an alarmingly high number of Antagonists in the studio. I guess we all like to vent off steam by playing the bad guys and ruining each other’s games! Until recently, Lycus was the character of choice for playing the Antagonist, but Doldren seems to be very popular these days - his special ability to sneak behind his enemies’ backs is just perfect for that role! Thanks to MercurySteam's José Herráez, and, of course, Enric Álvarez for taking the time to answer our questions! Keep an eye out for our upcoming Hades Betrayal let's play, and be sure to enter our giveaway for a chance to win one of five Raiders of the Broken Planet - Ultimate Edition PS4 keys by clicking the banner below. The Ultimate Edition bundles all of the episodic shooter’s standalone campaigns alongside five exclusive skins, with now being the perfect opportunity to get involved, as the package is set to exit digital storefronts stage left next week.  Talk to Me | aPriori Digital20/2/2018  Welcome down to another of our indie dev chinwags, this time with the fine folks at aPriori Digital. Based in Bristol, the team have just released their first game, an old-school shmup called Aperion Cyberstorm.
What inspired you and your team during the development stage? The initial inspiration was the resurgence of couch co-op games like Towerfall. What we’ve found interesting is during development that style of games fell away for more online-based games, yet having recently showcased Aperion at EGX Rezzed, it seems they’re making a comeback!  "You have to be a little mad to work in the games industry, but I think it’s fair to say most games devs are a little mad anyway." Can you tell us about your team at Apriori Digital? The team are all graduates of the Game Technology degree at the University of the West of England, and it was through that course that we all met and decided to form a company. We’re all in the South West of England, with an office in Bristol. Aperion Cyberstorm is our first major title. How difficult is it for indie developers in this current market? Can you take artistic risks and still make a profit? Are shows like Rezzed beneficial in helping you find an audience? I would say it’s as difficult as it might be for indies in the music or book industries, in the sense that a lot of the time the thing you’ve poured your soul into isn’t going to bring in the big bucks. Sometimes you may find it won’t make anything. For a lot of indies, it’s a question of whether they would still make games if it wasn’t going to earn them enough to recoup costs. You have to be a little mad to work in the games industry, but I think it’s fair to say most games devs are a little mad anyway. What advice would you give to someone looking to work in the video gaming industry? Network. Go to events, socials, anything where other game developers might be. But here’s the key part: stay in touch. Don’t go expecting to land a job or a contract straight away. A one-and-done email is more likely to end deleted than responded to. Follow up on the people you meet. We’ve contracted people for work that matches their skillset two years after we met them at events like Develop. We remember them because they would keep in touch every once in a while. Understand that instant success isn’t a reality for 99% of developers. We spend a lot of our time working on contracts, and that’s the same for other devs. You’ll tend to find that the success stories are littered with a string of previous works that didn’t do as well. As an example, I’d recommend this talk by Jake Birkett about a decade of game making without a ‘hit’. Where do you think the industry is heading - is VR the future in your opinion? I wouldn’t say it’s the future, in the same way I wouldn’t say a particular platform or genre is the future. It’s another flavour of gaming, like augmented reality. VR’s working wonders for training in the engineering and medical fields, but I feel like it is still trying to find its legs in the gaming space. I hope it’s a success. What game(s) have had the biggest effect on your life, and why? Metal Gear Solid 2 – Holy bejebus, the back half of this game! I went in knowing nothing about it, so when the ‘Colonel’ went loopy it scared the crap out of me. I hadn't played the first MGS at the time, so the fourth wall breaks (like being told to turn the console off) left a massive mark on me. The game's almost prophetic at this point with its focus on the control of information context. Also, because Sons of Liberty in the UK came with a documentary on the making of the game, it was the first time I got to see how the sausage is made, as it were. At that point I knew what I wanted to make my career. Eternal Darkness – Much like MGS2, Eternal Darkness’ biggest draw for me what the fourth wall breaks, using the game against the player by ‘deleting’ save data, loading the map upside down and dropping the volume on the TV. I loved traditional gameplay – I’m a sucker for the FPS genre – but challenging player expectation in the way that MGS2 and Eternal Darkness did is something I would love to explore. Bloodborne - It was on sale, and people raved about it, so hey why not, right? Holy crap, this is one of the greatest games ever. The risk/reward gameplay and sheer speed of it is something I never knew I wanted. I wasn’t into the Souls games as much, but I’ve spent over 100 hours in Bloodborne, and I have no intention of stopping. Time will tell what kind of mark it has left.  What does the future hold for Aperion Cyberstorm & Apriori Digital? Right now it’s coming to Steam and Wii U. As for other platforms, well, we’ll see. We have plans for our next title which is a bit of a departure in several ways from Aperion Cyberstorm, and we’d love the chance to bring it to its fullest potential. As a studio, we also work with other companies on their projects, whether games or other kinds of software, so if you’re looking for help on a project hit us up! If you were on a desert island (it has power) and could only take one console, what would you take, and why? PlayStation 2. I mean, *that* library. I could spend most of my life playing through its back catalogue, then work my way through the PS1 library! Thanks to aPriori Digital for taking the time to talk to us. Aperion Cyberstorm is available now on Steam, Nintendo Switch and Wii U. If you'd like to learn more about the game, check out our review.
Talk To Me | iFun4All14/1/2018  In our first Talk To Me interview of 2018 we sit down with iFun4All’s Jacek Glowacki to chat all things Serial Cleaner, VR, desert island PCs and visits to West Germany - enjoy!
 What inspired you and your team during the development stage? We had a lot of different inspirations, but you must know that Serial Cleaner's concept was evolving before the game became what it is today. What we tried to achieve (and hopefully we have), was a "inverted Hotline Miami" kind-of game. We loved Hotline Miami and played a lot of it, but we didn't want to just copy most of the gameplay solutions and add one twist. We wanted to figure out something unique and original. Hence we've decided that it was going to be a game about cleaning up after a killer. So, if I'm to enumerate gaming inspirations, I'd say Hotline Miami and Party Hard, which, in my opinion, is also amazing! But there are the 70s too of course - terrific decade, very colourful, dynamic and revolutionary in so many areas... We adore the 70s, but we adore the decade even more when we look at it through the eyes of great movie directors, like Quentin Tarantino. We always like to say that Serial Cleaner is "Pulp Fiction meets Hotline Miami." Our art team searched for inspirations by studying thousands of photographs from the 70s, but also Matthew Lyons’ paintings. So, as you can see, we were inspired by a lot of pieces of art. Can you tell us about your team at iFun4All? iFun4All S.A. was founded in 2009 by Bloober Team - an indie development studio, responsible for such great games as Layers of Fear and Observer. At the beginning iFun4All was to become Bloober's mobile division to expand Bloober's activity. Hence we started off by making premium titles for iOS, such as Red Game Without a Great Name and Green Game: TimeSwapper, which were later ported to PC, PS VITA and Android. Later on the company's philosophy changed, because the new CEO had started implementing his vision. We switched to PC and consoles as primary platforms and started working on Serial Cleaner. In the meantime the company went public, we found investors and signed a global publishing deal with Curve Digital. The development team has expanded and we moved from a beautiful (but too small) house into a new office in Krakow, Southern Poland. It all happened in just couple of months and we're ready to open a new chapter in iFun's history. How difficult is it for indie developers in this current market? Can you take artistic risks and still make a profit? Two words of introduction: I'm the head of business development at iFun4All S.A. and before I joined in September 2016, I worked as a business developer at Techland Publishing, where I moved from Onet, the biggest Polish information service, where I worked as a gaming journalist. Hence I've been observing the development of the gaming market from three different perspectives: a journalist's, publisher's and now developer's. Regarding your question, the market is completely crazy. Extremely competitive, more and more costly, and super risky in terms of ROI, in constant need of more skilled and talented specialists, but with almost no entrance barriers. Working in the gaming industry is a dream come true to many people around the world (including myself), but it's always stressful, yet exciting; always changing, but in some areas remains constant. If I was to use one word, describing the industry, it would be the word "paradox" (in no relation to the Swedish developer and publisher :D). Still, of course you can make profit, while taking a purely artistic approach, but nowadays your chances for success are really low. Behind one super successful story of an indie developer hide thousands and thousands of stories of failures or, in the best case, average performance. And developers should be aware of that, while pursuing their dreams. "...the market is completely crazy, extremely competitive, more and more costly, and super risky..." With that in mind, are shows like Rezzed beneficial in helping you find an audience? Now, when it comes to fairs and events, I believe that they are perfect places to be, but not really to build the audience (if you're a debuting indie studio with new IP), but rather to get some priceless feedback (from journalists too - and you can meet a lot of people, who'll be reviewing your game after launch) and simply collect bugs for free :). That's where fairs are most helpful. Of course I'm sure that companies like EA or Activision take a very different perspective, but they are swimming in a very different ocean! What advice would you give to someone looking to work in the video gaming industry? Oh, that's easy! My advice is: make games. It's the best way to get into gaming industry. Develop your skills in your favourite area and look for opportunities. That's pretty much it I guess :) Where do you think the industry is heading - is VR the future in your opinion? Definitely VR has been a hot topic for some time, as well as AR and I'm sure they'll remain hot, because a lot of very rich companies have spent billions of dollars to buy and develop the technology - so they'd love to get their money back and earn some more - but I'm not the biggest fan of VR to be honest. From time to time I suffer from motion sickness, the gear separates you from the world around you (which is very frustrating when someone knocks on the door or you have a dog/cat/small child), the visuals are average - compared to modern PC's - there's not enough fluency etc. So, I observe VR with curiosity, but I think that we need to wait for next generation headsets to be sure if that's the direction we'll be taking as the global industry. For now I wouldn't be very excited about the VR, but rather about new, potential markets we can expand to - China is not new, but has still a lot to offer to companies, who are ready to cooperate with companies, which understand the business relations there. Africa is pretty much terra incognita to Western companies, due to lack of infrastructure and poor economic situation but it's a huge land with millions of passionate gamers and very talented game developers. The same can be said about the Middle East and it's no accident that Tehran rises to be the capital city of the gaming industry in the region. Business development is very much about sales and I'm doing my best to build relations in the regions I mentioned above, because I believe that signing agreements there is a real deal right now, while it's important to observe trends and be ready to shift the company in the right direction in the future. What game(s) have had the biggest effect on your life, and why? I've been a gamer since I was 5 and I made my first trip to a non-Communist country - Western Germany, where my grandmother lived. Munich in 1989 was an entirely different universe to a Polish boy. There were lights everywhere, huge malls with all the products you could've imagined, stores that were only selling toys, there were escalators and many other wonders I've never seen before. For Christmas I got the NES with 2 games: Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2. Later I also got Dr. Mario and I remember my dad playing it the whole night. So Mario was the first character who showed me the beauty of video games, one might say that it was him who made me who I am today! Of course there were many games I fell in love with later on - I've learned that I love strategy games and good stories - but Mario was the first and probably the most important gaming character in my life. What does the future hold for Serial Cleaner & iFun4All? We're working very hard to minimize the risk of not knowing what the future brings! But, seriously, our industry is so dense and every single day there's another surprise waiting on Twitter... It's almost impossible for an indie studio to know for sure whether we will enter a successful path or not. But, of course, we have targets we want to achieve after a year, three and five years and we're using every tool possible to make them come true. Obviously, we have ideas and are working on some projects that are still unannounced that we're very excited about, but in this industry you can never be sure about the next hour, not to mention the next 12 months or more! If you were on a desert island (it has power) and could only take one console, what would you take, and why? I'd take my PC. Why? Because 99% of games I love are on it, PC gives the best possible visuals (and as long it supports a controller, I can "emulate" playing on console too :D), PLUS, you didn't mention if there's Wi-Fi on the island, so if there's a risk I won't be able to log into my PSN account, I pick Steam and its offline mode! Thanks to Jacek and the rest of the iFun4All team for chatting to us. Serial Cleaner is available now across all major platforms - so you have no excuse not to play it!
Talk To Me | Thunder Lotus Games27/9/2017  We recently sat down with acclaimed indie developer Thunder Lotus to discuss their latest game Sundered (which I bloomin’ love - check out the review), the difficulties of turning a profit in an oversaturated market, the power of conversation, PC emulators and more. Enjoy!
 Can you tell us about your team at Thunder Lotus Games? We're a small team, around a dozen people at the peak of each project. We're based in Montreal, Canada. The company was founded by Will Dubé, a young veteran of a now-defunct mobile game studio (Sava Transmedia) here in Montreal. Back in 2014, Will left Sava with the goal of bringing an indie game to Kickstarter. In a few months, he had recruited most of the core team from his old colleagues at Sava, and other friends that had some experience among the AAA devs that pepper this city. That core team would go on to produce our first game, Jotun, in September 2015 - and the same core was on-board for Sundered as well! How difficult is it for indie developers in this current market? Can you take artistic risks and still make a profit? It is difficult, and only getting more so. The golden age of indies, where just releasing a game on Steam or Xbox Live would almost guarantee a profit, has long since ended. It's definitely no longer enough to simply make a great game. Great games are now coming out weekly. We would suggest that it's almost impossible to expect a viable product unless you take risks, artistically and otherwise, so that you (and your potential audience) can take one look at your game and identify what is unique about it.  "Strike up a conversation with a dev at a game con, or a local indie meet-and-greet, and you'd be surprised what professional opportunities might come from it!" What advice would you give to someone looking to work in the video gaming industry? It's not a hard industry to break into, at least in a city like ours, where a solid core of AAA devs have bred a healthy indie scene. It's staying profitable, so you can keep making games, that's the real challenge. But if you're just starting out, don't know where to begin, you just need to go out and meet people. Indie devs are by far the most approachable creators I've ever seen, speaking from experience, having worked in the music, movies, and TV industries. Strike up a conversation with a dev at a game con, or a local indie meet-and-greet, and you'd be surprised what professional opportunities might come from it! Where do you think the industry is heading - is VR the future in your opinion? Tough to say. VR doesn't seem ready for mainstream prime time in its present form; maybe next generation, once it credibly evolves beyond on-the-rails-lower-res-FPS-ports, prices come down, and some unanimously praised revolutionary killer apps start appearing. In the mean time, it looks like more of the same for the industry over another two or three years, just with slightly better resolution and HDR. What game(s) have had the biggest effect on your life, and why? Strictly personal response here, but the games I played obsessively when I was young basically fused themselves to my DNA, and still define "fun" for me in their specific genres: (in no particular order) NHL 94, Wonder Boy III, Ultima V, Revenge of Shinobi, Civilization I, Pirates!... I could go on. What does the future hold for Sundered & Thunder Lotus Games? Most any news will be revealed when the time is right. Anyone who followed the Sundered Kickstarter knows that we have some DLC planned for the game, but our lips are sealed as to what and when it will be. Meanwhile, prelim work on our next project will begin in parallel - but it will be a while before we're ready to give any details! If you were on a desert island (it has power) and could only take one console, what would you take, and why? No single console would keep me from missing the others terribly. I'd cheat, and bring a PC that could emulate as many of the classic machines as possible. Thanks to Rodrigue at Thunder Lotus for talking to us. Both Sundered and Jotun are available now - go and check them out!
Talk To Me | The Dangerous Kitchen17/7/2017  This week we talk to The Dangerous Kitchen, creators of the recently released one-button smash-a-thon, De Mambo, about all things Nintendo, VR and the rigours of being an independent developer. Enjoy!
Four player local multiplayer is the main mode of play in De Mambo, but we’ve really worked on our Solo mode, refusing to just make a single-player mode for the sake of it; it could almost be its own game with the amount of stuff we’ve packed in. What inspired you and your team during the development stage? This is always a tough question for us, as we are highly inspired by the day to day random moments that just so happen to occur near us, like a teabag in a toilet, or an old man vehemently obsessed with stealing our seats for who knows what reason, but I digress. Smash is the obvious inspiration for De Mambo, but there are so many more such as; Mario, Wonderful 101, Earthbound, Suda51, Orson Welles, Jodorowsky, Frank Zappa, Mortal Kombat, Space Dandy — and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.  Can you tell us about your team at The Dangerous Kitchen? The Dangerous Kitchen is comprised of three people, who met at university, casually decided to make games and then tripped up so much that they eventually landed in the peculiar position of having actually made a game. That’s our origin story movie pitch, but to answer your question in a more typical fashion, we’re based in West London and sometimes work from a hotel lobby. Previous experience includes, advertising, concept art, web design and most importantly, lots of game playing. How difficult is it for indie developers in this current market? Can you take artistic risks and still make a profit? Are shows like Rezzed beneficial in helping you find an audience? Well personally I don’t think artistic risks and profit are mutually exclusive or necessarily in correlation. If you want to make a true artistic risk it can’t be because of how much you’ll profit, otherwise it becomes a business decision. A true artistic risk has to be done with no desire to succeed and no fear of failure in an ego-less vacuum where imagination is unbound. Money has no place there. "A true artistic risk has to be done with no desire to succeed and no fear of failure in an ego-less vacuum where imagination is unbound..." I personally hold the idea that being indie doesn’t mean you are lesser than say EA or whatever. We’re both making games. In fact we’ve got it better than them when you think about it. Being in a team of three means that business, games development, art, sound, social media, all of these are shared responsibilities that we all have a say in. I’ve learned about all of these in my team of three which is more than a guy in a team of 700 would have working exclusively on ceiling textures, right? So what I’m trying to say is that it’s going to be difficult for anyone in a crowded market, so you have to just focus on making the best game you can make, regardless if it’s indie or not. And yeah events are great as you can forge some great bonds with all the people you meet. Some of the fans we’ve amassed during events really helped us out when we did our Kickstarter as an example. What advice would you give to someone looking to work in the video gaming industry? Use what you have and just do it. Have fun and try not to focus entirely on things that other people do and have done, focus on you and only on what you or your team can possibly create. There’s no point in doing what others will do, well unless you want money in which case ignore what I say, but I’m not saying this to sound pretentious. I just want to see new and interesting things done in gaming, so I’m counting on you hypothetical reader! Where do you think the industry is heading - is VR the future in your opinion? The potential for VR is crazy, but I’ve abstained from actually trying it out yet as there is no software I feel I absolutely need to experience. I was actually really interested beforehand to see what kind of impact it would have on the industry, but after PSVR it seems like nothing much has happened. I think at present we are in uncharted territory, as this is the first time we’ve had mid-generation console updates and a true handheld/console hybrid, so it’s difficult to say. If the Switch is super popular, will Sony and Microsoft attempt a similar concept? Or will the industry shift to become more phone-like with consoles having incremental updates every so often? I think there’s no clear picture of where the industry is heading at this current time, but later in the year it should become clearer. Lets just hope someone invents Smellovision™ soon so we can really move the industry forward into the future it so desperately needs.  What game(s) have had the biggest effect on your life, and why? Earthbound changed me. It’s hard to explain why but there’s something truly special about it. I have more nostalgia for that game than things from my own childhood, which is crazy considering I played it in 2013. Then there’s No More Heroes. I love Suda51. Love. NMH was fantastic because it introduced me to a lot of interesting media and my personal spiritual father, Alejandro Jodorowsky, but also taught me a lot about the power of imagination. There’s countless other games such as pretty much every Mario and a lot of Zelda and Metroid and Nintendo stuff, and more obscure stuff but if I keep going, I’ll never stop! What does the future hold for De Mambo & The Dangerous Kitchen? After we finish De Mambo Switch, we’re going to create some more content for updates and work on the PlayStation and Steam versions. Once that’s over, hopefully lots of pizza! That’s why we’re doing this. De Mambo was made to fund our insane pizza lust. All joking aside, The Dangerous Kitchen’s future is to continue making gameplay focused games that delight and stupefy in equal measures. If you were on a desert island (it has power) and could only take one console, what would you take, and why? Very tough question, but it boils down to two options. The Wii U has Smash Bros 4, its own library, the virtual console and the Wii backwards compatibility, so I’ll be sufficiently stuffed with great games. The other option is purely based on how I feel right now at this very moment… the Switch with Breath of the Wild. Thanks to Lucy and Shaun from The Dangerous Kitchen for taking the time out of their hectic schedules to talk to us. The Nintendo Switch version of De Mambo is available now.
Talk To Me | Rain Games16/5/2017  We sat down with Norwegian indie developer Rain Games to discuss their latest action-adventure game, World to the West, the work of Jules Verne, taking risks and Pokémon Blue - enjoy!
What inspired you and your team during the development stage? We were inspired by a lot of different things while developing World to the West. The Zelda series is a pretty big influence, particularly A Link to the Past for the Super NES. We also took some cues from Secret of Mana, which was also originally released for the Super NES, and has recently re-released for mobile devices. Since we set the game in the same universe as Teslagrad we naturally also took a lot of inspiration from the world building we did for that game. There are also a couple of characters from Teslagrad that make their way over into World to the West. We’ve also liberally taken inspiration from real history. We looked at the Aztec and Inca religions and the colonisation of America, as well as some of the more insane British explorers. The works of Jules Verne and William Golding also played a role in our writing process, which I’m sure you can spot if you play the game. Indiana Jones also played a part in inspiring Teri, one of the four playable characters.  Can you tell us about your team at Rain Games? We started Rain Games in the Norwegian city of Bergen back in 2010, a couple of years after the Norwegian government announced it would start handing out grants for video game development. The first year we had a budget of roughly 3,000 pounds and an office without heat, which I’m sure you can imagine is rather unpleasant during the Norwegian winter, where temperatures often drop below freezing. Our first game was Teslagrad, a 2D puzzle-platformer originally released on Steam in 2013 before making its way to PlayStation 3 and 4, Xbox One, Wii U and the PlayStation Vita. Our team came from all kinds of different places, like TV, theatre, physics and IT as well as straight out of university, which meant we had to break a lot of new ground. How difficult is it for indie developers in the current market? Can you take artistic risks and still make a profit? Being an indie developer certainly isn’t easy. The most difficult thing is probably to get funding, find a publisher, that sort of thing. Once the game is finished, we definitely have a market willing to buy. You can absolutely take risks, and are probably more rewarded for it. If you take no risks, and don’t invent anything new, nobody will be interested, and you’re competing with a huge amount of games, both old and new, in your genre. If you take a risk, and invent something new, people have a reason to look into your game, and if you can surround that with a solid framework of tried and tested mechanics you can absolutely make a good game. "You can absolutely take risks, and are probably more rewarded for it. If you take no risks, and don’t invent anything new, nobody will be interested..."  What advice would you give to someone looking to work in the video gaming industry? If you want to work in the video games industry you need to have passion and drive. You have got to be prepared to work harder than everyone else, and for less pay. If you’re serious about that, learn a skill that is relevant for making video games, but also in other professions. Whether that is writing, programming, design, animation, accounting, management or something else, learn it, get good at it, and focus your skillset towards digital media. Where do you think the industry is heading - is VR the future in your opinion? We think of VR as a new form of media, and we’re under the impression that it still has lots of room to grow. That said, no new media has managed to completely supplant old media yet, so we don’t expect VR to make any other parts of the industry obsolete any time soon, even if it might eat some market share. What we think would be really interesting is if VR managed to evolve into AR. If you could free VR from the blinding effect of the headset and take it further away from your home we think you could make a lot of interesting things. "If you want to work in the video games industry you need to have passion and drive. You have got to be prepared to work harder than everyone else, and for less pay..."  What does the future hold for World to the West and Rain Games? We are currently laying the foundations for our next game, which we will start work on as soon as World to the West releases, and we have a small team working on a VR game in the same universe that I can’t talk a lot about. In the long term, we’ve seen that we spend roughly three years on a title, a development cycle we’re pretty happy with. However, three years between each game is a long time, so we want to expand to the point where we can have three different teams working on separate titles in our universe, so you might eventually see us release a game every year. While not sequels to each other, they would have character overlap and a constantly progressing story. We’re thinking along the lines of what Sir Terry Pratchett did in his Discworld series. What game(s) have had the biggest effect on your life, and why? For me, World of Warcraft, Dragon Age: Origins and Pokémon Blue probably had the biggest and most distinct effects on my life. Pokémon was my introduction to video games, and I spent countless hours in it growing up, collecting, breeding, beating and growing. World of Warcraft gave me a place to be myself in my teenage years, a chance to interact with different people from all over the world and a sense of mastery. Dragon Age reminded me how amazing RPG settings can be, and rekindled my love for exploring new creative universes after I’d spent probably seven years just playing WoW and RTS games. If you were on a desert island (it has power) and could only take one console, what would you take, and why? I would probably take the PS3. It was the console I had when I was a teenager, and I really enjoy a lot of it’s library. With MotorStorm, The Last of Us, all the current Dragon Age titles, the BioShock series, the first three Mass Effect titles, Dishonored, Demon’s Souls, Infamous and so on I should be able to amuse myself for a good long while. Thanks to Vincent, Thomas & Mariela at Rain Games for talking to us. World To The West is available now on Xbox One, PS4 and PC - check out our review here.
Nindies | A Wii U Post-Mortem23/4/2017  With Nintendo’s worst-selling console (bar the Virtual Boy, of course) now six feet under, we take a look back on the Wii U's life with some of the independent developers that kept the console ticking, during its infamous game droughts.
 With those games in mind, who better to ask about the much-maligned Wii U than their fair creators! We’ve been fortunate enough to speak with Jools Watsham of Renegade Kid fame (Mutant Mudds), Thomas Tyssoy from Rain Games (Teslagrad, World to the West), Knapnok’s Anchel Labena (Affordable Space Adventures), Rodrigue Deperron of Thunder Lotus (Jotun, the upcoming Sundered), Rhys Lewis of Squarehead Studios (Star Ghost), and Asier Quesada and Arturo Monedero from Delirium Studios (The Rivers of Alice, The Delusions of Von Sottendorff). Enjoy! What was the Wii U like to develop for? Rain Games: We’ve built all our games in Unity, so in most regards it hasn’t been very different from developing for other platforms. The primary challenge has been in porting, and figuring out how to reduce the amount of RAM we use to fit the Wii U. Knapnok Games: Wii U was a super exciting machine to work on, it opened up opportunities for creating games that weren't really possible on other consoles. Delirium Studios: Well, 3DS was rough for programming. Let’s say it is a machine that requires lots of skills if you want to reach a high visual and technical performance! For The Rivers of Alice port to Wii U it was completely the opposite, apart from some audio conversion problems, Unity - we previously developed the game with this engine – allowed us to port the game from PC to Wii U reporting few tech-related problems. We had to redesign the game to make it compatible with the Wii U gamepad screen though.  Were Nintendo helpful/encouraging of your project? Squarehead Studios: Yes absolutely. They were kind enough to feature Star Ghost on the eShop and they also promoted the game on leaflets included with physical titles. Considering it was a tiny one man, self-published title, I don’t think I could have asked for more. Thunder Lotus Games: Nintendo did indeed offer much support for the development of Jotun for Wii U. It was important for all concerned that our game (as well as other indies due to release last fall) be available in time for a Nindies promotion Nintendo had planned for September. Jools Watsham: Yes, it was always great working with the team at Nintendo. They were very supportive of our efforts on the Wii U. "...it was easier for us to get visibility on the platform compared to other mainstream alternatives as fewer games are released for the Wii U, making it easier to stand out." Did you ever worry about releasing a game on a console with such a small install base (comparatively speaking)? Rain Games: Not at all. While the Wii U has a small install base relatively speaking, we were never in a position where the smaller pool of potential players would negatively impact our bottom line. Teslagrad actually did pretty well on the Wii U, and we think part of that is because it was easier for us to get visibility on the platform compared to other mainstream alternatives as fewer games are released for the Wii U, making it easier to stand out. Knapnok Games: Not really - you always need to scale the cost of your project to match the potential gain on the platform, and we managed to scope the project relatively well so we didn't have to sell hundred of thousands of copies to break even. The advantage of making something on a less crowded console is that you have a much higher chance of standing out. Squarehead Studios: Not really, though perhaps in hindsight I could have given it a little bit more thought! One of the attractions for me was that although the market has been small, it is composed of highly passionate and knowledgeable gamers. From a developer's perspective, it is very rewarding to be able to connect with the kind of people that really care about what you’re doing.  What are your thoughts on the Wii U now its time has come to an end? Thunder Lotus Games: It's hard to strike a resoundingly positive tone when speaking of the Wii U. Truly, there were some stellar gaming experiences to be had on the system, but in retrospect, I believe Nintendo never adequately communicated to gamers why they should want the console, nor to devs what manner of unique experiences they wanted to offer on the console. It seems to me that the story of the Wii U is one of unrealized potential - though what precisely it had the potential to ultimately become is up to debate. Knapnok Games: I think the Wii U was a great platform that tried a lot of different interesting things. One of the core problems of it was that many of these things were contradictory: the GamePad had a touchscreen which is great, but if you wanted to support the pro controller you couldn't utilise the touchscreen. The secondary screen is a really cool feature, the option to continue your game on the GamePad if someone else wants to use the TV. It was cheap to buy Wii Remotes so you could easily make multiplayer games, but then you couldn't really support the thumb sticks of the other controllers. All this gave the feeling that no game was truly designed for the Wii U - because no game could hit all the unique selling points at once. Delirium Studios: In my opinion, with the new Zelda, Wii U has said goodbye in a more than dignified way. I suspect that many have dusted their consoles off and have given it a small chance again. There are great games for Wii U, and we keep selling on this platform, so (hopefully) it will last a little bit longer! Rain Games: The Wii U was a strange beast. Now that the Switch is here, it feels almost like a prototype or proof of concept by comparison. The Wii U’s unique parts, like the nun-chucks and gamepad are just done in such an improved form on the Switch! The Wii U had plenty of fun games, particularly in terms of multiplayer that a lot of us have thoroughly enjoyed.  What are your thoughts on the Switch? Will you be developing games for it? Squarehead Studios: It’s a nicely restrained and well-considered design. Nintendo often throw curve balls into their hardware that can leave you scratching your head, wondering how to take advantage of the quirks whilst also maximising the potential of your game. The Switch looks focussed, with characteristics that seem to cater well to the kinds of games that Nintendo fans want to play. Of course, only time will tell and the age old question of whether Nintendo can keep their pipeline full of new and interesting software is going to be key. I think it would be good for the industry if they can continue to define a viable middle ground, somewhere between snack sized mobile gaming and the massive AAA machinery. Jools Watsham: The Switch seems to address many of the mistakes Nintendo made with the Wii U in terms of unique features and messaging. We are currently developing for the Switch. Thunder Lotus Games: I think our initial collective reaction to the Switch here at Thunder Lotus has been as gamers first and foremost, gamers that have each grown up and grown through various generations of Nintendo hardware both portable and stationary. So our reactions have reflected some genuine love of the Nintendo brand (even if that love may have lapsed for some in the Wii U generation): we're all excited to see how great an experience Nintendo can craft with the Switch, now that they're working from what is visibly a clearer and more viable concept of how a living room console can also be portable. We can certainly imagine our games eventually finding a happy home on the switch. We'll see what the future holds in that respect.  There you have it, chums; the Wii U dissected by the developers that made its games. As we open up the console to check its organs for the cause of death, it seems clear that, from a developer’s vantage point, the Wii U was not only easy to make games for, but a comparative lack of competition actually helped to stand out from the crowd. It was, however, tricky to use all of the unique features the console boasted - something Nintendo themselves failed to do. As one of the thirteen-odd million people that bought a Wii U, I part ways with mine having felt confused and disappointed, though, critically, entertained. I’ll cherish it for the wonderful Zeldas, Marios and Splatoon, as well as the fabulous indie games. That said, the Wii U actually played a large part in putting me off investing in Nintendo’s future - a reliance on gimmicks and churning out the same core franchises has severely impacted the love we once shared. The current lack of games on Switch (bar two great titles already available on Wii U in Mario Kart 8 and Breath of the Wild) only proves that Nintendo haven’t learnt their lesson. I can only echo Rhys Lewis’ sentiments that the gaming industry needs Nintendo firing on all cylinders to fill the middle ground left vacant by Microsoft, Sony and mobile phones. Whether they manage that, only time will tell. Until then, I’m off to drop some flowers on the Wii U's grave. Goodnight, sweet Prince. Thanks very much to all the developers that spoke to us for this article, we look forward to playing more of your games soon!
This week’s giveaway is for a copy of Forma.8 on Wii U; the game is a new take on the Metroidvania genre from Italian indie developer MixedBag, so be sure to get your entries in here! Talk To Me | Makin Games31/3/2017  With EGX Rezzed currently ongoing, we thought we'd sit down for a chinwag with one of our favourite devs from last year's show, Nic Makin. Our topics this week include upcoming beat-'em-up Raging Justice, Street Fighter 2, VR and the getting shipwrecked with the Dreamcast!
 What inspired you and your team during the development stage? Raging Justice came about from a shared passion for the good old 2D brawler, we felt as a genre it'd fallen out of favour, so we wanted to bring it back! As a result, our inspiration was first and foremost the greats from yesteryear; Vendetta, Final Fight, Streets of Rage 2, and Double Dragon. Not only that, we've taken direct inspiration from modern games such as God of War, Bayonetta, and Sleeping Dogs. Can you tell us about your team at Makin Games? Makin Games is a micro company based in the Midlands, just Anna (my wife) and myself (Nic). Anna looks after the business and promotion side, allowing me to focus on development. My previous experience includes a 10 year stretch at Rare, then periods with Sony and Codemasters. We are collaborating with a couple of guys I worked with at Rare, to make Makin Games' first title, Raging Justice. Jay Howse is our art guy, everything from; the level backdrops, to the characters, and every weapon, has been designed and built by Jay. For audio, we're working with Steve Burke, an amazing composer and sound designer, who helps bring the game out of the screen and into the room. "we definitely think that it's important to look to a niche you feel passionately about when developing an independent game..." How difficult is it for indie developers in this current market? Can you take artistic risks and still make a profit? As Raging Justice is due to be released I can't comment on profit, but we definitely think that it's important to look to a niche you feel passionately about when developing an independent game; find something you can do well, something under represented, and give it your all.  What advice would you give to someone looking to work in the video gaming industry? The gaming industry is a very tough nut to crack, but it’s worth it. My advice would be to work hard, be persistent, and make sure you finish what you start. Where do you think the industry is heading - is VR the future in your opinion? VR is one future, I doubt it'll be mine (I've experienced motion sickness every time I've tried it!). I expect VR to be more of an experience, a ride, rather than mainstream gaming. At the moment VR is expensive and doesn't work 100% of the time. I'd expect it to become a good sized niche like motion controlled gaming now is. What game(s) have had the biggest effect on your life, and why? Oh, tough one, probably Street Fighter 2. I fell in love with this game back in the arcades and played it on (almost) every possible console since. The characters, the balancing, the competitiveness, it's such a great game. What does the future hold for Raging Justice and Makin Games? Right now Raging Justice is everything, we're pushing to complete it, release it, port it, and update it with anything that didn’t make launch. With our first update we intend to add online multiplayer to Raging Justice, but I've also a list of alternate modes and tweaks that I may add too :) The list goes on and on! If you were on a desert island (it has power) and could only take one console, what would you take, and why? Console... probably the Dreamcast, as a stand-alone machine it had so many awesome Sega games on it! Thanks to Nic for talking to us - for all things Rezzed and Raging Justice, keep your eyes on PTC.
Talk to Me | Ant Workshop5/12/2016  Back in April we were fortunate enough to give rock-hard puzzler Binaries a go at EGX Rezzed. We’ve been talking to its creator, Ant Workshop, about the game, VR, modding and Hollywood - enjoy!
What inspired you and your team during the development stage? Binaries came about mainly because I really like games like Super Meat Boy and n+, but I’m awful at them. There are a few genres like that, where I really love the idea of them but I’m just terrible - skateboarding games are another. Anyway, I figured I could either put a lot of time into mastering someone else’s game, or I could make my own and be good at it because I would know the layouts of all of the levels, and I could tailor it more to my skills. That’s why Binaries is a bit slower paced than the immediate references, I wanted something that people like me could slowly figure their way through, rather than something that’s based heavily on keeping your momentum going. The idea for the colour scheme came about from an old blog post, I can’t remember where, about how Hollywood was too fixated with colour grading its films and posters to blue/orange. Having two characters I needed a pair of colours that were really distinct from each other and they fit the bill perfectly!  Can you tell us about your team at Ant Workshop? So, I’ve been in the games industry since I left university in 2000, it’s basically the only full time job I’ve ever had - I went straight into a level designer role based off a portfolio of Quake, Half-Life Counter-Strike maps I’d built in my spare time (when I should have been studying, probably). In my time I’ve worked at about half a dozen companies, including a number of Rockstar studios, and a stint for ActivisionBlizzard’s mobile. After 15 years I had too many ideas built up for things I wanted to play that weren’t getting made, and decided to do the indie thing. Ant Workshop is based in Edinburgh, which is really great because Scotland has a really strong local development scene and everyone’s very supportive. We’re a small company - it’s basically me and a bunch of collaborators that I’ve met working at previous companies. "I think games are in a pretty great place right now - no matter how you like playing stuff or what your lifestyle is, there’s a gaming device that suits..." How difficult is it for indie developers in this current market? Can you take artistic risks and still make a profit? How helpful are shows like Rezzed in creating buzz, and more importantly, sales? I think it is tough to get visibility on your game. The flip side of tools becoming so much easier to use and consoles opening up to smaller developers is that a lot more games are being released and competing for attention. Unfortunately this is happening at the same time as websites are finding it harder to generate revenue so there are fewer writers covering stuff, and a lot of the bigger sites are doubling down on covering stuff they think will get a lot of hits. So you end up in this chicken-and-egg situation where you have to get coverage to prove that people will be interested in articles covering your game. Thankfully this is where youtubers and the like come in, they’re generally a lot better at covering smaller stuff. We’re also seeing Valve gradually making changes to Steam to make the front pages a lot cleverer in how they show each individual player stuff that’s relevant to them. Personally I’ve found consumer shows great for chatting to players, and if you have a game that’s at the right stage of development they’re invaluable for getting feedback. I’m not sure they’re great for driving sales though - the numbers just don’t stack up in terms of how many people could actually play your game over a 3 day event. What advice would you give to someone looking to work in the video gaming industry? I would imagine the free availability of professional-quality tools now is brilliant for folks wanting in. Like I mentioned, I had to make maps and mods for other games to prove my abilities - these days there’s nothing stopping you making a full game in Unreal, Unity or GameMaker, and you’d have an amazing portfolio piece to show off. Where do you think the industry is heading? Is VR the future in your opinion? I think VR is very cool, I still struggle to see it being totally mainstream. I think games are in a pretty great place right now - no matter how you like playing stuff or what your lifestyle is, there’s a gaming device that suits that. I can’t really see everything moving back to a situation where there’s one strongly dominant format. What game(s) have had the biggest affect on your life, and why? This is tough! So Quake and Half-Life undoubtedly got me my actual “in” to the games industry, but the machine that really cemented my love for games was the Amiga. It just blew me away what could be done on that machine. I’m not sure I could pinpoint an exact game on it though, there’s so much choice!  What does the future hold for Binaries & Ant Workshop? Having launched it on Xbox One, PS4, PC, Mac and Linux this year, I think we’re pretty much done with Binaries at this point. I’m really happy with the game, and players have been really enjoying it, but equally I’ve put so much energy into it that I need to step back and leave it for a bit (I do have a title for a sequel though - Binaries 10). Ant Workshop’s currently working on two new games - one is a mobile single touch “runner”, where you hop from planet to planet escaping an exploding sun. The other is a twin-stick shooter that’s sort of a combination of Luigi’s Mansion, Nuclear Throne, and the film Die Hard. If you were on a desert island (it has power) and could only take one console, what would you take, and why? It’d be a toss-up between the Xbox 360 and the PS4. Possibly the latter would just edge it out as I’ve only just started on Fallout 4 so that would keep me going for a long time! Thanks to Tony at Ant Workshop for talking to us. Binaries is available now on Xbox One, PS4, PC, Mac & Linux.
Curious to hear our thoughts on the game? Then it's a good job we took it for a quickie! Talk To Me: Mad Fellows' Paul Norris28/8/2016  We talk to Mad Fellows Creative Director Paul Norris about upcoming musical rail-shooter Aaero, being an indie developer, lying down in darkened rooms and the spacious accommodation offered by the original Xbox.
What inspired you and your team during the development stage? The music is the heart of the game and listening to thousands of tracks to find ones that inspire compelling gameplay ideas is where the process for a new track starts. I also play an embarrassing amount of games when I’m not developing. Even if it’s just a clever little trick someone has used in the UI, a sound cue or a visual effect, there’s always something you can learn from playing other games of all genres. (At least that’s what I tell myself when I’m playing The Division and ARK when I really should be working on Aaero). "A cult classic indie game is likely to be very lucrative… a cult classic AAA game is likely to be an IP that gets canned due to poor sales." Can you tell us about your team at Mad Fellows? We’ve been a team of 3 people for the majority of the development. Myself and Dan Horbury founded the company in 2013 and made a mobile game called SineWave. We then brought Kostas on board to produce the art for Aaero. I’ve worked with Dan for about 15 years now, first at Codemasters and then at FreeStyleGames/Activision. We’ve worked on lots of racing games like Colin McRae Rally and Race Driver then on Guitar Hero (from GH:III Legends of Rock onwards) and the DJ Hero games. How difficult is it for indie developers in this current market? Can you take artistic risks and still make a profit? It’s not easy. If you take your foot off the pedal for a second you’ll get left in the dust. It’s certainly the case that indie teams take more risks with the sort of games they produce, the reason for this is two-fold in my opinion: 1) AAA games cost tens of millions to produce and therefore there isn’t much room for innovating too much and risking it bombing. Indie teams have smaller budgets and therefore can afford to release something that is a bit more niche. A cult classic indie game is likely to be very lucrative… a cult classic AAA game is likely to be an IP that gets canned due to poor sales. 2) Indie teams have to do something innovative to get noticed at all. I’m sure there’s a load of indie developed Call of Duty and Warcraft clones but you don’t hear about them, they don’t have huge marketing budgets and they just get lost in all the noise. The first Slenderman may get noticed but the thousands of clones that follow will likely not, unless they do something really special to the formula. You can’t compete with the big studios on their own ground so the only option is to think outside the box.  What advice would you give to someone looking to work in the video gaming industry? I think there’s a lot to be said for working at one of the big studios for a bit. You get to learn all sorts of things from them in relative safety and you take home a steady wage in the mean-time. It’s been a trial by fire founding a company, securing funding, marketing etc. etc. Trying to do that while also learning to actually develop games would probably be a bit too much. I mean… “How the hell do you register with the IRS to sell games digitally in the U.S. and also these polys go weird and the mapping breaks when I use Boolean union” would have broken me. That’s probably just me, though. My actual advice is be very honest with yourself, be realistic but also don’t listen if people tell you that you can’t do something that you’re pretty sure that you can. What they’re actually telling you is just that they couldn’t do it themselves. "Don’t listen if people tell you that you can’t do something that you’re pretty sure that you can. What they’re actually telling you is just that they couldn’t do it themselves." Where do you think the industry is heading - is VR the future in your opinion? Even though I had to lay in a dark room for about 2 hours to recover from the DK1 rollercoaster demo, I’m really excited about VR. I’m not sure how much it will replace standard gaming but I’m sure it has a very important place alongside it. It’s like anything new, first we need to put absolutely everything we can find into it, then we’ll work out what is actually better in VR and it’ll be another exciting option for developers. We’re excited about getting into it and have a few of the dev kits here ready to go (we need to finish Aaero first though so they’re just very fancy hats for the time being). What game(s) have had the biggest effect on your life, and why? I’ve been trying to write this for a while now but there’s too many to list… bullet point time!
If my life ever flashes before my eyes it’ll have a HUD and a mini-map on 98% of it.  What does the future hold for Aaero & Mad Fellows? We hope to get to a point where we can do more game dev and less ‘biz dev’. We’d like to grow a bit in terms of team size but still keep everything small, indie and super-efficient so we can afford to take risks and try new stuff. If you were on a desert island (it has power) and could only take one console, what would you take, and why? The original Xbox. It is the only console that can provide both heat and spacious accommodation. Thanks to Paul for talking to us! Aero currently doesn't have a release date, but keep an eye on PTC for updates.
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