Now that the Summer Indie Uprising games will be hitting the market, I’m sure this list will look VERY DIFFERENT next month.
A regular Nostradamus am I. You know, I totally see why some people would accuse me of being a troll, but Christ, look what I’ve had to work with this month. The 2011 Indie Game Summer Uprising was about as successful as the Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 (which is to say, not at all) but if nothing else I hope my reviews of it provided my readers with some entertainment. Meanwhile, I learned an exciting lesson: never get excited about anything. You would think I would have learned my lesson after the Star Wars prequel trilogy, but no.
I also learned that many people (mostly crybaby developers) think the Xbox Live Indie Game marketplace is populated entirely by four-year-old girls selling lemonade for two-bits a Dixie Cup. Goodness me, I had no clue! I was under the impression that these were commercial products by a group of gaming enthusiasts who hoped to get a taste of what it’s like to produce a video game, along with all the pitfalls and perils that come with it. I guess I was mistaken.
Well I promise I’ll straighten up and play along like the mother hens who have been telling you every game that is even the slightest bit visually stimulating is an instant classic and worthy of money out of the pocket of some poor schmuck on minimum wage with a limited budget for games. Ten thumbs up and gold stars for everyone!
Ha, as if. You guys want to make products that cost real people real cash? Well man up, because your work deserves a critical look. As a consumer I don’t give a flying fuck whether you have experience or talent or whatever else you seem to lack (at this point, “thick skin” seems to come to mind). If you put a shit product on the market, I will call you out on it. And I also don’t care if that hurts your feelings. You are not children selling lemonade on the corner, so stop acting like it.
Now then, I do have the Top 10 list to get to. We had a few changes, but actually things at the top of the leaderboard have pretty much stayed the same. Let’s take a look.
The first (and so far only game, although Grand Theft Froot is in line) to receive a Second Chance with the Chick, I fell in love with the Cannon’s wacky humor and surprisingly deep action.
So apparently I was in error when I said this was a clone of Space Invaders Extreme. Instead, it’s a sequel to a clone of Space Invaders. Whatever. This game still kicks mucho ass. Sadly, epilepsy will prevent me from playing Xona’s Score Rush, which I hear is quite good as well.
Andromium gets off to a slow start, but once things ramp up you’ll find one of the most unusual and clever space shooters to come around in a long time.
The winner of the 2011 Dream-Build-Play contest is certainly a worthy champion. Awesome puzzle design and some truly quirky characters make this an absolute must buy for any fans of the genre.
Despite some issues with slowdown (that some players claim don’t exist, while others have told me they experienced the same thing) I really dug the hell out of Antipole. I played the Nintendo DSi version as well, and it’s also a winner.
I actually think TIC: Part 1 should have won Dream-Build-Play, but hopefully out-ranking the winner on my list is a small (and significantly less lucrative) consolation prize. Probably not.
I expect no Xbox Live Indie Game will ever be perfect, but LaserCat is as close as one has come yet. I think the trivia questions were part of some kind of minimum-badness requirement for the platform.
So that’s it for another month. Thank you to all my readers for making this month just as fun for me as it was last month. Month month month month month. I love that word. Thanks to all you crybabies out there for strengthening my resolve. Thanks to Brian for returning home to me. And thanks to all you developers who have thanked me for being as straight forward as I am. It’s good too see that most developers aren’t thin-skinned pussies. It makes the whiners that much more hilarious.
UPDATE: The corrected review of SpeedRunner HD is now posted, and you can read it here.
Whether people who read me believe it or not, I take my role as a game critic seriously. And like anyone who would devote this much time to their blog, I also want to be taken seriously. When I play a game to review for IndieGamerChick.com, I make the best effort to complete the game as much as possible (or as much as I can tolerate) and include all of a game’s features. It’s not going to be good for my credibility to leave aspects of a game out. And I feel it’s even worse to spread misinformation. Unfortunately, I’ve done just that.
In my review of SpeedRunner HD by Double Dutch games, I noted that I felt multiplayer was too shallow and didn’t offer enough maps. I claimed the game only had one map for multiplayer. In fact, it has five. This wasn’t due to a glitch or anything on DoubleDutch’s part, just my own impatience and stupidity. When you enter multiplayer mode for the first time, the game automatically calls up a tutorial explaining how the game is played. I actually had already explained to my playing partner the mechanics of the game, so I got a little stabby with the A button to skip the dialog. I believe doing this caused me to skip the level select screen and pass straight through to the default map, as I certainly don’t remember seeing a level select screen.
My review noted that I found SpeedRunner HD to not offer enough for its price. Well, the game has five-times the maps for the multiplayer mode than I thought. For that reason I’ve retracted my review for SpeedRunner HD and will redo it sometime today once I’m able to get a good solid play-through using the other four maps that I missed.
I want to apologize to DoubleDutch Games for incorrectly stating that your game offered significantly less multiplayer than in this. And I want to apologize to my readers for misinforming you and failing you as a game critic. Will my overall opinion of SpeedRunner HD change? Maybe. Probably not. But the amount of content contained in the game was a significant part of my critique and I based it on incorrect information. I don’t know what to say other than I’ll try not to embarrass myself like this again. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go comically bang my head on a desk a few times.
Kairi and Brian back with another edition of Indies in Due Time. These are games coming soon to Xbox Live Indie Games. Our unfiltered comments are below each trailer.
Welcome to the first installment of Indies in Due Time. I guess the idea is going to be my BFF Brian and myself will look at trailers and comment on them. Without further ado, here’s the trailers.
Update: A bonus code was drawn even though I didn’t meet my target numbers (grumble). Mr. Domenic Paolo on Twitter was drawn and won 1600 Microsoft Points courtsey of IndieGamerChick.com! It’s still not too late to enter the main drawing so be sure to keep reading!
The Indie Game Summer Uprising is almost upon us. Beginning August 22, you can start to play the ten games selected as the best of the best by the developers and by the fans of Xbox Live Indie Games. These ten games represent months, or in some cases years, of hard work, perseverance, and creativity. Three traits I know absolutely nothing about myself, so I can appreciate the efforts put forth here.
As the producers of the games selected put the finishing touches on their work, I’ve teamed with Uprising coordinator Dave Voyles to offer a special drawing in the hopes of bringing attention to the games that will be rising up on August 22. At IndieGamerChick.com, I’m going to make my best effort to have in-depth reviews of all ten games on the day of each release. And in an effort to ensure that word of each title’s quality finds its way to gamers, I’m offering a chance for you guys to score some free Microsoft Points.
Entering into the drawing is very simple. In fact, there are twenty-three possible ways you can do it. If you do them all, you would have twenty-three chances to win. How slick is that? All you have to do is follow me on Facebook or Twitter to earn one entry each. You can also earn an entry by following the Indie Game Summer Uprising Facebook page. Finally, you will receive one entry for every review of mine for an Indie Game Summer Uprising title that you retweet on Twitter or share on Facebook.
You have to be an American citizen to enter into this contest. The reason for that is the 25 digit code that will earn you the 1600 points has to be for an American console. Yea, that sucks. I really wanted it to be otherwise, but apparently that’s how the cookie crumbles. If it turns out a prepaid 1600 MSP card’s code works in other countries, please let me know so I can open this up to everyone.
But, more important than this drawing is the Uprising itself. This was a wonderful experience for all those involved. Their hard work and determination to bring attention to a neglected segment of the Xbox marketplace should not be in vain. At least demo their efforts. Try to rate them. Buy a couple of them. Tell your friends. Tell your neighbors. Write to your congressman. It’s not like he’s doing anything anyway.
The most important function of Xbox Live Indie Games is the pressure it puts on large game studios. Gamers need to let them know that if they fail to entertain us, a new generation full of energy, enthusiasm, and boundless imagination is ready to take over the industry. And the first step towards putting them on notice is making sure everyone is aware that they exist. So let’s all work together to make sure the 2011 Indie Game Summer Uprising is an unparalleled success.
TO ENTER
On Facebook, “Like” the official Indie Game Summer Uprising page located here. If you already “Like” it, you are already entered.
On Facebook, “Like” the official Indie Gamer Chick page located here. If you already “Like” it, you are already entered.
On Twitter, “Follow” the official Indie Gamer Chick page located here. If you already “Follow” it, you are already entered.
You must still be following IndieGamerChick’s Facebook or Twitter account on September 9, 2011 by 5:00PM Pacific Standard Time. At this time, a drawing will take place and the winner will be notified via Twitter or Facebook, depending on the method by which their entry was received.
Volunteers for the Indie Game Summer Uprising are ineligible to win. You must be a resident of the United States of America to receive the codes.
I actually bought No Luca No, not because I thought it had a chance of being good, but because my policy here is no demos, full version only. I had something to say to Silver Dollar. First, I needed confirmation that their latest release was as intentionally bad as almost everything else they do. Almost everything. Sometimes you guys at Silver Dollar do something like write a plot for a game that’s actually halfway compelling and it fools people into thinking you actually give a shit. You clearly don’t. Stuff like No Luca No is a prime example. It’s a game where you press the right analog stick to the right to shoo away a cat from a bowl of cereal. That’s the plot and the entirety of the gameplay summed up in one sentence. It’s neither entertaining nor does it try to be. Absolutely disgraceful.
Before I started Indie Gamer Chick, I was as guilty as most Xbox 360 owners when it comes to ignoring the Indie Games channel. In fact, I had bought exactly two games from it: I Made a Game with Zombies and Breath of Death VII. However, I had tried a few demos. As luck would have it, most of them were made by Silver Dollar Games. I didn’t realize it at the time, nor did I really care enough to find out that they weren’t representative of the entire scene. I really did assume 99% of the stuff on the channel was just total no-effort shovelware done by a bunch of glorified trolls. That was lame of me, but it’s true. And it’s true of most gamers too. Since starting Indie Gamer Chick, I’ve talked to a lot of people as far removed from the XBLIG scene as I was and a scary amount of them were turned away by the exact same thing. That’s no bullshit. That’s the God’s honest truth.
I would like to think we’re all adults here, but that’s probably giving Silver Dollar Games too much credit. They make titles with attention-grabbing names and “mature” themes and it lures people in, at least for a demo. Once they see the shoddy graphics and horrible gameplay, or that the “adult games” have dialog that sounds like a recess time conversation among third graders, they not only quit the game, but they leave the entire channel. I know it’s true because I did it once, and I am pretty much the average gamer. So whether you guys at Silver Dollar believe it or not, you’re taking money from other developers by driving players away. And while you might have one or two “fans” who egg you guys on, so does the slow kid at school who eats worms and touches his tongue to toilet seats. The thing is, nobody actually likes that kid. They just want to see what a mess he makes of himself. And the blunt honest truth is, nobody likes you guys either. People laugh at you, not with you. And by the way, it’s not because you’re funny.
I get that you guys actually enjoy playing up the whole troll thing and that you’re in it for the lulz or whatever. But it stops being funny when people work hard and you, in part, fuck up their chances at success by driving people away. For people your age to intentionally do so displays an embarrassing amount of growing up that needs to be done. This is the behavior of children. For most developers this is (and should be) strictly a hobby, but there’s real money involved in it, and you’re costing others a chance at making more of it. You clearly have no shame. Your upcoming Xbox 360 on the Go is proof. Not only does this have absolutely no practical use or any chance of making you guys money, but it will bump a game that someone else worked hard on off the new release list, which is pretty much the only time most indie games have any visibility to consumers. What the hell is wrong with you? Are you guys that self-centered and dickish that you don’t care who you hurt as long as you have your laughs?
The sad thing is, apparently someone somewhere in your team has talent, because I heard a lot of developers tell me that The Jump Hero was one of the better games in the Summer Uprising. The kicker was, most said it was so good they didn’t realize it was done by you. See though, that’s not actually praise. I hope you were smart enough to realize that. You guys have set yourself to such a low standard that anything remotely decent by you is a shock to everyone. But because you guys have built up such bad will in the community, most people in the XNA/XBLIG community will boycott it. The people you should be relying on to spread the word of its value are instead not going to help you.
As for me, I’m said my piece. I don’t have any jokes or punchlines to go with this. There’s nothing funny about it. You guys act like kids, spam the marketplace with stuff you know to be worthless or intentionally unentertaining, and worst of all, drown out other people’s hard work just for laughs. Shame on you.
Enjoy your $0.70 cut of No Luca No that you got from me. Because it will be the last you ever get from me. I will never again mention Silver Dollar Games at IndieGamerChick.com or anywhere else I talk about the XBLIG scene. I’m sure Silver Dollar will love this article just like they love any attention they get. But I’m going to quit giving it to them. And I deeply encourage all serious Xbox Live Indie Game blogs, websites, podcasts, and developers to do the same. And that even includes their less than sucky games. As I said above, it stops being funny when people’s hard work is being shoved aside by them just for their own sick pleasure. If we all ignore them, they will go away.
80 Microsoft Points were spent in the making of this article.
Forty-one games and 4080 Microsoft Points later, Indie Gamer Chick has finished its first month. And all I can say is this: WOW! Thanks so much everyone. I figured maybe a handful of people would stumble upon this place. Instead, I started on July 1st with four readers and finished the month with thousands. THOUSANDS!! Holy shit!! I’m flattered, I really am.
Before I give out the first of my monthly top 10 updates, allow me to give the overly obnoxious Oscar speech. I want to especially thank my friends Brian and Syd for your encouragement. Brian, you rock. You’re my best friend, and your suggestions, disturbing as they sometimes are, have all resulted in my best writings. Syd, you don’t even play games and you’ve been awesome. Bryce, I didn’t forget you. You were the first guy to take my suggestions on game purchases and one of my direct inspirations for doing Indie Gamer Chick. You guys are all so cool.
And of course there’s the XNA and Indie community. Most of all to MasterBlud who has been ultra helpful while making suggestions. Along with Kris Steele, who was a HUGELY good sport about the borderline snotty interview. Those guys suggested I set up a Twitter account, which paid off huge. MasterBlud also did the new banner I’ve had for the last couple days and, I think we all agree, it looks better than what I had. Big props to Dave Voyles as well, who got me involved in interviewing developers for the Summer Indie Uprising.
I promise I won’t get this gushy every month.
Anyway, onto the monthly top..
Well actually I do get gushy every month, but not this kind of gushy.
Where was I?
And now, without further ado, it’s time to get to my Top 10 list. Inspired by the power lap boards from Top Gear, my top 10 list is my way of publicly tracking the ten best games I’ve reviewed since starting Indie Gamer Chick. Since this is the first month and only forty-one reviews have been done, this is NOT by any means a definitive list. Over the first few months I have it up, I expect it to wildly change, especially once I start going back and checking out some older XBLIG titles that are reputed to be the best of the best. Once the dust settles my hope is developers will look at having a game in the top ten as a huge source of pride. I’m just that egotistical and delusional.
A punishment-platformer that works because it’s short enough to not bore but challenging enough that you’ll want to replay it to challenge your own best times.
A modern version of Zombies Ate My Neighbors with a huge assortment of guns, upgradable stats, randomly generated levels, and some of the best action gaming on the indie scene.
Think N with less acrobatics but more fun. Collect all the coins to beat the stage as fast as possible. Only some really insane time target times hold it back.
The best punishment-platformer on the indie market. It’s hugely challenging but with tight controls and awesome NES-style graphics to keep you begging for more like the pussy that you are.
The inspiration for my XNA Peer Review challenge, Antipole was still good enough to land high on my list. Antipole has an awesome gravity gimmick and inspired level design.
Nintendo-style platformer with the best graphics I’ve yet seen on the indie marketplace. Despite being only the first chapter of a four-part series, there’s enough added challenges here to make this one of the best games on the scene.
To be honest, I’ve yet to play anything that has come remotely close to matching the enjoyment I felt playing LaserCat. A Metroidvania adventure with classic graphics straight from an 80s computer title, it’s two hours of simple, straight-forward, and spectacular game play. It’s deserving of this spot and will be the game to beat for the foreseeable future.
Now that the Summer Indie Uprising games will be hitting the market, I’m sure this list will look VERY DIFFERENT next month. Until then, congratulations to all those who made the list. Thanks everybody for reading. You may now return to your normal random surfing. I sadly have to return to my e-mail so that I can see how many sub-retarded douchebags out there are still asking me for solutions to Trailer Park King. Jesus Christ people, seriously. You would have to be a total braindead, gun-toting, tobacco-dipping, sub-literate moron to not be able to figure out this game. Damn. Props to Freelance Games for knowing their target audience.
Normally at this time I would be posting my latest Indie review. But today I have something different to talk about. Edward Di Geronimo of Saturnine Games sent me a request to review his latest game, Antipole. And although I really had a good time with it (expect a full review later today) I had some pretty major technical issues while playing it.
I had gotten about forty-five minutes into the game and was really enjoying it. I did notice an occasional hiccup in the frame rate when I would destroy an enemy, but thought nothing of it. And then, later in the game, the hiccup suddenly became a major headache that caused the game to skip like a scratched DVD. Combined with acid pits that zap all your life instantly, I had a legitimate problem on hand.
Since Ed at Saturnine Games requested I review Antipole, I figured I would just ask him if he was aware of the problem. He told me that he had heard of it from two other people. After comparing notes with his previous reports, I tried the game again and it briefly seemed better, but right before the final boss fight the skips returned. I did manage to beat the game, but did so only by learning to work within the skipping issue. I suppose Ed could just roll with it and call it a feature. It works for Microsoft.
Having been told previously with The Cannon that some games are compatible on some Xboxes and not on others, I once again compared notes with Ed. I learned that both previous reports he had came from guys who were using completely different hard drives and systems than I was. I eliminated my hard drive as the cause and switched it over to my Xbox Elite circa 2007. I was easily able to recreate the same problems. Ed reported to me that others had brought up slowdown but didn’t find it significant. And perhaps it’s not, as I was still able to finish the game and despite being frustrated by the cheap deaths the slowdown caused, I still really, really enjoyed Antipole. But suddenly what I was told had been reported by only two people now sounded like more than two.
Ed was more than gracious when I brought my concerns to him, and we are both working together to figure out what’s going on. Shortly before this piece was posted, Ed contacted me to let me know that he himself found the slowdown issue. This was disappointing for him, but at least we have established something is wrong. Which is odd because Ed assured me that Antipole passed Peer Review, and that the problems with it were isolated to myself and two other reviewers. Oh, and all those other people who mentioned it to him as well.
I’m going to chalk this whole episode up to the peer review system being fundamentally broken. Some developers have confided to me that they believe the system doesn’t work because it creates an atmosphere of “you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.” I’m not a developer of XNA, but as an outsider looking it I’m going to say that people who practice this are just screwing themselves.
When you do your peer reviews, holding back on any criticisms related to functionality of games is not going to help you, the developer you’re reviewing, or the XBLIG platform. Developers have told me they feel pressure to give positive reviews out to help their own games pass peer review with minimal resistance. Some have told me that before this became the norm, games could end up waiting in line to pass review for months.
I’m certainly not blaming developers for the system being pretty sucky. That’s on Microsoft and nobody else. But for now it’s all you guys have, so you should make the best of it. And that doesn’t include letting glitches or other issues slide by because you’re afraid that telling someone will render them butthurt and they will retaliate against your game. You guys are a community and this means helping one another. I seriously doubt anyone’s feelings will be hurt if they are told there is a major flaw in their game that hampers it playability. And yet seven separate developers have told me that they feel that making too much noise puts their own game in danger.
And I want to say that very few of those who I’ve spoken with have said that it’s a hostile atmosphere. Instead, they say that developers create pressure on themselves upon reaching Peer Review. At this point I’m sure seeing the light at the end of the tunnel is an exciting time. You’ve worked hard for months or maybe even years and finally the game is near completion. Developers I’ve spoken with have said that Peer Reviewers have told them that they would give a game good marks even if there was a design flaw and that they could just patch it at a later date. Others have said they feel XNA developers sympathize with being in the same situation and give a game passing marks whether it merits it or not. Or, I’m told that Indie games are just held to a lower standard and glitches are expected by people who do the Peer Reviews. Some believe a lot of the Peer Reviewers don’t even play the games at all.
I’m told this has led to alliances within the XNA community. The “back scratching” scenario I mentioned above, which helps assure that games pass peer review in a more expedient manner and reach the marketplace in all likelihood well before they’ve been subjected to true play testing. Developers make deals to give each-other good marks and pass the review. This isn’t Survivor, guys. The only thing this is going to do is get XBLIG voted off the Microsoft island. Permanently.
I would also like to say that developers should not depend on Peer Review alone. Play through the game yourself. Get your friends to do it. Take notes. Ask questions. Try to break it yourself. Not every little glitch will get discovered, but letting the big ones slip by reflects poorly on the XBLIG market as a whole.
This isn’t me trying to publicly call anyone out. This is me issuing a challenge. Despite all it’s flaws and it’s status as the red-headed step child of the Xbox 360, the Indie platform is a wonderful opportunity for all of you. But abusing the system Microsoft set up for you is not going to be the foot in the door of the game industry that you want it to be. The odds that your game is going to make enough profit to propel your entry into the industry are slim. Developers should treat XNA as a hobby and a chance to build a resume and nothing more. Don’t operate under the assumption you’re going to make a career out of this. The vast majority of you will not. In that spirit, look out for each other. Don’t be afraid to hurt feelings, and don’t worry about someone taking exception to finding a glitch in your game. If someone does threaten retaliation for a poor Peer Review (and I’ve been told there have been some thinly veiled hints of such things), the community at large will deal with them. At least I hope so.
In my month of doing Indie Gamer Chick, the amount of talent I’ve seen floors me. There’s some really amazingly gifted game developers in your community. So in closing, help each other. Nit pick. Offer advice. But do not blow smoke up each others asses. You’re all adults. Albeit adults who make games about rampaging squirrels, flatulence on dates, or God knows what else. Actually I wouldn’t be shocked if someone reads this and green lights a game where you literally blow smoke up something’s ass. It’s just so Xbox Live Indie Game.
Before the publication of this piece, copies of it were sent out to many developers who had not previously voiced concerns to me about issues with XNA. Of the ten people who received a copy of this, eight signed off on it as being completely accurate, with two not responding at all. So don’t shoot the messenger.
Zombies. Avatars. Punishment platformers. Twin stick shooters. Dating simulations. Wikipedia for Xbox. I’m sick of these kind of games. I want something different. So, like superheroes to the rescue come a trio of guys from Blazing Forge Games. Their entry in the Summer Indie Uprising is Redd: The Lost Temple. After ignoring my natural instinct to run away from any Texan, I decided to instead sit down with Nathan Smith and Josh Addison of Houston to discuss the development of this awesome looking top-down adventure game.
Kairi Vice: Upon viewing your trailer, my first thoughts were “Zombies Ate My Neighbors” followed by “Zelda dungeons.” Maybe even a little Bomberman too. Was that the vibe you were going for with Redd: The Lost Temple?
Nathan Smith: I feel our game is a cross between Zelda and Metal Gear Solid in a weird Indiana Jones style environment where magical items are the norm. It didn’t start out this way but that is what has evolved as we expanded Redd into an adventure game. We really wanted to get away from your typical hack and slash game and make it more about survival and being more diligent with your “attacks” a la MGS. Even though we were influenced by Zelda we definitely didn’t want to make a Zelda clone because what would be the point? We aren’t going to make a Zelda game better than Zelda! I could just go play the originals. As we expand the series further we have some really cool plans for Redd’s dynamite and several unique magical items as well as some awesome bosses so stay tuned!
Kairi Vice: Creating an enticing adventure is a huge undertaking. How challenging has the production of Redd been for you?
Nathan Smith: Very difficult, we’ve redesigned this game several times over the course of production. The biggest problem from a design standpoint is to make a game like this fun you need tons of features, a huge world to explore, and a solid enough story to convince players to keep playing. I can’t count how many times we had to step back and say “this game is missing _______, we need more ________.” The initial scope of the project was nowhere near what it turned out to be. The other problem we constantly faced was the limitations of 2D art. There is a lot we wanted to do as a 3D game (especially the size of enemies, bosses, and quality of animations) and about ¾ of the way through we almost decided to start over in 3D but decided against it.
Kairi Vice: I have to say, after countless platformers, puzzlers, and twin-stick shooters this is exactly the kind of game I’ve really been itching for on the indie marketplace. Do you feel Redd‘s chances for success hedge on player burnout of those over-saturated genres?
Nathan Smith: It’s great to hear that! We’re hoping this as well but I honestly can’t gage the indie market. There are some very unique aspects to Redd but it is still more traditional compared to what is usually out there on XBLIG. I do think Redd is better suited for a competition like the Indie Uprising where the objective is luring the XBLA crowd over to the indie side instead of trying to get noticed by a niche audience where quirky or odd games rule the day.
Kairi Vice: Redd started as a strategy game for Windows Phone 7 but the XBLIG build looks like an entirely different beast. Was this always planned or was Redd originally going to play more like its wireless namesake?
Nathan Smith: Our problem from day one at BFG has been we take a game idea and then expand it to the point that we can’t realistically start it with our current team size. Every project always ballooned into this massive multi-year thing from the design end and we had to shelve several projects for later. So we did a couple of smaller games as side projects like BlurBall and Redd: Mobile but when we decided to do a port of Redd to the Xbox it grew just like everything else. Our original intent was to make a XBLIG version of Redd using the same art and gameplay of the mobile version and adding a few features including multiplayer Bomberman style versus modes. In its current form the only thing that is the same are the Redd sprite sheets. That’s it! It is a completely different game in every way and much, MUCH bigger.
Kairi Vice: What is the most significant difference between building a game for phones vs. for the Xbox?
Nathan Smith: I’ll let Josh answer the technical side of things but for me personally making a console game just feels more exciting. It’s probably because I didn’t grow up playing games on a phone instead I held a controller with a TV in front of me. From an art standpoint the biggest difference for us was the smaller file sizes required for the phone.
Josh Addison: I would have to say hardware limitations. Besides a better CPU, GPU, and more memory on the Xbox, the use of a game controller had the largest factor in changing what we could do with Redd: The Lost Temple. Also, at the time we made Redd: Mobile we were not allowed to use custom shaders on WP7 which killed most of our ideas for the game.
Kairi Vice: A common problem with this type of game is having the difficulty curve suddenly become a straight vertical line pointing upwards with the words “FUCK OFF!!” on it. Metaphorically of course. What can you do to prevent this with Redd?
Nathan Smith: More play-testers! I’ve played this game so many times that it feels very easy to me. Then someone new sits down and they die 3 times in a room we could play blindfolded. Now, we want the game to be a challenge but in a, “Oh, I can get this!” kind of a way. The problem which you alluded to is transitioning between early game play and a very difficult last quarter of the game which we are still tweaking. I believe that when people finish Redd: The Lost Temple they will be very satisfied with the type of challenge we created.
Josh Addison: A lot of indie game developers start off by choosing an educated guess of difficulty and then slowly tighten the difficulty until it feels hard to them. This happens over several months. What the developer does not realize is that they have been constantly getting better at their own game. It is almost like the developer becomes a machine gear to playing their game. What we try to do to fix this is get playtesters who know nothing about our game and have them play it as we watch and take notes. We take those notes and make modifications to our game and repeat.
Kairi Vice: It seems almost criminal that a game with this much effort will be listed side-by-side with stuff like Why Did I Buy This? or anything else by Silver Dollar Games and other developers with half an ass and the brains to match. Do you think the XBLIG platform needs better quality control?
Nathan Smith: The obvious answer is yes, there needs to be some sort of quality control. Unfortunately I don’t see how that would be possible with the current set up from Microsoft. I think our best hope is to build quality control organically outside of the marketplace using events like the Indie Uprising that gives us more exposure, essentially creating a middle ground between Indie and Arcade.
Kairi Vice: What other games are you most interested in playing during the Uprising?
Nathan Smith: On an objective overview of the games there are several that look very good but they just aren’t my thing (I personally love strategy games like Civilization). However, I can see myself playing Take Arms the most out of all these titles.
Josh Addison: I enjoyed playing Take Arms, Tec 3001, and Doom & Destiny. I would like to try out Cell: Emergence to see what it is like.
Kairi Vice: Are there any games you think missed out on the top 25 cut that should have made it?
Nathan Smith: There were a few games that would have made it if they weren’t re-releases. I think once the Uprising becomes more established the stronger developers can plan their production schedules around specific times and problems like this will be less common.
Kairi Vice: What has been the biggest challenge developing with the XNA platform?
Josh Addison: I guess dealing with the Garbage Collector and its random collects, but that really doesn’t have a lot to do with XNA but more with C#. I personally feel that the XNA framework does a good job of giving me what I need but still leaving plenty of room for customization.
Kairi Vice: If you could change one thing about the XBLIG platform, what would it be?
Nathan Smith: We’ve already touched on this earlier and it would have to be quality control! Once people expect to see good games the barrier to buy is much lower. I’m less likely to buy something from a store that has a bad reputation even if it’s a lot cheaper. Once you have some sort of expectation of the quality available you get a completely different type of buyer looking at your games. The same person that won’t spend a dollar now to buy an indie game is spending $60 on another game because he is comfortable with the source of the game. I would love to see small teams actually make a living in the Indie market one day.
When I started Indie Gamer Chick I figured it would be a good hobby for me and a chance to check out some games that I might otherwise not have had a chance to play. Then I ended up being contacted by developers and being asked to interview studios who have their titles entered in the Summer Indie Uprising. I figured, why not? I mean I’ll talk to a few of them and it will be fun and leisurely and not at all stir up a shit-storm of controversy. After nearly thirty developers contacted me, I noticed that a lot of them (nearly one in three) felt that the legitimacy of the Uprising was questionable due to the inclusion of a game called Volchaos. Why the controversy? Because it’s designed by Kris Steele, who co-organizes the Uprising event.
At first I chalked it up to sour grapes, as many of those who contacted me had not made the top 25 cut. But the situation kept coming up. When Mr. Steele contacted me for an interview, I figured it would be in the public interest to ask him directly about this. And then I found out the whole situation was news to him. I would like say before posting the transcript that I do believe I came off a little aggressive in the interview but I found Mr. Steele to be a good sport about the whole thing, if a little cocky. I won’t know if Volchaos is worth the scorn until I play it when it is released next month, but following this interview my interest in playing it was genuinely lifted.
Volchaos designer Kris Steele
Kairi Vice: How many people are involved in the making of Volchaos?
Kris Steele: Fun Infused Games is officially a one man shop though I’ve come to grips with the fact that I cannot do music or artwork very well. Even though I’m primarily making the games and our only official employee, I’ve contracted out for all my music and much of the artwork on my games. I’ve also recently been working with another developer that is going to port my game Hypership to C++ and bring it to some new platforms like PC / Mac / and eventually iOS. Mostly me, but a few other very key contributors too.
Kairi Vice: Of the 25 games in the Summer Indie Uprising, to be perfectly blunt the one I have the least faith in is Volchaos. So my first question is, how is it going to surprise me?
Kris Steele: Platforming games have been huge for years.. Mario, Sonic, etc. Super Meat Boy was a massive success on XBLIG, I’d say of any game out there, Super Meat Boy is the closest comparison to Volchaos. I get that the retro styling isn’t everyone’s cup of tea and it may not look as impressive as some of the other Summer Uprising games, but Volchaos will stand solidly on its gameplay, challenge, and fun
Kairi Vice: Isn’t comparing your unreleased, über-generic looking title to Super Meat Boy a bit arrogant?
Kris Steele: Ouch, tough crowd. I guess a cowboy that looks like Chuck Norris in a volcano has been done to death already? Just kidding. Let me address this on two counts. First, most of the screen shots and videos you see now are the levels minus the extra background artwork, parallax layers, etc. I’ve been concentrating first on making the levels play well and only recently have I been going back to make them look good. I believe the final versions of the game will not come across as über-generic.
Second, let me clarify my Super Meat Boy comparison. I did not mean graphically at all, these are two distinctly different looking games. But in terms of how they play, they have a lot in common. Mostly small levels, fast paced gameplay, lots of dying, high difficulty level, great sense of accomplishment when you finally can beat those tough levels.
Kairi Vice: Here is some of the actual feedback I’ve received from other developers regarding Volchaos: “A joke.” “A farce.” “Volchaos‘ inclusion delegitimizes the event.” “It only got in because Kris organizes the uprising. There were many more deserving titles.” “If it makes the top 8 the whole Uprising concept is dead.” How do you respond to this?
Kris Steele: Volchaos is going through the exact same process as everyone else in the event, there is no special treatment. There are 70 developers that will be voting in those final 8 games plus a fan vote for 2 more. If my game gets in, it is because either the developers or fans voted it in, the same as every other title that gets in. I have done several playtests of Volchaos over several months and have received overwhelmingly positive responses to Volchaos. I am confident that it is a good, fun game worthy of standing alongside the other Uprising nominees. No one has said anything to me before like the comments you just presented. If someone has issue with my game being in the promotion, I would love to talk with them (email me at kris@funinfused.com). And if there are aspects of my game they do not like, I would love to hear about those too either via email or on my playtest forum thread so that I can do my best to improve and alleviate whatever those issues are.
Kairi Vice: Okay, last mean-spirited question that I feel like a total bitch for asking: the guy looks nothing like Chuck Norris. At all. And if it was Chuck Norris he wouldn’t be running from the lava. The lava would be running from him. Just saying. But really, the whole trailer and just screams “trying too hard” to piggy back on an internet meme. Are you afraid people are going to look at it more as a parody then a legitimate game?
Personally I think he looks more like Woody from Toy Story.
Kris Steele: When I asked my artist to create the character, I was looking for an adventuring type guy more in the vain of Indiana Jones. He did several mockups and changes based on my feedback and we ended up with the character we have now. It was only after I revealed the character and some early screen shots that other people (multiple people) started telling me he looked like Chuck Norris. The person that did the trailer for me happens to be one of those people who saw the resemblance and included a mention of that in the trailer. I thought it was a funny line.
One thing that Fun Infused Games always does is include humor in our games, that’s one of our trademarks, that’s one of the reasons our games are unique. I would say Volchaos is both a legitimate game and a parody. The game opens with a “Warning: Do Not try this at home” screen and each level is preceded by a light-hearted comic (one such comic has the main character proclaiming “My wife left me for a Walrus”). The fire death sequence is comical too as are a few of the enemies.
Kairi Vice: Wife left him for Michael Chiklis, huh? Harsh.
Kris Steele: The meaning of walrus is left open to interpretation. It could be a literal walrus too.
Kairi Vice: Again, Michael Chiklis springs to mind. But that’s neither here nor there. A platformer lives and dies based on how accurately the player can control the character. How fine tuned should players expect the controls to be for Volchaos?
Kris Steele: Getting the controls just right is tough but a huge priority for me. Great controls are one of the reasons games like Super Mario Brothers or Super Meat Boy excel while other platformers fall flat. I’ve put a lot of time and energy into listening to user’s feedback on how Volchaos controls and making adjustment on top of playing other platformers myself and adjusting based on those too. The early versions of Volchaos were much more floaty and much slower moving than the current one is for example, early testers were quick to point out those issues. I believe when gamers get the final version of Volchaos, they’ll be fighting with beating challenging levels, not with beating frustrating controls.
Kairi Vice: Was the Youtube trailer at a point in development where the jumping was more floaty?
Kris Steele: The notorious “Chuck Norris” trailer is pretty close to the current movement, so there is still some floaty left. The older versions of the game were much more floaty.
Kairi Vice: A common theme with my reviews and these so-called “Punishment Platformers” is that as the challenge ramps up, the game stops being fun. It’s not impossible for a game to avoid running out of fun before it runs out of game (see Aban Hawkins & the 1000 Spikes) but it’s easily the most common problem with the genre. How will Volchaos avoid falling into this trap?
Kris Steele: With Volchaos, we’re avoiding throwing everything at you all at once. The levels start off easy… a few pits to jump over, some lava to avoid. Then progressively new platforming elements are added. New enemies, moving platformers, keys to open locked areas, blocks that disintegrate under your feet, blocks that bounce you high into the air, etc. At no point will the levels go from being easy to impossible, it will be progressive. Each level also has a secondary goal, collect all the gems. This completely optional task, from the get go, will be challenging. Collecting all the gems will give more experienced players a challenge initially on the early levels and give novice players a reason to come back and replay those levels too. There will be some unlockables in the game the more levels you collect all the gems in.
Kairi Vice: You have four games currently in development. Some might accuse you of spreading yourself thin. How do you respond to this?
Kris Steele: At this moment, the only game I’m actively working on is Volchaos, as I want to make sure I can be ready for an August release date. I’ve back-burnered everything else. At other times though, I’ve definitely been working several projects at once. I believe this is beneficial though. While it does mean it takes longer for me to finish a game when that game isn’t getting 100% of my time, it also keeps me from getting burnt out on one particular game and gives me fresher eyes when I take a break and come back later. Nastier for instance is something I’m far along on but I haven’t worked on in quite a while. I’ve learned so much since putting it on hold about game design, player movement, etc that I’m confident when I do get back to it, Nastier will be a significantly better game for it.
Kairi Vice: Retro-style graphics are a perfect fit for the punishment-platformer genre. What were your inspirations for the graphical style of Volchaos?
Kris Steele: I’ve wanted to do a platforming game for a while, as those are the types of games that really got me into gaming, but I wanted to do something unique too. My previous release Hypership is pretty frantic, fast paced, and has been extremely well received by gamers. I wanted a way to tie that fast paced action into a more traditional platformer and thus the concept of being trapped in a volcano with rising lava was born. The pixel art style really came about because that’s the style of the platforming games I loved the most growing up. The game isn’t complex, you run and you jump and you collect items and avoid enemies… in a way, a more simple, old school art style seemed more fitting to this.
Kairi Vice: I’ve often said that anyone with a ROM editor can make a game that is excessively difficult, whereas it takes talent to make a game that has just the right difficulty from start to finish. Why go for the extreme difficulty when it’s often reflective of a game designer with no self-restraint?
Kris Steele: I think you’re right, anyone can do a hard game but Volchaos isn’t like one of those hacked Mario Brothers levels you see on YouTube. There aren’t any insanely difficult levels that are just one trap or obstacle after another. Levels are fun and interesting and unique, not just a mash of hard stuff. Most of the levels are challenging but not to a point of utter frustration. A lot of the reason I ultimately have made this a more difficult game is that by doing so, the sense of accomplishment is far greater when you do succeed.
Kairi Vice: I dunno, I felt pretty, um, something, when I beat Kirby’s Epic Yarn… okay point taken. What are the other games you’re most interested in from the Uprising?
Kris Steele: It’s unbelievable how many great games were submitted to the Uprising, when we started putting together this thing, I had no idea there would be so many. I don’t really want to play favorites and name any names while developer voting is still going on, but suffice to say, there are way more than 10 quality titles here. It’s an exciting time to be involved with Xbox Live Indie Games.
Kairi Vice: What’s the most challenging aspect of programming with XNA?
Kris Steele: I still struggle with the networking aspect of things, partly because I haven’t done much on that end and partly because it’s just plain hard. I’d love to have games with online play in them but I haven’t had the time or patience yet to really figure out how to do that right.
Kairi Vice: And finally, if you could change one aspect of the XBLIG platform, what would it be?
Kris Steele: I want more gamers to know we are here, only a fraction of Xbox users seem to know we exist. Too many good developers are leaving the platform because they made good games that get good ratings but that doesn’t translate into sales. There are a number of ways to do this but honestly adding Achievements to XBLIG would probably be the most effective. Give us those and the gamers will follow.
Kairi Vice: Thanks for you time. On a personal note, I will admit I was like “ugh, same old shit” when I saw the trailer to Volchaos, but you had many A answers and now I am genuinely interested in reviewing it when the time comes.
Indie Gamer Chick 
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