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By Sam, September 16, 2009 3:42 am

A couple of weeks ago I posted a trailer for Dysnomia, an interesting looking dual stick shooter. I recently had thre chance to interview Gareth Williams, the lead designer and programmer for the game.

IndieGameBlog.net: Firstly, could you give us some background info on yourself and the rest of the development team?

GW: Hi, I’m Gareth Williams, lead designer and programmer for Team Mango. The Team has been around since the mid-nineties when I formed a bedroom coding team with school friends to create games for the Amiga.

Dysnomia 01

The Team went their separate ways in life, but I carried on developing games as a hobby on and off. When Microsoft launched XNA, I immediately jumped on the bandwagon and decided to resurrect Team Mango, albeit with just myself. I worked on Gravsheep as a solo project and released it on the Indie Games service in May.

I posted an advert on the XNA forums looking for a 2D artist to help with Dysnomia, and was answered by Leon Arellano who immediately “got” the project and started to produce some kick-ass tiles and animations with minimal input from me. Which is awesome, because I have the artistic talents of a spatula. His input, not just on the graphical side of things but also on the overall design, has been invaluable in making the game as fun as it is now.

IndieGameBlog.net: How would you describe Dysnomia?

GW: Dysnomia is a futuristic alien survival shoot-em-up, with a few light puzzle elements thrown in. It has familiar dual-stick controls, but adds so many more features on top of the core shooting gameplay.

Dysnomia 02

It also has local drop-in co-op, so a second player can join and leave a game in process without interrupting the flow.

IndieGameBlog.net: What inspired you to create Dysnomia?

GW: Many, many Amiga games. But in particular the Alien Breed series by Team 17. I like to think that Dysnomia made Team 17 announce their upcoming XBLA re-imagining of the series, but I’m sure they have nothing to fear. Dysnomia has enough original features to make it stand apart from the new Alien Breed, which I’m looking forward to playing.

Dysnomia also takes cues from Gauntlet 2 and a little-known dungeon crawler called Xenomorph.

IndieGameBlog.net: How is the game structured, are there multiple environments/levels?

Dysnomia 03

GW: At the start of the game, the player (a futuristic Marine) has made an emergency landing at a mining outpost on the moon Dysnomia. The player has two objectives. Firstly, to scavenge components to repair his ship and get off the moon, and secondly to compile a report on what exactly happened at the base. The report is automatically compiled as the player uncovers messages between the outposts’ staff and completes certain other encounters which I wont spoil here!

The game consists of the starting area outside the base, seven floors of the outpost itself (each with a different theme) and then one final area. The player may re-visit some of the floors several times to collect supplies or heal up, so there is some emphasis on exploration. The player can save the game at any time, so you won’t have to struggle to reach a save point.

IndieGameBlog.net: How long has Dysnomia been in development and do you have a timeframe for completion?

Dysnomia 04

GW: The original design document was finished mid-May, so we’re four months into development. My aim was to have the game finished in six months, but as we’ve expanded some areas and added some more features, it may take a little longer. We’re making Dysnomia the best game it possibly can be and hope it’ll be a release the community can be proud of.

Current aim is to get a first playtest ready for early November.

IndieGameBlog.net: Do you have a pricepoint in mind yet?

GW: Not as yet, but we’re over the 50mb threshhold, so expect 240 or 400.

IndieGameBlog.net: How do you find working with XNA and Xbox LIVE Indie Games?

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GW: Utterly fantastic. My day job involves a lot of .Net programming and naturally I love the framework. The Xbox has been my primary gaming platform for the last three years, so having a hobby which involves both is a blast.

The XNA community is wonderful too. The guys on the forums are always quick to help out – I wish I had half the talent of most of the posters there. And then you have the external blogs from the likes of Ziggyware, Nick Gravelyn, Shawn Hargreaves and George Clingerman. All of them have been indispensable during the creation of Dysnomia. If I ever make it to an XNA event, I’m going to need a barrow-load of beer money.

IndieGameBlog.net: Are there any other Xbox LIVE Indie Games that stand out to you?

GW: It seems unfair to single out. First, congratulations to the DBP winners this year, a couple of which I managed to playtest a little. I look forward to spending some points as those games trickle out over the next year. I’ve also enjoyed games from the likes of Mommy’s Best and Halfbrick. Being was the first game I purchased, and I recently whiled away an afternoon playing “I MAED…” with a friend. There are some many quality games already and I’m sure more to come over the years.

IndieGameBlog.net: Any other thoughts/comments?

GW: Just to say thank you to your readers for their interest in all the games us developers pour our blood, sweat and tears into. Without them, there would be no Indie Games service.

Thank you to Gareth for taking the time to answer my questions and look forward to more coverage of the game soon. You can find out more about Dysnomia at Team Mango’s official site and their development blog. You can also follow Gareth on twitter.

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By Sam, August 28, 2009 2:35 am

Recently I posted a trailer for Kaleidoscope, a beautiful looking platformer that uses color to great effect. I was lucky enough to interview the lead designer and programmer of the game, Matthew Stenback.

IndieGameBlog.net: Firstly, could you give us some background info on yourself and the rest of the development team?

MS: My name is Matthew Stenback, I started Morsel Games in May 2009, and I hold the position of lead designer and programmer. Besides me, Morsel consists of two other phenomenal people: Sang Han creates all the beautiful art in our games, and Mattias Häggström Gerdt produces music faster than most people can listen to it.

IndieGameBlog.net: How would you describe Kaleidoscope?

MS: In short I like to say that Kaleidoscope is a charming 2D platforming experience with a strong focus on rejuvenation and exploration.

A screenshot from Kaleidoscope

But to elaborate on that, players take on the role of Tint, an unusual inhabitant of Kaleidoscope, and traverse the surreal world in search of color pigments. Pigments are the key to restoring color and life to the once vibrant and lush world of Kaleidoscope.

IndieGameBlog.net: What inspired you to create Kaleidoscope?

MS: Well it wasn’t this great epiphany I had one day while gazing over the ocean during a sunset or anything, I just wanted to make a game that gave players satisfaction without the use of violence. Don’t get me wrong, I like to chainsaw locusts in half as much as the next person but I feel that players sometimes need to escape to a world that is more relaxed and lighthearted. To capture this lighthearted feel I decided to think of things that were fun and satisfying to me at a young age. A coloring book popped into my head almost immediately and after a lot of pondering about how to transfer that elegantly into a video game, Kaleidoscope was born.

IndieGameBlog.net: Obviously color is a large part of the game, how is it used?

MS: We went through several different ideas during development about how we would use color in the game but ultimately we settled on a few mechanics that we thought were satisfying and intuitive.

Each level starts out in complete greyscale.

At the beginning of each level the world is in complete grayscale and the background music is very simple. As you collect pigments the world begins to color in and the music progresses into a very complex track. Pigments not only color in the world, they also fuel Tint’s abilities. Blue pigments allow Tint to run faster, yellow pigments will make Tint float, and red pigments form a defensive shield around Tint to block projectiles and turn away oncoming enemies. The pigments you collect gradually increase the capacity of your red, yellow, and blue power meters which act like a mana source for Tint’s abilities. Some areas in the world are only accessible if you have enough yellow pigment to float across a large gap, or enough red pigment to shield yourself through a dangerous hall for example. Finally, color is used as an indicator of whether a creature is dangerous or not.

IndieGameBlog.net: What other gameplay mechanics are in the game?

MS: At its core, Kaleidoscope is a simple sidescrolling platformer. There are various enemy types, multiple paths through each level, physics based platforms and objects, and a few different collectible items. In each level the goal is to find a key that is usually guarded by a fierce baddie and then platform your way to the end of the level collecting as many pigments as you can. At the end of each level you are given a grade based on the number of pigments you collected, secret items you found, creatures you saved, and how quickly you completed the level.

IndieGameBlog.net: The art style in Kaleidoscope is very unique, what was the inspiration?

Another Kaleidoscope screenshot.

MS: The art direction stems from a few different urban art pieces I saw a while back, however most of what gives Kaleidoscope its unique charm is Sang Han’s playful art style. We wanted to go for a very Alice in Wonderland type of visual experience.

IndieGameBlog.net: How long has Kaleidoscope been in development and do you have a timeframe for completion?

MS: Kaleidoscope has been in development for about 2 months. We all took a much deserved break after crunching 16-18 hour days for 2 weeks straight to have something presentable for Dream Build Play. The team is just getting back into the groove now and we hope to have the game completed sometime in September 2009.

IndieGameBlog.net: What do you think of your chances in this year’s Dream Build Play?

MS: I am very impressed by many of the entries in Dream Build Play this year, the competition is very stiff. I’ll be quite happy to see Kaleidoscope as one of the top 10 finalists.

IndieGameBlog.net: Are there any other Xbox LIVE Indie Games that stand out to you?

MS: Absolutely! GuruGuru looks very impressive overall, Hollandia has stunning visuals, and Duality ZF should be a blast to play with friends.

Any other thoughts/comments?

MS: I’m really glad to see that the perception of XBL Indie Games is changing. I hope that Kaleidoscope will contribute to pushing the platform in the right direction.

I’d like to thank Matthew for taking the time to do this interview and wish Morsel Games luck in this year’s Dream Build Play competition. Kaleidoscope is currently on track to be completed this September. You can find out more about Kaleidoscope and Morsel Games on their website or follow them on twitter at @playmorsel.

Comments (1)

By Sam, August 10, 2009 4:07 am

Earlier today I posted the debut trailer for Hollandia, a 2D action adventure game that has been entered in this years Dream Build Play competition.

Now I have been fortunate enough to interview the character designer for the game, Marth Jonkers, and find out more about the game, it’s art and it’s influences. Continue reading 'Developer Interview: Marthe Jonkers (Hollandia)'»

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By Sam, August 9, 2009 1:00 pm

Yesterday I posted an article with the official trailer for Magnetic Mind. The article has now been posted all around the internet and has been viewed over 4000 times.

Magnetic Mind is a run and jump platformer which is inspired by Media Molecule’s LittleBigPlanet. There has been both positive and negative reactions to the trailer with some praising it’s great production values and interesting game mechanics and others feeling it is a little too similar to LittleBigPlanet.

Oliver Schulze is the project leader for the game and we have been fortunate enough to conduct this interview with him and find out more about the game, his thoughts on the reaction to the game and more. Continue reading 'Developer Interview: Oliver Schulze (Magnetic Mind)'»