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?

Dysnomia 05

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.

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.

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.

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

MJ: We made this game with a team of five people. We are all students in Game Design and Development at the Utrecht School of the Arts. For our graduation project, we decided to team up and make this game. My role is that of the character designer and animator.

IndieGameBlog.net: How would you describe Hollandia?

MJ: Hollandia is basically a Dutch fairytale! It is inspired by Dutch folklore, art and history and there were many interesting elements we decided to incorporate in the game. All enemies for instance have a real background in Dutch stories, and the combat system is based on a popular Dutch toy.

IndieGameBlog.net:Why did you choose Dutch folklore as the theme for the game?

MJ: Well, the whole idea of making a game about Holland actually sparked when I returned home from studying abroad. In my head I had this very ugly image of Holland, and it is in the

A screenshot from Hollandia.

Dutch peoples nature not to be so fond of their own country. But when I got back, I was amazed by the beauty of the Dutch landscapes.  I thought, why not make a game about Holland? It can be beautiful as well! So we started to do research into Dutch history and folklore and discovered a rich world of enchanting tales, perfect material for a game! Also, I feel that games tend to use the same themes over and over again, like medieval fantasy or sci-fi. There are a lot of cultures that have exciting aspects and stories as well, and we never see them in games.

IndieGameBlog.net: How is the game structured? Is it a series of levels or more open world?

MJ:The main story of the game is linear, and plays quite an important role. However there will also be lots of sidequests which give the game more depth, and make the progress through the gameworld less linear. The world consists of several environment you pass through (fields, forest, city etcetera). These areas are filled with puzzles and enemies. All these environments are connected to each other so the world is quite open.

IndieGameBlog.net: How does the combat work?

MJ:The combat system is entirely based on the old Dutch toy, the spinning top. You have to hit the top to make it spin and shoot it in the right direction to defeat your enemies. There are two different kinds of attacks: the horizontal hit which makes the top move forward, and the vertical swipe, which makes it jump in the air.

Combining these moves will enable you to do massive combos, as the top bounces back on all objects it hits.

Another screenshot from Hollandia.

The trick is to hit the enemies in such a way that the top will bounce from enemy to enemy, hitting as many as possible. The top gains strength when you keep hitting it at exactly the right time. Every enemy reacts differently to the top. For instance, some will steal your top, some will bounce it back and so on.

It’s a new way of combat, and once you get the hang of it is quite fun

IndieGameBlog.net: How do the adventure aspects work?

MJ:There is a compelling main story that will guide you through the game, and it’s complemented by many small sidequest.  You play the story of Tulpje (“little tulip” in Dutch), the main character. She will travel around Holland, where she will meet all kinds of characters from Dutch folklore. As Tulpje advances in the game she will learn new skills for her spinning top which can be used to progress further. The focus of Hollandia is slightly more on combat than adventure.

IndieGameBlog.net:What was the inspiration for the character designs and art style?

MJ:I am a big fan of the VanillaWare Games (Odin Sphere, Grimgrimoire). They proved to me that 2d games are still cool! We actually mailed George Kamitani of VanillaWare to show him our game. He liked it so much that he made a painting for us of our main character Tulpje in his style. That was so nice!

Together with the environment designer of this game, I studied Manga Art in Japan for half a year as well, and so the style of Hollandia is a mixture between Japanese animation and Dutch influences. We looked at famous Dutch artists as Rembrandt and Vermeer for inspiration as well.

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

MJ: We started production on this project halfway of March of this year, so

A third screenshot from Hollandia.

we’ve been working on it for five months. Our actual graduation deadline is August 19th, but we really wanted to submit for the Dream Build Play so we pushed ourselves a bit harder. We will release a demo of the game for public somewhere in September, and after that we will further develop it to hopefully have a complete version at the end of this year.

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

MJ: There are really good entries, I’m so impressed. For us it was inconvenient that the deadlines for school and the Dream Build Play were two weeks apart. The day of the DBP deadline our game didn’t even work! We had to pull a few allnighters to finish the game for DBP. Still I think we delivered quite a nice game, and hopefully others will think so too.

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

MJ: Yes, I am really impressed by some of the entries and really hope that they will be among the winners:

Dust: an Elysian tale, Magnetic Mind, HurricaneX2, Band of Bears, Guru Guru, Ones, Kaleidoscope and Aesop’s Garden.

IndieGameBlog.net: Any other thoughts/comments?

MJ: It’s fantastic to see what amazing games people come up with, and I hope the Indie scene will grow even more popular. Some of the games this year are really beautiful, and I’m pleased to see that the artwork and styles in Indie games are getting more important as well.

IndieGameBlog.net: Thank you so much for your time and good luck in this year’s Dream Build Play.

A massive thank you to Marthe for taking the time to do this interview, you can find more of her artwork and links to other games she has worked on at her portfolio.

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.

(Note: English is not Oliver’s first language so a few lines were edited)

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

OS: The team consists of 3 people. My Brother Philip Schulze (age 19), who is responsible for the 3D-Models, Texturing and other graphical things. Daniel Steiner (age 18), who composed the music for Magnetic Mind with his keyboard.

The 'Garden' level.

And me, Oliver Schulze (age 30), who is responsible for the whole project, the game engine, some of the 3D Models and the programming. We all have different backgrounds:

Philip is a Product Designer and is working in his real job also with 3D models and makes product presentations for his customers.

Daniel is training to be a hospital nurse at the moment. He is composing music in his free time as a hobby.

I am the manager of the company Agorum Software GmbH, that develops and sells the open source document management system agorum core. There I am mainly responsible for the whole development department.

We three are all enthusiastic XBox-gamers and it was one of our dreams to make and publish a game that can be played by many others.

IndieGameBlog.net: Your first Xbox LIVE Indie Game is called Magnetic Mind, how would you describe it?

OS: It is not the first game we made for XBox. 2 years ago, we submitted “Crystal Glyder” to the Dream Build Play 2007 competition. But it was in an early development state and didn’t win anything. Here are some screens of it. http://crystalglyder.blogspot.com/2007/06/finished-yeah.html

We never finished it, because the game engine was very quick and dirty coded, maybe I’ll go over it, clean it a bit up and publish it on Indie Games…

In Magnetic Mind you play a little guy, who finds himself in a real world, where everything is huge. The guy (player) doesn´t know what happened because he lost his memory of the last few days. The player controls the guy through this world and has to find out what has happened to him.

It is a Jump and Run game, where we tried to make the graphics as polished as possible. Within the game there are many physics puzzles. Sometimes the player has to combine things to find a way through the levels.

IndieGameBlog.net:What was the inspiration for creating Magnetic Mind?

It had been always been a dream of mine to create a game that could be played by a wider range of people and that is what Microsoft offers us with the Indie Games Channel, a great thing I think!

A screenshot from the 'Kitchen' level.

One day (after our first game Crystal Glyder) my brother (Philip) came to me and told me that he wanted to make a new game with me. At first I didn’t want to, because of the great effort you have to put in when creating one. But after playing around (again) with XNA and some animation functions we brought the character to life. I felt a great urge to create a new game with it.

Half a year before beginning I thought about a game that behaves like a 2D Side-Scrolling Jump and Run but with the great visuals and possibilities of 3D graphics. So when my brother came to me, it was very clear, that we wanted to make such a Jump and Run Game.

IndieGameBlog.net:The game has recieved both acclaim and criticism for being similar in style to LittleBigPlanet, what do you think of the reaction?

Yes, it is true, LittleBigPlanet inspired us. We knew that we wanted to make a 3D Jump and Run that behaves like a 2D Sidescrolling Jump and Run. That was before we heard anything about LBP. Over time we tried several style things for the game, how should it look like, how should the control be, etc…

One day, I saw a video about LBP and I was fascinated by the great use of the Depth Of Field Effect. So I wanted that for our game. The bricks and the fence, you can see in the garden-level, got also a little bit inspired by it. But, no one of us has a Playstation and nobody played the game till now (I did a little bit, but only at a booth at a game exhibition)…

So, what do I think about the reactions? At first I couldn’t believe that someone seriously tried to compare our small indie game to something huge like LBP and it made me a little bit proud. Then I saw comments, that said, that our game is from Microsoft and should show, that LBP is possible on a XBox, and that they are a company that only copies things and so on…. That made me a little bit angry, because that people just added comments without reading the article. I don’t like such flaming, it is to undifferentiated. They criticise things they don’t know about. These comments are as good as no comment.

Another screenshot from the 'Kitchen' level.

Some also mentioned that the music was ripped from LBP, Daniel, who is responsible for the music, never saw LBP and I think the music is very different.

But on the other hand, I was happy to see so many other people in the comments, that have a clear mind and that used their brains before posting. They considered the whole thing from different sides and not only from one.

Again, to clarify this: we are not Microsoft, and we are not hired by Microsoft. We are just 3 “normal” guys, that had fun, making a funny game, because that is our hobby. Not more and not less! And of course, Magnetic Mind is not comparable to LBP and it is also not meant as a rip-off, it is just inspired by it!

IndieGameBlog.net: What makes Magnetic Mind unique?

Well, very difficult quesition. I think it is the combination of everything. Great visuals, combined with physics and some puzzles, where you need your brain to get further. We also tried to get a unique style, where we tried to model and render everything as realistic as possible, as you can see in the kitchen level. So we already tried to get a little bit away from a comic style and wanted to put our guy in a real large world. Then there is the key element of the game, the Magnetic Mind. With that the guy could transport things through the level and can build up ways to get further in the levels. This key element will be enhanced in later versions of the game. We plan some things for it: for example, that you need some kind of energy, that you have to collect, to carry larger things. And there are some other ideas we have for it to improve the gameplay and uniqueness.

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

I do not think that we will win (sure it would be great). There are too many other really great games out there. My hope is, that we get into the top ten. As I said above, this is just a hobby and we make this for fun and we applied to the competition to see, where we stand compared to the others – really only for fun!

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

I have some favorites: Hollandia, Go Gimbal Go, Masters of Belial, Dust an Elysian Tail, RC Racing 360, Skiddy

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

Very good. Microsoft built up a very good framework, that makes it relatively easy to come to a first success. And it is very flexible, it is a great toolset to bring your ideas into a game. And the best thing is, you can develop on PC and nearly the same code runs on XBox.  XNA is a dream for all Indie Game developers. With it you can develop great XBox Games with nearly no budget, you need no expensive development kits. A great invention I think.

IndieGameBlog.net:How long has Magnetic Mind been in development and when do expect it to be complete?

Pure development time is about 8 months from first 3D models and the first lines of code. But we collected many ideas with our first project. So we had a good start. In overally time we spent about 900 hours. In the last days before the deadline of the competition I spent at the weekends about 16 hours a day and between the week an extra time of 5-7 hours a day additional to my normal work. So there is much hard work that has gone into the project. We hope to finish in the  summer of 2010.

IndieGameBlog.net:Any other thoughts/comments?

Best luck to the other competitors of Dream Build Play 2009. You all made a great job, I know the effort that is behind such a project. Sometimes this is at the border of humanity…

IndieGameBlog.net:Thank you for your time.

You’re welcome, and thank you for the opportunity of giving this interview!

I would like to extend my thanks to Oliver Schulze for giving this interview and wish him and the rest of the development team the best of luck in Dream Build Play and I can’t wait for the game to release (hopefully) next year.