Developer Interview: Gareth Williams (Dysnomia)
Comments (2) 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.
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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.
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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?
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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?
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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?
Trailer
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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