Zane: Let me start the formal interview process by thanking you for taking the time to have this chat. I really appreciate it.

Joe: I definitely appreciate your time.

Zane: Founding a studio and creating a game of this scope aren’t small tasks by any means. What made you decide to become an indie developer, and found your studio?

Joe: Well I basically learned to write code about 19 years ago or so and started with writing BBS door games and moving on from there. I’ve worked at a few studios here in Toronto and in San Diego but eventually found myself working in other industries. The core game and ideas for Empyrios is actually a design I’ve been toying with for probably 4-5 years before the actual start of development and something that I’ve wanted to build for a long time.

Zane: Ah! Admittedly, I was curious which came first: Empyrios, or Creoterra.

Joe: Creoterra was really born in order to focus attention on building the types of games that we really wanted to play, to be honest. The core ideas and gameplay definitely predate us striking out and founding the studio, and we had a lot of world design and gameplay mechanics to start with. Once we found Jove—our artist—and he came on board with the project, is when things really started to come together from both a design and aesthetic point of view

Zane: Your aesthetic does have that old-school fantasy game feel. There are a number of areas where you’re doing things differently. For instance, I notice you’re not going with the traditional fantasy races. Even the dvergar as ‘dark dwarves’ in concept are very rarely seen compared to, say, dark elves.

Joe: Well that was one thing that we really spent a lot of time on because we really wanted to create a new world for the game to take place in. We do have a human race, the Aduro, and then the Dvergar as you mentioned, but we really wanted to have a fresh feel rather than sticking with ‘old proven’ so we’ve tried to come up with a lot of different concepts. Jove was also a big part of this and we worked very well going between art and design. One example would be the ‘Shade’ race, which our original design had more as a traditional type of undead. Jove wanted to try something new and he took the backstory of them being outcast for refusing to stop playing with necromancy and other dark arts, and tied it into the overall race. So now instead of having, say, the usual skeletal minions you might see elsewhere, the shade are basically a humanoid spirit, but with various parts of different types of living beings kind of moulded together.

Zane: Even the Aduro have a unique feel compared to the tried-and-tested staple of Humans. It’s great to see all these unique options. I can’t resist, though: are there any races that are developer favourites?

Joe: We’ve really tried to give all races, and the entire world for that matter, a really unique feel both through art style and ability design. Regarding favourites I can say that the Lithos are quite popular and we usually feature the Brute character out of game, but beyond that everyone seems to have their own favourite to play. I play a lot of the Caelum (avian race) myself and would definitely say they’re one of my personal favourites. Some people like sticking mainly with one race in their team composition, but a lot of people actually like to select from various races in whichever faction they’re playing.

Zane: I’m glad that you came to the topic of factions. You probably get this question a lot, but what is the Prophecy of Flame, and how does it relate to the two factions and their agenda?

Joe: Well the Prophecy of Flame actually stems from the Aduro race but has ramifications across the world. The human race in this part of the world started to have visits from very strange humans from other lands. They spoke of Pyrios, the god of flame, and began to recruit others into their religion and follow their beliefs. This had huge ramifications as once the Aduro Nation became the largest sect, they went from a passive view to being more aggressive, and banning and outlawing various forms of magic. This is what led to the Shade, as they are actually exiled Aduro who wanted to continue their research and practice into the darker arts. Whether that was a good idea or not is yet to be seen. I can’t go into the actual prophecy itself, as I don’t want to spoil the plot of either campaign, but it encompasses the entire world and story.

Zane: No worries! We wouldn’t want to spoil any surprises. The two factions, the Mystic Covenant and the Shadowlord Pact, they’re then centred around the Aduro and Shade, and their positions regarding Pyrios and his word?

Joe: Well their battle is one component, but every race actually has their own goals in mind, and they the factions are alliances of purpose and convenience. One example is how during their exile a high mage of the Shade actually created the Lithos race through necromancy and spirit magic. This impacts the Dvergar as you now have these wild destructive creations born in the mountains who start attacking the mines and trade routes. On the other hand, you have the Caelum who have forged a pact with the Sylvan to protect the wooded lands, and by making it seem as if the Reptilis attacked them first they’ve drawn the Sylvan into their battle. The Prophecy of Flame also foretold of the ‘beasts from the desert’ which later emerge as the Az’Modai, something the story goes into in more detail. So really the factions are actually created out of necessity, trickery, or something in between. They are much looser than say a conventional alliance where different races are friends for no reason, and it’s always been that way.

Zane: Wow. Suffice to say, there’s been a lot of preparation and fore-thought. All of this no doubt creates a rich back-story to set the current campaign’s events against.

Joe: Each faction’s campaign story isn’t actually just a linear point A to point B narrative. Sometimes you might have 2-3 options open to you on the map and you have to make a decision. Do you help the Dvergar town or the Aduro town, or do you ignore both to support the Sylvan on the front lines in the forest? Each campaign is different depending on the choices you make and the outcomes of the battle.

Zane: Strategizing well is clearly a big part of the game, and using your environment to your advantage is a core component thereof. What are some of the key elements of Empyrios’ tactical combat?

Joe: Well you hit on one key component which is trying to take tactical advantage by using the environment. Some units can set traps or alter the environment in small ways. To that effect. map control and positioning is pretty big. Another is that each unit has a set of 3 skills that vary in power cost, so you have to decide on whether you want to use ability X now, or wait and use something that costs less until you can get into a better position for a larger ability. Ouside of the battles the units in your army gain levels, have a skill mastery tree, and even one additional customization system that we’re still working on. So just because an enemy is using a Lithos Brute, you can’t be sure if he’s using it as a traditional ‘tanky’ type build, crowd control, or focussing on raw damage. And of course setting up team synergy and combos and planning your strategy is something that gives a nice edge.

Zane: Wow. Multiple campaigns with non-linear story-lines and player controlled outcomes, and then full control in a tactical environment with a myriad of options…have to say, you guys have put a lot of thought, effort and passion into this project.

Joe: Yeah it’s actually been quite the undertaking! As I mentioned early the core game concept and ideas were coming together for years before development started (actually using HeroQuest miniatures on a cardboard map), and we’ve been in full production for quite an insane amount of time.

Zane: What have been some of the major challenges of going Indie and working on Empyrios?

Joe: Well the biggest challenge for me has been the switch over to production. I spent the majority of my career, both in and out of games, in software engineering and technical direction. So while I worked hand in hand with producers, artists, and designers, I was still heavily tech focused. I had a million and one things to learn, and a lot of mistakes to make, but having someone like Jove on the project was absolutely huge as he took care of the aesthetic direction and really helped bring this idea and story on paper to life. Also, scope was a huge issue as the amount of work was pretty staggering on all fronts, whether it be code, design, art, anything! Although on a positive note we knew going into the project that it wasn’t something we would be building quickly and that we were in for the long haul project… so it wasn’t like we were surprised or hammered by scope creep.

Zane: I can imagine with something like an RPG, where you have to cater for every individual player contingency, as well as test to ensure the combinations are compatible, that it’s a huge undertaking.

Joe: The testing is actually a major part, especially with the team composition and customization. I build a lot of in-house tools and we’ve basically had bots playing the game 24/7 against each other for over a year constantly collecting data. It was quite fun, actually, because the bots were building teams and combos based on statistical analysis. Quite a few times the AI created some monster teams where we immediately knew we had to go in and fine-tune some abilities. The bots came up with a few team compositions that we never would have dreamed of using… but if the AI found them, players definitely would have at some point.

Zane: In that case, mental note to self: only play against other humans. You mention a variety of game modes, including the campaign and multiplayer. What are the modes on offer for the release?

Joe: We have the campaign mode, which is has a full non-linear campaign for each faction individual faction. Then there’s online multiplayer, local multiplayer, and practice. With online games we have a full infrastructure and matchmaking system so you can play ‘ranked’ games or just friendly games against friends. There are even unlockables and achievements. Local multiplayer is just what it sounds like: multiple friends against each other, playing on the same device. Practice mode is essentially local multiplayer versus bots.

Zane: Whom we’ve just established might be much nastier than your friends, depending on your difficulty level (and friends).

Joe: Hehehe very true.

Zane: I know this is probably your least favourite question as a developer, but the journalist code of honour dictates that I ask. Without us forcing you to commit to it, do you have a rough release date in mind?

Joe: Well our target is Q4 this year, but depending on development we may run into Q1 of next year. We’re actually 100% art complete at this stage (and we’re working on the first update actually), and majority code complete. Right now a lot of the work is in continuing to work on unit balancing, story/campaign, and heavy polishing across the board. Of course no promises with time as we want to make sure everything is extremely polished and as perfect as we can build it in our view.

Zane: That’s exciting news! Is there any way our readers can help show their support or keep up to speed with the latest progress reports and news?

Joe: Well we always massively appreciate support on Twitter and Facebook which we’ll be updating with news much more often. We’ve been ‘working in a dark cave’ for the last about 5 weeks while trying to get our latest alpha build ready and in testing so we haven’t had the stream of updates I’d like to see but there will be a lot more in the coming weeks. Also we’re hoping to have both the empyrios.com website and steam green light page online within the next 3-4 weeks or so. And of course players can check our company site where there is more information on the game and will be continually updated

Zane: Thank you very much, Joe. Do you have any final words of advice or inspiration you’d like to share with any aspiring indie devs who might be reading?

Joe: Well for me I think the biggest thing is that if you have a great game idea that you’d like to realize, you have to build it. In some cases, like with Empyrios, the design morphed from tabletop gameplay builds over the years, and writing the backstory as a hobby, into building out the entire game in production. Just be very mindful that if you haven’t produced a AAA or indie title in the past, you are going to learn a million new things, your time estimates will be derailed, and you’ll probably hit a host of unforeseen problems. As we’re wrapping up development on Empyrios I am definitely really happy with the overall process and what we’ll have achieved in the end, and I hope that players will feel the same way.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Andy: So you’re about to make the leap from $1 mobile apps to fully fledged commercial PC development. Nervous?

Tom: The biggest change is that Battle Chef Brigade will take more than two months to make! There’s a lot involved in a larger game that we got to gloss over with our mobile games. We’ve had to get some help, particularly for art, sound, and music. Those changes come with a lot of challenges, of course, but it’s also really fun to let ourselves run a little wilder. We’re thrilled to be able to make multiple dollars per sale instead of pocket change. So, I’d say we’re both excited and only slightly nervous. We’ve worked on much larger projects before, especially at Wideload/Disney, so we’re not out of our depth yet!

Andy: If nothing else, having money to eat has got to be a bonus.

Tom: Absolutely!

Andy: Prior to starting work on Battle Chef Brigade, you guys published two mobile games – Colour Sheep and Orion’s Forge. Did you learn any valuable lessons from your first attempts at indie development?

Tom: Definitely. We started Trinket after having worked together for years at Wideload, but it still took some time to settle into a good workflow that respects everyone’s distinct styles. Our mobile games let us work through those issues quickly while still releasing games. On top of that, we actually started with the intention of releasing three mobile games. The third was codenamed ‘Accidents’ and ended poorly. We ended up designing ourselves into a corner, namely the Physics-Based Rube Goldberg Puzzle Corner of Doom, which taught us a bunch of lessons. Most importantly, we learned to work towards our strengths, which has gone a long way towards molding Battle Chef Brigade‘s design.

Andy: Something I’ve always wondered when I see developers from big studio teams break off and go ‘indie’. How are you finding all the extra jobs surrounding your own project? Has it been difficult to accommodate for all those extra tasks like social media and marketing now you’re flying solo?

Tom: It’s been both frustrating and educational. Accounting and legal issues are particularly bothersome and nearly always orthogonal to the game’s needs. Marketing, on the other hand, has been primarily enjoyable. Learning to talk about our games and honing our message are great general-purpose skills, for instance. None of us had Twitter accounts before Trinket, so the world of social media was scary at first. Now, however, I love getting to know people all across the globe who are also working hard on great games. Interacting with fans has been especially rewarding. It’s really too bad that development at large studios is kept so far from players.

Andy: Now cooking features pretty heavily in Battle Chef Brigade. I mean the game focuses on making the best meals from what you kill and prepare afterwards, right? It’s not a common theme to frame in a game, and most people are going to instantly think of Cooking Mama as a comparison. Do you think there’s a need to distance yourself from these ‘cooking sim’ games, and if so how do you think you’ll manage to do that?

Tom: We set a goal for ourselves to bring “Fantasy Iron Chef” to life. Iron Chef, along with nearly all cooking shows, focuses on creative cooking. Most cooking games, however, focus on player execution of by-the-book pre-determined recipes. Instead of dictating what dish to make, we want to leave as much as possible up to the player.

Of course, the choices that chefs make, particularly when targeting specific taste and texture combinations, are really complicated and often based on decades of experience. We’ve spent a huge amount of time prototyping different potential solutions to that issue. Fantasy ingredients are part of our solution, since we have more room to specify how they work. At the least, players will have a lot less intuition about dragon tail than pork chops.

Andy: So, don’t hold out any hopes for a Cooking Mama cameo then?

Tom: Probably not. We do love the personalities of real life chefs, though, and hope to incorporate some of their quirks in our chefs. Cooking Mama is pretty quirky, so perhaps we’ll find a way to slip in a joke or two.

Andy: Please tell me there’s going to be a Gordon Ramsey character somewhere…

Tom: We’ll see! He’s definitely one of our favourite chefs.

Andy: Can you walk me through a typical… match? Round? How do you see the game play out? Can we expect a storyline and campaign to push players through a series of culinary challenges to become the best?

Tom: We’re still playing around with the possibilities, but right now a round starts in the Pantry Arena. There you’ll find yourself surrounded by monsters to slay for their ingredients. The monsters, of course, will try to prevent that. The opposing chef is also battling for ingredients.

Once you’ve collected enough ingredients, the next phase is the Kitchen. There you’ll be able to grab ingredients from the ones you’ve collected and start processing them at the various tables available. The default tables include stations for chopping, boiling, sautéing, baking, and plating. Of course, you can use other tools, like bowls, rolling pins, or pasta cutters to transform your dishes further. Those can help you make dough and eventually a pie, for instance. Eventually, you’ll want to have created multiple edible dishes to serve to the judges!

Andy: This format sounds like it would slot very well alongside a multiplayer mode. Is there any notion to look into doing something like this later down the line? I can easily see tense bake-offs happening amongst players.

Tom: It sure does! For now, though, as a team of just three, we’re focusing on single-player format against an AI chef. We see the potential and hopefully either a Kickstarter or big launch will allow us to add multiplayer support. There are other cool options that provide some of that competitive fun, at least, like Spelunky’s daily challenges.

Andy: Are you aiming to fund this project entirely by yourselves, or do you foresee a crowd funding/early access decision to be made later down the line?

Tom: We’ll definitely need additional funding to keep Trinket going as our full-time jobs, so Kickstarter and/or Early Access are very likely. We think BCB is intriguing enough to raise at least some money on Kickstarter. Our original plan was to launch the Kickstarter during PAX East in April, but we decided to postpone it and focus on the demo instead.

It’s clear the guys at Trinket Studios are pouring all of their creative juices into Battle Chef Brigade, and judging by the quality of concept art and ideas being thrown around I’m eager to see how this game evolves. If like me, you want to keep tabs on the development of the game, or if you just want to watch more of these awesome eating gifs, be sure to stalk their dev blog.

© 2014, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

When I first caught a glimpse of Autopret, a sandbox driving game, it didn’t take long for me to fall in love with the art style. It didn’t matter what was actually happening inside the game, I just knew I had to find out more about this beautifully crafted world from developer Sander van der Vegte.

The Indie Mine: What sparked the idea of Autopret?

Sander: I was busy trying out Unity a few years back. At the time I was messing about, trying to make a car. After I succeeded I wanted it to move around autonomously. Fast forward to a year ago, and I had a simple city with cars driving around on their own. It was great to play with, from a developer’s point of view. Then I realized that if I can translate that form of ‘play’ to something players can do, I’d have a great game. As for the edit functionality, designing an entire city takes a lot of time. A way to design your own city needed to be found, otherwise the scope of the project would be too big for a small team. The level editor was specifically made with no grid in mind. Full flexibility but with a super-easy interface. I prototyped this all, and named it Autopret.

The Indie Mine: The ability to affect the game by using words reminds me of Scribblenauts‘ free-form world manipulation. How deep are you planning to make this feature in Autopret? Can you give me a few examples of some cool ways to change the game world using this feature?

Sander: This is heavily based on Scribblenauts, yes. Their way of influencing the world is a great inspiration. The difference with Autopret is that you can point out which object you want to influence. This can become as deep as we want. You get the feeling that anything is possible, and that’s our goal, too. There are so many suggestions we have seen by play testing the game. Another huge source for inspiration and a great way to create what players want. Some cool examples: The trailer shows ‘brick’, ‘plank’, and ‘freeze’, which put together, combines into a solid ramp you can jump off. I personally like to type in ‘beam’, which creates a 2 by 4, drive on top of it, and then make the beam really big in one go. This action flings the car into the air.

The Indie Mine: The trailer shows off a world editing view too, allowing you to draw new areas onto the game space. What are you aiming for with this and how big can we expect a map to get? Will I be able to create a sprawling city for example?

Sander: You can create as many roads as you want. We haven’t really found the limit of map size yet. From a game design perspective, it might be better to limit the amount of roads you can make, but that’s something we still need to explore. If you want to create a sprawling city, you sure can. A new road can be magnetized in position and rotation, allowing you to create a grid structure similar to big cities. Place high-rise, and you’re done. The game will populate the city accordingly, making cities more traffic dense than villages.

The Indie Mine: What’s the deal with the other cars on the road? How does the AI understand what’s happening when all hell breaks loose and they start flying off into the horizons?

Sander: All cars have a mind of their own. At first, they start off easy going. However, for each collision they make or get, or if they need to wait for no good reason, their temper goes up. Eventually, they will start ignoring rules, and try to back out of a traffic jam. The result can be pretty hilarious. There’s a lot of tweaking involved to get this right. Even though a huge traffic jam can clear itself over time, it might not always be interesting to look at. There is a fine line between moving traffic, and stopped traffic, to give the player a fun environment.

The Indie Mine: How many people have been working on the game? How long has it been in development for?

Sander: We have been working with a team of five, for the past ten weeks. The Gamefonds and the Creative Industries Fund NL honored us with a stimulus fund to make this happen. Now that we can show how promising this game is, we need to use this momentum to find other ways to continue development.

The Indie Mine: When do you hope to release it, and on what platforms? What prices are we looking at?

Sander: Autopret is currently made for PC and Mac, but can be ported with relative ease to pretty much any other platform. We hope to be able to offer this game for free. With an endless amount of customization, we are looking for other ways to support this game. A basic version for free, for anyone to enjoy, and perhaps a paid version if you want a bit more objects or cars to play around with. These plans depend heavily on feedback, so we’d love to hear what people think of it.

You can find out more about Autopret and keep up to date with the games progress through their official website.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Astrobase Command, a sandbox base-building RPG by Jellyfish Games, is a character-driven throwback to those old 70s style sci-fi ideas of what living in deep space would be like. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, and as your crew struggle to make it through the day some will die. Players will be tasked with creating their own species and building up their base any way they see fit using a ‘Lego-style’ module system to slot in various rooms onto the space stations infrastructure.

Alongside the base building elements, Astrobase Command promises some interesting RPG elements as you explore the stars, with procedural content thrown in to help keep content fresh and unexpected. To get a better understanding of what the folks at Jellyfish Games are trying to achieve, we got to throw some questions at them, and here’s what team member Dave Williams had to say.

The Indie Mine: The game appears to have a big focus on the lives and activities of your individual crew members. How deep is the character development system?

Dave: Character development is a major part of the game, so it’s quite deep. The best metaphor is that when I played D&D in my early teens, it was all about min/maxing and getting that character which was completely optimized in his stats and abilities. And this was loads of fun. But what was even more fulfilling was playing D&D in college and as an adult because then it became about the character and solving challenges from the perspective of the character. The stats were there to inform the roleplaying and flesh out one aspect of character development, but they weren’t the be-all-and-end-all.

So Astrobase Command is really based around the premise that the characters living on your station are not just “bags of stats”. but they’re actually people in the same sense that characters in a well-made D&D universe are.

And I think this dovetails nicely with what’s interesting to us about science fiction. While lightsabers and Star Destroyers got me excited about sci-fi, I feel like it’s really the characters that make the genre compelling on a level so deep that fans go to conventions every year, do cosplay, and exhibit an uncanny willingness to wait in line for a day to get tickets for a theatrical release. This isn’t because of the awesome futuristic technology and panoramic shots of spaceships and pew-pew; it’s because of really compelling characters and their stories which take place in a believable sci-fi world (which is where the technology comes in).

So in my mind, science fiction isn’t about technology itself; rather it’s about exploring the conflict inherent in technological development and how characters meet those challenges. So I think if you dig into it, what’s cool about lightsabers is how this archaic technology (by Star Wars standards) embodies the values of ancient wisdom and tradition represented by the Jedi, and how this fundamentally clashes with the Empire’s need for relentless progress. It is against this backdrop that Vader proclaims “don’t be too proud of this technological terror that you’ve constructed, the ability to destroy a planet is insignificant next to the power of the Force.” So what’s interesting is the storytelling opportunities afforded by the technology as a backdrop, not the technology itself.

As a result of this notion, we have a heavy investment in the personality trait system which hooks into our AI story engine in specific ways. There are 280 personality traits (so far) and a given character can have up to four. Each trait has a very long list of properties, affinities, and relationships and it’s actually these more atomic units that the AI story engine interacts with. But we wanted the mechanics of the system to be invisible to the player, because he or she should care about the character as an individual — the sum of its parts. It’s the code that does the work to make it believable, and we’ve put a lot of effort into this.

Our test as to whether the trait system worked was being able to construct our favourite characters from various sci-fi universes and have them behave as you would expect. Part of the iterative process was ensuring they could be represented in this system. Because if the trait system could theoretically use its Lego pieces to construct anyone from a believable Picard to a believable Vader, then you can make anything.

And just to be clear, the player doesn’t get to pick the traits of the crew. They develop over time as an outcome of the AI Story Engine. Personalities of characters emerge from the situations the player puts them in.

Much of the fun is taking these deep characters (who may have some great aspects combined with other aspects that don’t fit your playstyle), and figuring out how to best utilize them on your station. The Star Trek example is Lieutenant Barclay. He was an extremely talented diagnostic engineer, and he might have been the smartest human on the Enterprise — his intelligence was at the genius level, even by Star Trek standards. But he also was completely paranoid, an introvert, and plus he was pretty arrogant. And this is what made him interesting. And plenty of TNG episodes explored how his perceived weaknesses actually became an asset. His paranoia actually saved the day a number of times, as did his arrogance to insist that he was right and everyone else was wrong (which ended up being true).

So the idea’s that there are no intrinsically good/bad traits. It’s simply about the kinds of characters the player trusts and what characters best suit the player’s playstyle.

The Indie Mine: How will the player maintain a steady stream of crew members? Since you plan on having several ‘disastrous scenarios’ like alien infestations and accidental deaths amongst the crew, I’d imagine there must be a way to replace those unfortunate red shirts.

Dave: Yeah, there are a number of ways. The most fundamental method is recruits. One of the jobs on the station is Recruitment Officer, and it’s the job of the character in this position to feed the player a steady stream of recruits. Like HR in real life, better Recruitment Officers yield better candidates. Then it’s up to the player to accept or reject the application. Because Crew Quarters are a module that needs to be built/supported, you don’t necessarily want to accept everyone that comes your way. There definitely a danger of “dead weight” — which is something that can exist in any real-world organization, and indeed in Astrobase Command. Sometimes the player is looking to fill a need or role on the station, and then looking at recruit applications and deciding who the best fit is. Other times, a superstar may come along and the player may feel he’s a good hire even if there’s no immediate job for him.

Other than this, there are instances where travellers, or people you rescue, or defectors from other civilizations, etc, will want to join your Astrobase. The story engine determines these moments, and gives you the opportunity to do something about it.

I think red shirts are ultimately characters that don’t yet have a developed personality, nor has there been any particular investment into their skills. Since there’s no emotional attachment, sure they can go explore the Planet of Death because maybe there’s some needed resources on the surface. What’s interesting is that when those red shirts do something interesting, and maybe get a personality trait of it. Then you care about them. And indeed, this is how things worked on Star Trek.

Chief O’Brien is a good example about this. At the beginning of TNG he was a fill-in character, completely expendable. After awhile, you got to know him and he did some things. Then by DS9 he was a primary character. And you really cared about his story, even though he was still a Petty Officer. That’s kind of how things work in Astrobase Command. You want NCOs you can trust, just like you want Commanders you can trust.

The Indie Mine: How much customisation is available when building your space station?

Dave: We use a module metaphor, so the player essentially crafts modules out of parts and then the module has the cumulative attributes, including the relevant duty stations where the characters physically work. The characters assigned to build the modules also play a part, so better engineers will construct better modules. There are no map sizes or hard limits, so you can basically build whatever you want. You can make a Death Star, you can make a Babylon 5, you can make a DS9 — or whatever mash up fantasy is living in your head. These goals are intrinsic.Well, since Astrobase Command is a lot about sci-fi fantasy fulfilment, it was paramount to us to make it feel like you were actually building a believable station.

It is important that the game doesn’t push the player to building any particular thing. It’s more that every opportunity is a choice, and every choice is a tradeoff. So you’ll want to build the station that best fits your playstyle and accept the good with the bad. So for example, a Death Star has lots of points of failure. Security is a pain. Its energy needs are extremely high. It is a city that has everything, but this is also its weakness. It needs experts in every field imaginable to be fully operational. Whereas a small science station has a lot less points of failure, but the trade-off is inherent in the narrow focus the player gives it. Simply put, it’s about risk v reward but also playstyle.

So a lot of design has gone into these sorts of natural mechanics. One very simple example of a natural tradeoff is power vs. security. Power is distributed through modules which have resistance, so the farther something is from a power reactor the less efficiently it’s sucking that power. Power reactors have a set output, so in general you want to utilize the output by having modules that are nearby. Incidentally, the code works out the most efficient way for the modules to draw power given the distance and resistance of the modules in-between it and the reactor. The way the algorithm works, if you don’t have enough power then rolling brownouts occur naturally as the algorithm walks though the module list and tries to power everything. This was a validation of the process, because it’s what you would expect. We didn’t code it deliberately, but rather it’s a natural result that emerged from a sensible way to represent station power.

In terms of trade-offs, being extremely power-efficient trends towards a “highly connected” base, which makes sense in real-world terms. But this is the opposite of what you want for a very secure station. Security works by having checkpoints take up some of a module space, and security personnel will work out routes. Super efficient security means having a tubular (or ring-like) station, with choke-points where you can trap enemies. Because it’s a lot easier to sweep an area with just a few access points. So something that’s very efficient for power ends up being very inefficient for security, and vice-versa simply due to a natural outcome of module connectivity. That’s just one example.

The Indie Mine: You say the game features real-time squad-based combat in some situations, so how will the battles play out?

Dave: I could say that battles play out a bit like a cross between Rome: Total War and tabletop miniature games, but in a 3D space. But this is highly dependent on the conflict size.

Unlike Rome: Total War (or RTS games in general) where each unit is identical to others of its type, in Astrobase Command every unit is unique because it is a character. The player creates groups (could be squad sized, or regiment sized) and gives orders at the group level.  For small conflicts, the player is able to really take a hands-on approach and direct every movement precisely. For large conflicts, there’s too much going on for the player to micromanage every small action, and he’ll need to give high-level objectives to Commanders on the ground. The AI will execute those orders using the character personalities. So it’s about promoting Commanders you trust.

A counter-analogy I like to use is Starcraft. I loved Starcraft, but I could never compete at the high levels of play because it ultimately was about clicks-per-minute which required a lot of practice and a huge investment. And I felt like to be able to compete I would have to lessen my enjoyment of the game, and invest a lot of time doing that. Astrobase Command isn’t about how fast you can click — you have Commanders to do this for you, if you’ve cultivated them.

And this means the game scales up quite well. In the early game, where you don’t have a lot of characters and none of them are particularly well-developed leaders yet, you’ll be fighting small engagements and directing every squad yourself in the moment-to-moment gameplay. As you progress and the battles get larger, you’ll still probably focus on one area of the battle where you really want to take personal control, but for other areas where you can’t give your undivided attention you’ll put characters in charge and give them an objective which might be “assault this position” or “take this hill” or “hold my flank” or “bombard their capital ships to distract fire away from the fighters” and the AI will fulfil those orders, to the best of the ability and personality of the Commanders you’ve assigned. This is how we plan to support huge fleet battles and armies, without requiring the character move every unit by hand.

The Indie Mine: Astrobase Command boasts a “robust AI-generated storytelling system”. How will the game keep things fresh and exciting for the player?

Dave: I think one of the weaknesses of rogue-like games is that they often play like a series of disconnected events, where things happen randomly. We feel like that invalidates the concept of meaningful choice. Because a big part of player choice is having outcomes which are a consequence of player action.

The goal in Astrobase Command is to have events which occur in the game world that are a direct result of the actions taken by the player, and by the player’s crew. And that it makes sense when compared to the internal logic used for sci-fi shows. Because that’s the metric: “Could this string of in-game events be a Star Trek episode, and over time when story arcs emerge does it start to look like a season?”

So the idea is that we give the player a maximum possibility space, and ensure the game responds appropriately to his actions within a maximal set of reactions. This in turn prompts the player to make new choices to respond to the new situations. Then, it will always be fresh.

The Indie Mine: What’s the craziest moment you’ve seen when making the game?

Dave: I think being indie is necessarily filled with crazy moments. Obviously, Astrobase Command is very much a technology and systems driven game at its core. And the team composition reflects that, but it also means we won’t have an artist until after the Kickstarter. But part of doing a Kickstarter means showing gameplay, and we got to a point where we needed in-game assets just to proceed. We were like “who has the most 3d Studio Max experience?” and Adam our primary coder had opened it like once, two years ago. He had the most experience, so he’s now also our 3d modeller. We call it our “Inglourious Basterds moment.” Banjerrrno!

If you want to know more  about Astrobase Command, check out their Kickstarter campaign (In which 30 Canadian dollars will net you access to the beta when it’s released) and the game’s official website.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Sanatana Mishra from Witch Beam Studios flew all the way from Australia to attend this year’s Eurogamer Expo, so naturally we couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk about his current twin stick shooter Assault Android Cactus, as well as his experiences with publishing on the next wave of consoles.

For more information on Assault Android Cactus check out their official site here.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

During this year’s Eurogamer Expo, we got to chatting with Mike Bithell of Thomas Was Alone fame. In the interview below, we talk about Volume, his newest creation which trades the highly emotional lives of rectangles for cover-based stealth action.

For more information about Volume, check out the official site here.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Castles in the Sky took me by surprise, not because of stunning graphics, hardcore gameplay or amazing physics. No, what took me by surprise was innocence, a sense of whimsy I’d long since forgotten after becoming a ‘proper grown-up’.

Produced by a small indie team of two, Castles in the Sky comes across as a delightful blend of simplistic platforming and heartfelt narrative, presented as a spread of colourful pixel-based art. The game is equal parts story book and platforming, where the goal is to scale upwards towards the sky, bouncing from cloud to cloud as a rhyming narrative unfolds.

Because of the nature of the game, it would be difficult to reveal much else about its features without spoiling the overall experience, so I caught up with Dan Pearce (@gamedesigndan) and Jack de Quidt (@notquitereal) to ask them a few questions regarding Castles in the Sky, and what the future holds for The Tall Trees.

The Indie Mine: What made you choose to do this ‘interactive picture-book’ gameplay?

Dan: I started the project on my own one night. We’d started a few projects (which are still going) that were going to be in production for a while longer, and I felt like playing something like Castles. I was struggling to find anything, so I decided to toy around with a small prototype. This resulted in me staying up until 6AM making this little thing with a kid jumping in clouds, the art for which is what you see in the game. I became pretty attached to it and pitched it to Jack the following day as an introductory piece to showcase what The Tall Trees is.

Jack: Dan pitched it to me as similar in terms of gameplay to Doodle Jump, and while those games are great, I always felt they were lacking something normatively. Ha! I mean, story isn’t really what they’re for, but that sort of gameplay where you’re inexorably moving upwards could lend itself really nicely to discovery and narrative.

I’m not entirely sure where the decision to make it rhyme came from, but as soon as that appeared, it was pretty much set as a picture-book. There was something so playfully naive about writing in that style, and I don’t think another story would have worked. From then on, I tried as best I could to emulate the style and feel of the picture books I had read to me as a kid. I didn’t want to push the story anywhere too radical – just keep it gentle and playful. And as is the way of all these stories, they end with the kid going to bed. So that’s where we had to go.

The Indie Mine: So the style is very innocent and childlike, like you said to emulate those old memories of a children’s bedtime story. Would you say this was aimed at a younger audience? I can see this being very popular as a shared activity between young kids and their parents.

Jack: I think from my perspective I’m always taken with the stance that Pixar take, which is “we just make films. Hopefully, both adults and kids will like it”. It’s true that there aren’t really enough games for parents and children to play together, but I wouldn’t say it was designed in mind for a single demographic. That said, introducing younger generations to indie games in a way in which their parents are an active part of the game is a really admirable goal, and if we can do that even a bit, I’ll be happy.

Dan: Yeah, I had someone ask me this earlier actually and I think the answer I gave was something like “it’s not for kids, so much as adults who wish they were kids”.

The Indie Mine: Since you chose to publish this as your first game under The Tall Trees brand, do you see yourself making more of this style of interactive story book gameplay in the future? Is there a particular style of game you’d really like to explore?

Dan: I think it’s definitely something we’re thinking about when looking at future projects. As I said, we started a couple of our projects before Castles, and those are definitely in a similar vein. I’m not amazing with words (which is why Jack’s so good to work with), so I’d have trouble defining what The Tall Trees is all about. Jack and I have agreed that Castles is a very “Tall Treesy” game, though, so hopefully the game says what that means better than I can.

Jack: We’d like to make games about discovering beautiful things frequently and surprisingly. I don’t know if we’re likely to make more rhyming, jumping games, but the sensibility at the heart of Castles (“you’re going on a journey, here are some lovely things”) is one that I think is central to our designs.

Dan: I think that’s our core really. The main thing that will change around that will be the control schemes and tones of each game.

It’s important to note that Castles in the Sky isn’t your typical game experience. The game will take approximately 10-15 minutes to finish, and in many ways it is more story than platformer, which is reflected in the games very affordable $1.50 price tag. Those wanting to pre-order the game can do so at the official site here. Pre-ordering will net you the game (on PC & Mac), soundtrack and wallpapers when the game launches on the 18th of this month.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

Gen Con started in 1968 as a small gathering of tabletop gamers. Like Dragon*Con in Atlanta, and the comic book conventions of San Diego and New York, Gen Con eventually presented a wide variety of media, including general fantasy and science fiction as well as television and video games. But primarily, the convention is associated with non-electronic wargaming and role-playing games, since the show was started by the late Gary Gygax, one of the creators of Dungeons and Dragons. It’s estimated that over 40,000 people visited Gen Con 2013.

Thousands of players gathered in Indianapolis, Indiana for Gen Con 2013 the weekend of August 17. This room is one of fifteen exhibition halls filled with tables for face-to-face gaming.

You can guess right away the question that we would raise at a show like Gen Con. Authors have always been independent, with an identity quite separate from their publishers. Likewise, every musician is considered independent until signed by a label. And with video games in particular, software development kits (SDKs) and Internet distribution make it possible for a solo programmer to reach a wide audience of gamers. How can this also be true of non-electronic games? Can a solo designer or a small team make a board game, or a card game, or an RPG that’s worthwhile?

Mark Diaz Truman, of Magpie Games and the Indie Game Developer Network, answers questions and represents game products at the IGDN booth at Gen Con 2013 in Indianapolis, Indiana.

Mark Diaz Truman, of Albuquerque, New Mexico, thinks that the answer is a resounding yes. Truman and his merry band of independent game designers stood shoulder-to-shoulder with big, established game publishers at Gen Con. From their booth, the IGDN offered product demonstrations and sales in the same environment as Wizards of the Coast, Chaosium and Steve Jackson Games.

The IGDN was created by Truman, 31, and a number of like-minded designers who couldn’t bear reinventing the wheel over and over again. While it’s possible to do business outside of mainstream channels, these designers found it difficult to communicate productively, even with technology to connect people. In an effort to pool their knowledge and experience, they created a private e-mail distribution list to have honest exchanges away from the noise of the general Internet. Eventually the IGDN became more like a traditional trade and labor organization, with yearly dues and bylaws.

Truman’s organization is sensitive to the challenges that face independent game designers, which are also common to all indie media creators. “It’s hard to get people to try a new game,” said Truman. “Freelance and indie game design has never paid much, and folks have to work a long time to build a reputation. It’s easy to get in over your head with a print run that’s too large or a project that runs over budget while falling behind.”

In that light, the purpose of the IGDN is not just to share information, but to pool resources as well. Truman said their industry booth “was made possible by the joint efforts of our membership. Alone we would only be able to purchase small advertisements, but together we can actually put our books out in front of fans at Gen Con in a really exciting way.”

When pressed to explain how an indie game designer is different from a mainstream game company employee, Truman cited the example of his own recent work on a major RPG based on a television property. In Truman’s eyes, there is no conflict in accepting freelance or contract work from major companies while still producing your own material. “My independent impulse will always allow that I work on the projects that I am excited about,” said Truman. “The gaming industry doesn’t work like it used to. There’s no such thing as selling out in this business.”

Truman went on to describe the conflict between commerce and art that exists in independent games, and for all independent media. “It’s really a spectrum, not a chasm,” he said of the division between the two. “If a game is good on its own, then people will buy it. But some creators care less about sales than they do about making a point. An independent game creator has passion.”

So what is Mark Diaz Truman passionate about? As a graduate of the Harvard-Kennedy School of Government, with a Master’s degree in public policy, Truman cares a great deal about social inequality as it relates to issues of race and gender. This passion is reflected in his ambitious flagship game, the short-form RPG “Our Last Best Hope”. Truman said that he wanted to improve on the tropes of the disaster movie by making a game where many nations had to gather a diverse group of experts to avert some world-ending crisis.

“I think the most exciting part of the indie movement is the innovation, both in terms of setting and mechanics,” said Truman. He pointed out several tabletop games which addressed controversial or uncomfortable subjects meant to challenge players, and which wouldn’t necessarily be sold by any mainstream game company. Among them were Kagematsu, an RPG that encourages male gamers to think about medieval gender disparity, and Fiasco, about amateur crimes gone horribly wrong.

Have we answered the question of what makes a media creator independent?  Truman thinks it’s a question we’ll continue to debate for a while. “It’s really hard to define what makes someone ‘indie’ and it’s a topic that a lot of smarter folks than me have fought over for years before I even got into publishing,” he said. “For the IGDN, we really focus on looking for members who are maintaining as much creative ownership and control as possible. We care a lot less about where you work or if this is your full time job than we do if you are acting as a creative agent. ”

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

In a blog post on the Size Five Games forum, Marshall said, “It’s  something I’m doing extremely reluctantly, because I don’t want to  devalue the game.” Further on he noted that, “here’s the takeaway from  this, for any indie dev considering adding multiplayer to a game: the  number of games you have to sell in order to have people playing  constantly is HUGE.”

So while it is a smart move to make (given that a multiplayer game  generally needs more than one person playing it) it has come at the  expense of potentially devaluing the game – and any game (namely his next release, The Swindle) that Marshall makes further in the future.

Speaking via email, I asked if releasing the game so close to the Summer Steam Sale might have had a negative effect on sales. “Yeah, that was probably a stupid mistake,” Dan said. “I should probably have sat on the game for a month or so, built some hype, waited for the Steam Sale to end, but I’ve got a mouth to feed (and believe me it needs near-constant feeding) so I put the game up and hoped for the best.”

One of the big issues that developers are struggling to deal with is the perspective that consumers currently have towards the pricing on games – and in particular, indie games. YouTube personality TotalBiscuit did one of his WTF? Let’s look at’ videos on Gun Monkeys and concluded that the game was good, but not to the value of $10. Pointing this out to Dan he said, “I think it’s a shame we’ve somehow got to the point where a game isn’t worth $10. Gun Monkeys is playable for hours upon hours, but $10 is suddenly a big ask? It’s something I’m increasingly concerned about, what price am I going to be reasonably charging for my next game? I need to make ends meet, and if we’re down to $3-5 per game as ‘reasonable’ the indie industry’s in massive trouble.”

He carried this on to say that, “When I started making indie games, back in 2006, there was a running joke on forums and stuff that it was stupid to charge anything other than $19.95. Whether it was a match-3 knockoff or fully-fledged brilliance like Armadillo Run, your price point was $19.95, that was just the standard. Somehow people’s perception of ‘worth’ for an indie game is slipping – and I’m not saying this is something I’m exempt from, even I do it, you look at a game and it’s $5 and I think ‘I might only play it for an hour,’ and actually, if I did that that’s still good value.”

There are a number of reasons why this is the case, one of the biggest issues is the trickle-down effect that the mobile gaming market is having. Marshall noted that even a game like XCOM: Enemy Unknown, one of the high points of gaming last year, had an excellent port to the iPad, but was unfairly lambasted for its release price of $19.99.

Selling a game that only has multiplayer mode is a big gamble in the current market, with the likes of Team Fortress 2 and Dota 2 being free-to-play, being able to sway players is a massive challenge. While turning Gun Monkeys F2P isn’t happening anytime soon, Dan said that he plans on doing free weekends and tasters. So if you are still unsure about Gun Monkeys, it’s highly recommended to give it a try when the free trials become available.

Gun Monkeys is available on Windows and Mac for $5.99/£3.99.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.

The new characters are Benjamin (who has a jetpack) and his father, Anna, plus a returning character from the original game. This all ties in as a prequel to main story of Thomas with twenty new levels – about a 5^th the size of the original game – and will be available as DLC. Danny Wallace – who received a BAFTA award for his role – returns as the narrator of the story for the new DLC as well.

The game will run at 60 fps and 1080p due to the work of Curve Studios, who took the task of porting the game over to the PlayStation systems. It looks fantastic, with Benjamin’s jetpack releasing a gorgeous smoke/particle effect as he flies across the stage.

The controls feel tight and anyone who played the original with the Xbox 360 controller will immediately grasp them. The same also goes for the Vita, with the game coming across like it was built for the handheld in mind.

I was fortunate enough to meet up with Mike last week to talk about Thomas – but also to talk about the indie development scene in general as well.

How important do you think it is that Sony is now looking at the indie gaming scene as a viable source for them?

Mike Bithell: It’s massive. We entered this generation a very different culture from what is now the case. Mid-sized teams made games, and every now and again a team of hundreds and hundreds of people would release a mega blockbuster AAA game. What’s happened over this generation is that the AAA games are still there – and they are making more money then they ever did – especially as more people buy the consoles and the market widens. So that’s still there, Call of Duty and Assassins Creed are doing very well. But that middle ground, those games made by 50-100 people have kind of fallen off, there’s not so many of them.

And what you are seeing is these indie games that are coming up, where say five years ago you had World of Goo, which was made by two people – and that was the norm. And so people like me saw that and thought, “I could give that a go”, and so we are in that second or third generation of indie games where people like me are trying this model. But we are also seeing the guys who made those older games like Edmund McMillen, who have a bit more money and are making bigger games, so they are growing up and becoming bigger companies. So within the indie space, it has taken up the space where the mid-sized teams used to be.

So what Sony have realized, is that while you are still going to be seeing your big AAA games, the indies are the people that could potentially be filling in the gaps throughout the rest of the year. We have an audience where we can fill in the space. Also indie games are performing very well on PC. Thomas was Alone – while no means the biggest success story – has still done surprisingly well, and that doesn’t go unnoticed. I just think the industry has changed.

Do you think there is a stronger relationship between indie developer and player – compared against the bigger companies?

MB: Well this is something that AAA tried. Cliffy B was a designer in a company and they thought, “We need a rock star. You’re good looking!” They tried to do this, and some have been successful to an extent; you’ve heard of Levine, Cliffy. With indie, that is kind of by default. And it seems to be working out that even if you are not likable you can still become notorious. And I do feel I have players that have a loyalty to me that they might not have with other games. You don’t go into a shop and buy Bioshock because you want to support them – you just buy it for the game, whereas that is the case a lot of the time in indie.

Do you see a point down the road where you will be finished with Thomas was Alone?

MB: I don’t know is the quick answer. With this PS3/Vita port, it was cool to go back and fiddle with new stuff. The game will probably keep selling for a bit more. There might be DLC at some point, or a sequel. For me though, I feel this is the definitive point of the game now. Adding much more to it would feel wrong and feel bloated.

One of the things I wanted to do from day one was running commentary. DLC was a cool way to fix a character I didn’t like in the original game, so I get to go back and re-write history for the character I originally wanted them to be.

I think it might be the ending point for it. Basically, if I do something else with it, it will just be to make it more awesome. But I’ve just gone indie. If I now go indie and start churning out sequels every year I’ve kind of missed the point. The new project I’m working on is completely different to Thomas. There are some links, but its new gameplay, new ways of telling stories, because I have the freedom to do that.

Compared to where both the indie and YouTube gaming community is from when Thomas was first released, will you be giving the game to many of the YouTube channels and letting them do the free advertising for you?

MB: There are people that I have an established relationship with. I’m lucky in that journalists, generally, seem to like me, so there are people that I can send stuff to. And I know that when the game is released they will tweet about it, because they know this is a small team and we need all the help we can get. But this is where Dave (ed – David Miller: Senior Marketing Manager at Bossa Studios) comes in.

David Miller: The great thing about being a hit already on steam, is that it falls into the category of being a game that if major publications didn’t get a chance to play it first time round – are now telling us how happy they are it’s coming to the PS3. So we know it’s going to be reviewed in all the majors and the Playstation press.

MB: It was a slow burner originally. And someone like Total Biscuit – who had an enormous effect on the game – he didn’t talk about the game until about six month after it had come out. So it slowly built up, but it’s at the point where lots of people will now be talking about it.

DM: It’s sort of the antidote to Activision releasing a game and throwing a massive party, with a load of Coronation Street actors there.

MB: I think Danny (ed – Danny Wallace: British filmmaker/presenter who narrates the game) has been on Coronation Street! I’m not sure he has, it’s the kind of thing he would have done. (ed – I looked this up – he hasn’t.).

 DM: When you find out about something that has grown organically, that’s been developed with love… We were discussing over lunch “what makes an indie studio/game?” And Mike had a nice way of putting it: that an indie game is a game someone wants to make and not a game someone is told to make, because it has to hit the line on a balance. And you go to a party for one of those big games – and it is a pretty soulless experience. But every once in a while you get a project like this and everyone gets behind it, and people want to write about it. And with Curve Studios behind it as well now, it’s even better.

MB: It’s definitely been weird for me. It’s something that was genuinely a hobby game for me and now I’m here doing this, and I don’t understand how it happened. And we’re hoping to win over a whole new crowd now. There’s a whole bunch of people who have never heard of this game, so I’m quite excited to see how this new audience will react to it.

Do you think that the PC audience is more accustomed to a game like Thomas and do you have any expectations about feedback/response from the Sony market?

MB: Well first of all, I’m very grateful that Journey exists. I think that Journey has brought in a whole new audience that before wouldn’t have played a game without guns in it.

Do you still have people say, “It is just rectangles”?

MB: Oh yeah, absolutely. I still get “I’m lazy”, “I’m an idiot”, but that all gets a lot easier as the game sells more copies – so I mind less and less. That’s such an arrogant thing to say (laughs).

I have my headline sorted.

MB: (laughs) Yeah, “the next Phil Fish.” I think that people are ready for it, and of course there will be people that are skeptical. But that’s where the coverage for it will help, and there’s a lot of goodwill that has been built up with the game. I would very much like to see the game do as well as it did on PC.  There has been some indie stuff on the Sony platform like Journey, Papa & Yo, and The Unfinished Swan, which may have made people more aware of the indie scene.

Perhaps that has made Sony more aware as well?

MB: It might have. I think Shahid (ed – Shahid Kamal Ahmad: Sony) was born loving indie games. But I think within Sony, it might have made Thomas an easier sell perhaps. I think console has taken a little bit longer – because it’s not as open a system, but I think people are getting use to the idea. Thomas is coming in at £6, and you know… has Danny Wallace.

Thomas Was Alone is released this Tuesday 23^rd April in America as part of the PS Store’s Spring Fever promotion for $9.99, and the following day in Europe for £5.99. You can also follow Mike on twitter.

© 2013, The Indie Mine. All rights reserved.