Would you be willing to leave your stable job at a well-known company, sell your house, move to another country and use your life savings to fund your dream with the risk that it might not pay off? In 2006, Nic Watt did just that. He left his position as Lead Designer at Electronic Arts in the UK, sold his house and used his savings to set up a game development studio in Sydney, Australia with business partner Bruce Thomson. They called the studio Nnooo, developing games for digital distribution, an emerging form of video game distribution at the time.

One of the largest entertainment industries in the world, global video game software revenues are predicted to total $90 billion in 2016. In Australia alone, sales of “interactive entertainment” reached $2.83 billion in 2015. Digital sales are increasingly playing a bigger role in those figures, accounting for $1.59 billion of the 2015 total. Game developers no longer need to release their games in a physical format to sell massive numbers. Minecraft, from independent Swedish developer Mojang, sold millions of copies globally before being available physically; it was only available to purchase online.

You have to invest millions to make millions, and that’s what the big AAA publishers like Microsoft, Sony, Electronic Arts and Ubisoft do through investors and shareholders. However, it’s a lot harder to gain a slice of that revenue if you’re making games in Australia, with limited government support to help local talent gain a foothold in a growing industry.

“Unlike the big AAA development, you self-fund the development,” explains Watt, “So we were having to put our own money and time and everything behind the product.”

Nnooo’s first game, Pop, was released on the Nintendo Wii in 2008. From 2006, until the game’s release, Watt says he was basically working for free, employing extra staff with his savings. It’s worked that way for all of Nnooo’s titles, funding the development of its next game from savings and sales of previous games.

Thankfully, all of Nnooo’s games have been financially successful. However, it’s a risky business. “For the most part, I don’t go home at the end of the day getting paid,” remarks Watt. “I don’t get paid until the game ships, and you guys all buy it. And if no one buys it, I’ve obviously made a bum game and I’ve worked for three years for nothing.” The tone in his voice changes as Nic speaks these words. It doesn’t appear to make him nervous, but there’s clearly a sense of uncertainty; it troubles him. I spoke to Nic a week after the launch of his latest game, Blast ‘Em Bunnies, so he was anxiously waiting to see whether his years of hard work would pay off.

Government Funding

Government funding for video game development in Australia currently is near non-existent. In 2013, the Federal Government implemented a $20 million Interactive Games Fund, providing grants to Australian game developers across three years. From March 2013 to May 2014, $10 million was injected into the Australian video game industry. Depending on a game’s ambitions, grants from as little as $30 000 to as large as $270 000 were handed out. Then it was cancelled.

Australian developers can gain some additional funds for projects through State Government funding. Blast ‘Em Bunnies benefited greatly from the small amount of government funding that Nnooo was able to acquire through Screen NSW. It allowed the studio to take more risks on the game. “Originally the game was designed for 3DS and Vita and we wanted to add on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One, which we hadn’t any direct experience on,” Watt noted, “So the additional funding allowed us to bring on some additional staff for temporary parts. We got an additional programmer to help us do some graphics and we got some animation work, and so it really allowed us to add some extra features and polish onto the game that we otherwise wouldn’t have had.” Watt didn’t disclose how much additional funding Nnooo received, but it is unlikely to have been much compared to what was being offered under the federally funded Interactive Games Fund.

Chris Wright is Managing Director at Surprise Attack Games, a publishing company that is helping Australian independent developers reach larger audiences. He believes, “the abolition of the fund has been more of a qualitative impact on the industry. The funding awarded in the years it was active and, prior to that, the previous funding programs for games from Screen Australia, helped companies like The League of Geeks (Armello), Defiant (Hand of Fate), the Voxel Agents, SMG (OTTTD), Tin Man Games and others to successfully launch more substantial titles and grow their businesses, employing developers and becoming real pillars in the industry. Those projects and those companies benefitted greatly from the funding programs and that helped accelerate their success.”

“There will always be a wealth of people trying their hand at indie development but we need these larger independent studios and more established developers to employ developers, create opportunities for new developers to learn and gain skills and to provide more stability in the industry.”

Earlier this year, a Senate Inquiry on video game funding heard the views of local developers and industry spokespeople, and passed on recommendations to the Federal Government. Nnooo was represented at the Senate Inquiry on March 11, submitting a proposal. Among other things, the committee suggested that “advanced economies such as Australia need to embrace innovation and transition to a knowledge economy that relies on technology and highly skilled jobs” (Kotaku), something the video game industry provides. It also suggested some form of a tax-break or tax offset system be implemented.

Watt advocates for a tax-break funding model similar to the UK and Canada, wherein game development companies are given tax deductions. He believes the current grant system is problematic because, “it’s susceptible… to whether people like or don’t like the particular product or companies that are coming through.”

“If you want to make a game and you believe in it and you’re willing to spend the time and get the people together, then the Canadian government is like ‘well that’s fine, we’ll give you a tax break on that and if you don’t make any money out of it well that’s on you, but we’re willing to support people taking creative risks’. We really like that sort of strategy,” says Watt.

Looking at the bigger picture, Chris Wright believes that funding should be focused on helping companies grow. Rather than being small teams of two to three people, Wright believes funding should exist to help those companies establish themselves as places that employ people and create more stable studios with more opportunities for graduates and developers.

It’s not all bad news for video game funding, with Film Victoria offering up to $150,000 in funding to game developers. However, the funding has to reach a national scale for the industry to be as successful as possible. During our conversation, Watt pointed out that many Victorian developers were in the United States showing their games at the Game Developers Conference – which attracts the big gaming press sites – because they were able to access funding that Nnooo couldn’t. Australian television program Good Game has an excellent episode on GDC 2016 that focuses on some Australian developers at the show and how it benefited them.

When only a portion of developers can afford to visit trade shows overseas to show their projects to a global market, it’s difficult for an industry to thrive. Chasing a slice of a $90 billion pie isn’t easy, especially without help.

Alternatives to Government Assistance

However, Government funding is not the only method of assistance available to Australian game developers. Both Nnooo and Surprise Attack provide support for game development studios by handling business aspects of game development such as marketing and distribution. Wright says that Surprise Attack handles everything from “figuring out the positioning and messaging for the marketing of the game, all the PR work with media and Youtubers, streamers etc, producing assets like trailers and marketing art, screenshots etc, exhibiting at events, organising dev kits for console platforms, access to stores like Steam, all the financial reporting and collecting the money, setting up sales promotions and bundles, some of the customer support and general business development.” Nnooo’s publishing branch acts very similar to this too. Both Wright and Watt stress that these services are things that developers can do themselves, but most new developers do not have the resources or experience to properly handle the business side and development side. It also helps that both Nnooo and Surprise Attack have established themselves in the industry and already have contacts with Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft to get games onto their consoles.

Another option is early access programs such as Steam Early Access or Game Preview on Xbox One. Early access programs act as a way for developers to gain additional funds for their games while they are in development, and also as a way of obtaining community feedback during the design process. Games like Ark: Survival Evolved, Rust, The Culling and Hurt World from Australian developer Bankroll Studios are examples of games that have become quite popular despite still being in development. Surprise Attack is currently publishing a few games through Steam Early Access, such as Rogue Continuum, Super Mutant Alien Assault and Dungeon League. Wright does admit, however, that Early Access does not work for every game, and most Early Access games “are not really generating a lot of income”. Even the indie hit Minecraft existed in a buy-able alpha and beta form before launching as a complete game.

Crowdfunding is another option for independent developers, asking the gaming community to donate funds for the game to be developed. Notable crowdfunded games include Mighty No. 9 ($3.84 million), Broken Age ($3.33 million) and Yooka-Laylee (£2.09 million). If you have an idea for a project that enough people want to see made, then you can get a lot of funding this way. I asked Nic Watt about crowdfunding, and he said they hadn’t yet done it for two reasons: at the time when Kickstarter became popular, Watt was working on a project already, and he also sees it as a big commitment to run a successful Kickstarter campaign.

“The thing with Kickstarter is that it has to be the right project and you have to be able to spend the time behind the scenes building up support for it and getting people’s attention for the product before you go down Kickstarter. But if you do it successfully and you’ve got the right IP or idea or concept, you can generate an awful amount of buzz,” says Watt. He points to Shovel Knight as an example of a Kickstarter campaign that he believes was executed really well.

All in all, development success in Australia is not impossible. With AAA development in Australia currently too expensive for publishers, smaller independent development teams are relied on to penetrate a global market. However, it’s very difficult without any extra assistance. Any government assistance would go a long way to making Australia a major player in the video game industry, but it’s largely limited to one State at the moment. Thankfully, globalisation and the digital economy now provide a multitude of alternative methods for funding, and the industry is slowing working out how to best fund projects and become financially viable.

Its latest title, Blast ‘Em Bunnies appears to be no exception to this, with the two man development team deciding to have a shot at the tower defense/ endless shooter genre. With the launch of Blast ‘Em Bunnies imminent, Analog Addiction had a chance to speak to one of the creative minds behind these games, Nnooo Creative Director and Founder Nic Watt.

Blast ‘Em Bunnies is a wave-based shooter that tasks the player with fighting off an army of evil bunnies using a range of weaponry like carrot rifles and watermelon machine guns.

“I first came up with an idea about looking around and shooting things and we wanted to include cute, colourful characters,” says Watt, speaking of how the premise for the game was formulated. “The first idea was a space defence shooter where you were some form of orbiting space station which could move in 360 degrees looking through its sights. I felt that shooting aliens in space might be a little too niche and alienating for some users so I tried to think of a character type that would appeal to all users.”

“This is where the ideas of bunnies came from. Once we had that, we started to think of all the cool things both the player could do in the form of crazy types of weapons (exploding, heat-seeking pepper bombs!), and enemies (burrowers, blockers, throatslitters for example)!”

My first experience with Blast ‘Em Bunnies was back in 2013, at the EB Games Expo in Sydney, Australia. The PlayStation 4 and Xbox One had just been announced, and Blast ‘Em Bunnies was being used to showcase the gyroscope in the PlayStation 4 controller.

“At the EB Expo in 2013 we were showing an early build on PlayStation 4 and we actually hadn’t been approved for Xbox at that time,” reflected Watt. “We still had a lot to add in the form of different arenas, bunny skins and even weapon and enemy types. We also added refreshable missions which renew on completion and daily, as well as lots of medals to complete too.”

Blast ‘Em Bunnies will be a strictly single player experience. “There isn’t multiplayer as mainly it would have required online play. The game is designed to be a first person shooter and the gameplay we went for really suits single player,” comments Watt. “Multiplayer would be a very different mode and, on at least PSVita and Nintendo 3DS, would have had to support either local or online multiplayer. This was too big an undertaking and something we hadn’t done before so we decided to focus our efforts on making sure the single player was the best it could be.”

Nnooo has been focused on Blast ‘Em Bunnies for quite some time. It’s been a little over two years since I first saw Blast ‘Em Bunnies in action, and several factors have played a part in the long development time frame. Largely, Watt tells me, it was because of the number of platforms the game was being developed for.

“We were always planning on PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS and added PlayStation 4 when we received development approval. Xbox One we added when we got approval to develop. We mainly wanted to release on multiple devices to reach more people and make the game as successful as we can.”

“When we finally got Xbox One approval we decided we wanted to aim for a simultaneous release, so it took a fair bit of time adding all of the support for each platform’s idiosyncrasies.”

Not only is a simultaneous release on this many platforms something new for the small developer, it also made the quality assurance testing a much longer process. “Given that there are only 3 of us and we are supporting 4 platforms, it took a big chunk of time to get it all super polished and bug free. The EB Expo 2013 build had a lot of crashes and other issues we were quite skilled at hiding!”

Another challenge the team faced was utilising each platform’s unique features in the game. The PlayStation and 3DS versions of the game make use of each platform’s gyroscope as an alternative control method to move the gun turret, but the Xbox presented more of a challenge that could not be overcome.

“We would have loved to support Kinect but it is such a different user interface we were concerned about how well we could give the feeling of controlling a gun turret and how much code would be shared between [the different platforms].”

Having absolutely no knowledge of developing games for different platforms, I was intrigued as to which platform Watt preferred.

“I really enjoy making games full stop. I think Nintendo probably provide the most interesting hardware in terms of things you can do with it, but for me working on PSVita, PS4, Xbox One and Nintendo 3DS is super exciting. It has been challenging trying to get the game working on such different hardware, particularly from the power of the PS4 and Xbox One down to the relatively lesser power of the Nintendo 3DS. Nevertheless, I think the game shines and has been tailored to work well on them all.”

“In terms of development ease I wouldn’t say any are much easier than the others, other than (because they are more recent) that the PS4 and Xbox One have got more modern tools and systems. Each generation the hardware manufacturers learn from the things they liked and disliked the generation before and make adjustments accordingly. With PS4 and Xbox One being the newest they have a lot more prior learnings to draw on.”

If you hadn’t picked it up by now, Nnooo has a development team of just two people. “The benefits are we can make the games we want, how we want and to the quality we want,” says Watt. “The challenges are we can only work so many hours and because we like to really polish our games they can end up taking a lot longer than we expect. Balancing the time, budget and quality is always very hard.”

It’s no secret that the current Australian government has not been very supportive of local video game development, but Screen Australia’s limited funding went a long way in helping the development of Nnooo’s latest title. “To be honest Blast ‘Em Bunnies would not have been completed without their support,” reflects Watt. “Screen NSW have been amazing, particularly given the tough times they have faced with their budgets being cut. They have really supported everything we have done and we are really glad they can still help out developers!”

Blast ‘Em Bunnies, the latest game from Nnooo, is available digitally this week for $4.99 USD (or regional equivalent). The PlayStation 4 and Vita versions of the game are available on March 8 in North America (March 9 in Europe, Australia and New Zealand). The Nintendo 3DS version launches on March 10 in the Americas, Europe and Australia and New Zealand, and the Xbox One version will be available on March 11 in the Americas, Europe, Australia and New Zealand.

The pressure of knowing that your opponent is going to be attacking you the same moment you attack them leads to a unique mindset while playing. Most characters have quick attacks in addition to longer ones with the potential for more damage, but taking longer to perform the entirety of your assault means that the platform you’re standing on may be destroyed mid-attack and suddenly your trajectory is going to be completely different as you fall and land somewhere else. Mindful gamers will likely find themselves attempting to compensate for the anticipated fall when a strike on their footing seems most advantageous.

It is important to note that there is no single player mode in Mayan Death Robots. While there is a campaign mode, it is strictly a two player endeavour, still pitting one against the other. While sitting down with the lead designer, Karel Crombecq, he explained that it is because of the unpredictable nature of humans and how difficult it is to properly capture that in an AI. Crombecq elaborated by stating that with computer opponents, it almost becomes a matter of making them too good or not good enough, but humans are able to blur that line without issue and even the best players can slip up, press the wrong button, or get distracted.

In the two player campaign, both players are still fighting for the worhip of the Mayans, although they do so throughout history. While the stage itself does not matter as much, you will occasionally see small details in the background acting as a reference to significant events leading up to and culminating in the Spanish invasion. Throughout the course of the campaign though, the actual Mayan gods will not simply sit by idly as these imposter robots take their place in the eyes of the Mayans. On occasion, if you anger them enough, these legitimate gods will appear and begin to wreak havoc, forcing both players to momentarily forget about one another in order to deal with the much bigger and significant threat. The campaign will completely remove both power cores until the god has been destroyed, so the sooner you defeat the god, the sooner you can return to demolishing your opponent’s power core

During a single game, each player has the opportunity to increase their explosive radius by killing the Mayan worshipers of their opponent and their various temples. It may not be immediately apparent to new players as the tiny individuals walking around do not seem crucial in combat, but killing each one who supports your opponent increases the size of the blasts from your attacks, effectively making even a single rocket far more effective and deadly. If a Mayan god appears, the player who dealt the most damage to it by the time it dies will also receive a very sizable increase to their blast radius, giving further incentive to momentarily divert your attention away from your opponent.

Defensive tactics are also made readily available within Mayan Death Robots as players possess the ability to build blocks of landscape. There are limits to where these blocks can be built, and they come in the predetermined shape of Tetris blocks, but if your core has suddenly become exposed or you want to shield yourself from imminent danger as you jump to a new location, these blocks of land offer the perfect solution. Of course, it is not as easy as simply building turn after turn. The block count will stop at five, meaning players are only able to lay up to five at a time, but each turn they receive one more block to use. For this reason, if your opponent has just laid down five blocks as a defense, it is in your best interest to blast through them as quickly as possible to ensure they cannot simply rebuild all of what you just worked to undo. Killing your opponent is always an option as well, and doing so will reward you with all of the blocks they had accumulated, but again there is a limit of five. Upon death, your robot will spend the next turn spawning, essentially giving your opponent a free turn to further their assault on your power core.

Mayan Death Robots is currently in beta on Steam, but will offer ten different characters when finished, including the eight available at the present time. The game is a ton of fun to play with friends, although you may find that number dwindling as you repeatedly murder each other with explosive banana projectiles. Mayan Death Robots is slated for a release this summer for the PC, Mac, and Linux. Keep checking back with Analog Addiction for more on the title as it becomes available.

Upon starting the demo, I quickly realized that it did not matter if you had not played a Witcher title in quite some time, the game does a fantastic job of making you recall characters and plot points you may have assumed you could not remember. The way it does this is through a simple cutscene at the start, reintroducing two key characters from past entries as well as the young lady who becomes the focus of Wild Hunt. There is an optional tutorial which reintroduces mechanics to players, allowing those already quite familiar with the combat system to simply carry on with the game. Following the completion of this tutorial, the prologue begins which tasks Geralt with hunting down his love, Yennefer. Geralt has a vague idea of where she may be headed, but needs the assistance of travelers and locals to catch up. The characters you approach will have varying responses to Geralt, as some people are not fond of Witchers and others do not wish to give up information freely. This is the first time you are given the opportunity to engage a minigame, playing a strategic game of cards against an NPC in exchange for information.

Of course, the option of telling the character you do not have time to play games also exists. Once you have gotten the information you seek, Geralt is sent off in the direction of a military camp to speak to a commanding officer. The trek is somewhat lengthy, and can lead to crossing paths with a variety of different enemies. I stumbled upon wolves and Drowners, the latter having received a significant overhaul in appearance. Every direction you turned, there was a vast landscape with rich colours and a great attention to detail. The small map on your HUD will show you the occasional enemy whenever they get within range of you, but you may see their red dot simply run off for one reason or another as they act independently of Geralt. The fact that these creatures seem to do their own thing as you play through the game is refreshing, meaning that you do not necessarily have to stop and fight enemies every time you get within 50 feet of them. That being said, the combat system is as smooth as ever, yet still unforgiving on the harder difficulty settings.

When you finally make your way into the military base, you are treated to an entertaining conversation between the commanding officer and Geralt, leading to a deal whereby Geralt kills the local gryphon and in return gets information about Yennefer. This conversation is where our experience with the demo ended, but it also allowed us to sit down with senior game designer Damien Monnier to talk about the game.

Monnier informed Analog Addiction that the individuals who wish to solely tackle the story quests will find roughly 50-60 hours of gameplay in The Witcher 3. Given the vast number of optional side quests and minigames within the title, this amount of time increases significantly for those who do choose to complete additional content. When asked about how the difficulty levels will compare to previous Witcher titles, Monnier said that the top-tier difficulty will be similar to that of The Witcher 2, although they are currently thinking of a new label for the “Easy” difficulty. Monnier said that this lower difficulty was included for those who want to experience the story with less emphasis on the combat, but using the label “Easy” suggests a lack of skill on the player’s part and they want to avoid that negative connotation. Quite frankly, in order to access all of the 36 different endings available in Wild Hunt, you may want to use the lower difficulty at least once or twice.

When I asked Monnier if there were any elements they had to reluctantly cut from the title, he informed me that there was a prototype for an ice skating combat portion of the game. He explained that due to where the scenario fell in the game, roughly 50 hours in, the team felt that introducing a new mechanic to the player and demanding them to be immediately good at it was unfair. As this was the only instance of the mechanic in the game, it was cut entirely, although Monnier did mention that had it been included, there would have been blood all over the ice. In response to being asked if he had any favourite moments from development, Monnier informed me that there was one morning which stands out to him when he was planning on doing some debugging. He had some bugs to look at, and pulled the latest data version of the game. When he booted it up, he noticed an NPC he had never seen before so he figured he would go over and see what this character was like. He assumed it wouldn’t take too long, but “two and a half hours later, I was still doing the side quests.”

With release date getting ever closer for The Witcher 3, I was able to get some information on their plan to release DLC for the title. It had been made public earlier that there would be free DLC released after launch, and a handful of pieces were detailed. Monnier told me that they plan on supporting the game for a long while, with all of it continuing to be free, released every second week, and will vary from weapons to skins, missions to armour, and more. Monnier said that they still have not figured out exactly what will be offered, but he assured me it would be provided for a lengthy period of time and all free of charge.

After playing the demo and talking with Damien Monnier about Wild Hunt, I can honestly say that my excitement for this title has shot up even more. It looks amazing, it plays smoothly, Geralt is still as rough around the edges as ever, and we are introduced to more characters like Ciri. The sheer volume of content is going to blow both of the previous Witcher titles out of the water, and it became evident after meeting Monnier that the team is entirely dedicated to bringing gamers the best possible experience both before and after release.

I recently had the pleasure of conducting a written interview with extremely talented Kan Gao, who is the director, composer designer and illustrator at Freebird Games. You can find the first half of the interview here, while during this second part we discuss the success of To the Moon, the development process and the possibility of A Bird Story coming to other platforms.

 AA: How excited were you to see such an overwhelming outpour of love for To the Moon?

Kan Gao: Over the moon! Honestly, I was kind of in denial; and there was a major case of the “imposter syndrome” going on, heheh. But I’m very grateful, and I think the most gratifying thing about it was that it felt like a connection when someone gets it, you know? It was a very personal project for me, and when it has an effect on someone, it felt like it bridge something on a human level.

AA: What made you want to create A Bird Story? Was this a tale you felt needed to be shared with the world? Or was it more like a passion project for loyal fans who are excited for the release of episode 2?

Kan Gao: It was something that I just personally really wanted to make. It was entirely selfish in its origin, to be honest; as in I had only considered what I wanted to make and was passionate about making. But then, I guess so was To the Moon.

AA: How long as A Bird Story been in development? Was this something you started right after To the Moon’s conclusion?

Kan Gao: I was actually planning and writing out To the Moon’s follow-up / episode 2 for a while after its conclusion, but A Bird Story’s concept came about after a while and I moved on making that instead. It took about a couple of years to make A Bird Story, despite it’s only about 1 hour long. I actually had to make and remake various parts of it. It probably won’t seem like it, but it’s actually been a lot more difficult to make than To the Moon, and probably than episode 2 as well.

AA: With the ever increasing support Sony and Microsoft have showcased towards independent developers over the last few years, have you ever considered working with them to bring To the Moon or even A Bird Story to console?

Kan Gao: Perhaps, but to be honest that depends on how much time that’d involve. At this point, I’d really prefer to continue making more things than working with past titles, even if there’d more profit in additional porting. But I have to say, I’m very glad that folks from the community was able to port To the Moon (and in turn, A Bird Story) to Mac & Linux.

AA: To the Moon provided a beautiful and mature story, though it wasn’t afraid to provide some lighter moments throughout. Have these been key aspects your team has once again tried to balance throughout A Bird Story?

Kan Gao: Tried, definitely – we’ll see how it goes, though. I think the humour in A Bird Story is a lot more childlike and whimsical than To the Moon. That might be a good thing though, since the reception of the writing in To the Moon was actually somewhat polarized, heheh.

AA: I’ll definitely be playing A Bird Story when it is released November 7, but for those reading this interview, why should they play A Bird Story?

Kan Gao: Oh gee, I’m really not good with these types of questions, hahah. To be honest, I don’t want to shove the game in anyone’s faces – it’s just a simple game about some very foundational aspects of human nature. I don’t think it’ll be everyone’s cup of tea, but I do think that there will be some who it speaks to who will connect with it, much like To the Moon. It’s 1 hour long, and like anything else I made, there’s a no-question-asked refund policy if any purchasers doesn’t like it for any reason (even if it’s just not their cup of tea).

AA: For those excited for A Bird Story’s release, where can they follow you and your studio to find all the latest news?

Kan Gao: Twitter (@reives_freebird) and Facebook (facebook.com/FreebirdGames) for sure! I don’t post that much, but all the important updates will be there.

We hope you have enjoyed part one and part two of our interview with Kan Gao, and hope you stay tuned for our full review when A Bird Story releases November 7 on Steam and GOG for Windows, Mac and Linux.

I recently had the pleasure of conducting a written interview with extremely talented Kan Gao, who is the director, composer designer and illustrator at Freebird Games. During this two part interview we discuss the finer narrative details of A Bird Story, as well as the future of the series, length to complete and much more.

AA:  A Bird Story will focus on the relationship between a young boy and an injured bird, interestingly though there will be almost no dialogue throughout the adventure. Was this a decision you made early on? And how difficult has it been to portray a meaningful story with no dialogue?

Kan Gao: It was the idea from start, yeah. Surprisingly, it actually came rather naturally – after all, a boy and a bird can’t really talk anyway. The difficulty was more a matter of workload, from the need to make a lot more sprites to convey things through actions, and to add liveliness. To the Moon had about 10 sprite sheets for the two doctors, but A Bird Story has over 100 sprite sheets for the boy and the bird.

AA: To the Moon revolved heavily around dialogue, with the lack of dialogue within A Bird Story will there be a stronger focus on puzzle gameplay?

Kan Gao: Definitely not, actually. It’s odd when I think about it, but the player probably has more player-controlled time in A Bird Story than To the Moon, yet there are less traditional “game-like” elements like puzzles in A Bird Story. The interactivity has more to do with immersion and putting the player in the characters’ shoes.

AA: The To the Moon universe is unique, due to the fact the series could provide an endless amount of stories. How do you feel about continuously exploring new narratives and problems that Dr. Watts and Dr. Rosalene need to solve? Can you see this being a series that continues for many years to come?

Kan Gao: It definitely can, and that’s one of the fortunate things about working with something like this. And not only just exploring limitless types of life stories, but even side spin-offs like the holiday special at Sigmund Corp. In fact, I was thinking of making a murder mystery type of game with the doctors at one point!

AA: How long will it take to complete A Bird Story in comparison to To the Moon?

Kan Gao: I think for most people, A Bird Story should take just about 1 hour to complete; maybe a little more. It’s a very concentrated short, though; although To the Moon was already pretty condensed, I think A Bird Story is even more so.

AA: To the Moon dealt with a central theme, which was self explanatory in the title. What is the narrative focus in A Bird Story?

Kan Gao: It’s a very simple story about a boy who found an injured bird, but I think it’s also about loneliness and certain naïve human nature that many of us still carry with us even past childhood.

AA: One of my favourite aspects of To the Moon was the emotional, yet beautiful soundtrack that was created. Following such an astounding score, did you feel pressure to somehow create something better?

Kan Gao: I suppose so, but not so much the music as specific expectations of the game/stories, hahah. To be honest, I don’t consider myself that great of a composer of a pianist (definitely not) to begin with; especially in a technical sense. But I think being able to have the music and scenes come from the same source is a great advantage, as you can make them complement each other exactly the way you want it. I think for a lot of folks, that helped to make the music more pleasant than if they were just on their own.

AA: There have already been a few tracks revealed for the upcoming release of A Bird Story, and so far they sound beautiful. What was the inspiration behind these musical tracks? And did you feel you needed to make these tracks more emotionally meaningful due to the lack of dialogue throughout the title?

Kan Gao: They were written with the scenes in mind, so there’s that! I’m not sure about trying to make them more emotionally meaningful (compared to To the Moon with dialogues, for example), but A Bird Story definitely has more meticulously fitted music. For example, there’re a lot more short musical cues that play at specific timed moments for sure.

We hope you have enjoyed part one of our interview with Kan Gao, and hope you stay tuned for part 2 over the coming week. In part 2 we will be discussing the success of To the Moon, the development process and the possibility of A Bird Story coming to other platforms.

A Bird Story will now release on November 7 on Steam and GOG for Windows, Mac and Linux.

S.W.A.P

We learnt a bit about S.W.A.P last week when talking about Chaos Theory Games’ tendency to head towards multiplayer games. For those who are unaware, S.W.A.P is a multiplayer first person shooter with a non-violent twist. The game is currently in its Open Beta phase. Nico King, Artistic Director on S.W.A.P, tells me that opening S.W.A.P to the public allowed the team to gain some feedback and reaffirm the development direction they had already planned on taking. “Our players have been constructive and helpful while trying to suggest improvements and help playtest.”

Chaos Theory Games will be working hard to implement new features into the game before its launch some time later this year. “Since entering beta, we have already implemented a primitive team/global voice chat feature, various improvements to the graphical assets (editors note: which you can see in the screenshots throughout this article), networking improvements and many, many gameplay tweaks to improve the experience. Before the game’s final release, we want to include a tutorial/how-to-play feature, new arena tile types, refined character animations, new VFX, a whole new collection of SFX and music, and patch up as many bugs as possible. It’ll be a stretch, but at the moment it seems achievable.”

The man responsible for getting these new features working in S.W.A.P is lead programmer Greg Nott. “As lead programmer I’m responsible for all the technical aspects of S.W.A.P’s development. I do everything from writing the shaders, coding the swap mechanic, network synchronisation etc., to managing the Master server, the readme and uploading new versions of the game. In summary I’m the guy one makes it all work… and the guy who hates being told it doesn’t,” describes Nott.

However, the team working on S.W.A.P is aware of their high ambitions. “We have so many ideas that we wanted to implement, but have unfortunately run out of time. Being a student project that has already run month’s overtime, many of our team members are starting to move on to the scary real world or to take up further studies. We would love to see S.W.A.P rebuilt from the ground up at some point in the hard-to-predict future, using everything we’ve learned from this first iteration to deliver the experience that we all want to see. New features such as new game modes, player classes with weapon loadouts, dedicated servers with party play, and numerous dynamic, shifting arenas with more tile types have taken up permanent residence on our ‘eventually’ list. At this point, we are seeking donations from players to help the continued development of S.W.A.P,” King tells me.

Future Aspirations

When I asked what Chaos Theory Games’ plans were for the future, King expressed the studio’s desire to develop games for upcoming gaming peripherals.

“From the very beginning, we’ve dreamed of the day when gaming can achieve a completely immersive, full-body experience, like the Matrix but without the dystopic and philosophical questioning of our existence (well, maybe sometimes). As we’ve started to see in the last couple of years, that previously unfathomable dream is coming closer and closer to reality. With products like the Rift or the Omni, or the Xbox’s new Kinect, gaming as we know it is on the cusp of a new kind of revolution. One that can completely engage all of your senses and allow for such detailed, challenging or personal experiences that could give real life a run for its money. That’s what we want to be a part of.

Although it will take some considerable time for those technologies to pervade the mainstream, for the physical limitations of using them to be overcome, and for us to catch up on the skills required to develop for VR; that’s the industry that we see ourselves in the future. However, that is a very long term goal, and in the meantime we have a whole collection of ideas that we want to develop, making our marks on different platforms like mobile and the independent divisions of the next gen consoles. Working collaboratively with other studios on larger projects, or hopefully growing fast enough ourselves to be able to find and keep some really talented people!”

Chaos Theory Games is aware that the gaming industry is extremely competitive at the moment, so they “want to keep the manoeuvrability and strong focus on innovation that comes with being indie and being small, so I don’t think that years of growth into a massive company the size of Blizzard is on the cards (as awesome as that might be).”

However, the small studio does want to work on larger projects over the next few years. Nico King understands that they will “require a bigger team to foster some new connections and hopefully fill some Chaos Theory seats. We’d like to become a bigger part of developing the game development industry in Australia, and trying to form a collective of developers that are actually willing to stay here and not relocate to sunny San Francisco when they start to become really successful.”

While King is a success story of the education system, he reflects that, “there’s a very strong desire for game development within the students of Australia, but there’s almost no tertiary education that can give someone the skills they need, and no companies in the country looking to hire. Having an opportunity to develop that community of creative minds would be amazing.”

King’s closing comment was one of optimism, “As long as we’re developing for the medium, we’ll be happy.”

If you wish to find out more about Chaos Theory Games, including where to download their games, you can head to http://chaostheorygames.com/.

Choosing Platforms to develop on

King has acknowledged that Australian developers have not really hit it big in the PC and console market. He puts it down to a capacity constraint, “we literally don’t have enough developers to allow for teams of that magnitude! I remember reading a while ago that after the downfall of Team Bondi, the number of game developers in Australia was cut in HALF. One studio closes its doors and half of Australia’s developers disappear overseas? That’s insane!” Nevertheless, his team is giving it a go.

The team chose the PC “mostly because the PC is the most forgiving platform to develop for at the moment. We started working with C# and XNA when we were 16, and PC development has grown as a natural extension of that. Although we’ve been trying to push ourselves in different directions recently (more on that in a second), it’s hard to escape the powerful debugging, lack of necessity for memory management (although that’s a horrible assumption) and strong 3rd party and online support that comes from PC development.”

When I asked about developing for consoles, King responded, “Although we’d love to develop for consoles, our company isn’t strong enough to extensively test games developed for those platforms and we’d be hamstrung by trying to pass certification. Although the new ‘indie’ initiatives introduced by Sony and Microsoft with the launch of their new consoles are very promising for companies like us, it’s still a little out of our reach.”

But what about mobile devices, a trend currently present in the Australian game industry?
“I don’t think we’ve necessarily gone against the mobile trend, we’re just a little slow to arrive to the party is all. The few projects that we’ve completed on PC have taught us buckets about our own ability, the development cycle, how long certain tasks are going to take, and how hard it is to market your titles. Bringing all of that knowledge to mobile development means we have fewer new things to learn, focusing instead on unique ways of using the touch interface and other inputs, and working within the memory and size constraints. We’ve actually just invested in some mobile development technologies, so expect some Chaos Theory titles to pop up on the Play Store or iTunes store soon.” (Since the interview took place, Chaos Theory Games has announced two mobile games in development, Novae and Desola)

A love of multiplayer

Chaos Theory Games currently has three titles available – Oversight, a single player game, Infinite Loop and S.W.A.P, which are both multiplayer titles. I asked King why, at the moment, the studio gravitated towards the multiplayer landscape. While King admitted he does not prefer one genre over the other, he did acknowledge that it was a “subconscious shift towards multiplayer experiences.”

“Perhaps it’s because our company was formed from a strong friendship that grew out of multiplayer experiences. When the 3 Chaos Theory directors get together to share a vision, multiplayer is the thing we think of that we can all easily agree on and get excited about. Most of our collective gaming knowledge comes from endless nights spent playing couch co-op games. However, looking back on many of our brainstorming sessions and the ideas we force ourselves to come up with on a fortnightly basis, most of what we want to do is single player.”

“When the idea for S.W.A.P was first pitched, it was a single player game with a heavy emphasis on plot. The main mechanic, the ability to exchange bodies with someone, was what started everything. We loved the idea that if I put myself in imminent danger and then exchanged bodies with an enemy, it was possible to kill them, without using weapons!

As the concept progressed, the developers began to see the game’s multiplayer potential.

“We quickly developed a prototype to see what gameplay would be like. It was frantic, disorienting, interesting but most of all it was fun! I had never thought about the number of strategies and moves that could be executed. It was really refreshing playing a game that opened my mind and caused me to explore new ideas, rather than just using the standard mechanics of a FPS because that’s what everyone is used to.”

One of the contributing factors to S.W.A.P being a multiplayer concept was the fact that the original project was created by a group of students working with a limited time frame. “Rather than make a single player game with a short play through and limited replayability, we would create a multiplayer experience that would be enjoyed for a much longer period of time. We realised that good multiplayer experiences will develop their own content, due to the ability to create divergent gameplay from limited mechanics.”

However, this was another occasion where the students were over ambitious, not giving themselves enough time to implement everything they wanted. Once their degrees had been completed, the original group, bar King and lead programmer Greg Nott, went on to pursue other career pathways. King decided to team up with his friends at Chaos Theory Games so he and Nott could have some assistance completing the project. While it was a setback, King admits, “we are always coming up with improvements and enhancements that we would love to one day implement, perhaps creating a revised version, using all the skills we have learned.”

Oversight

King also provided an insight into their lone single-player game, Oversight. While it is a single-player experience, King admits that CTG has wanted it to be a multiplayer title ever since.

“It was released at an awkward time for all of us and we didn’t want the added stress of learning networking from the ground up, as Oversight really only suited an online or LAN based multiplayer experience.”

Infinite Loop

Chaos Theory Games’ Infinite Loop, currently available through Desura, was “born from an overnight obsession with Teknopants’ Samurai Gunn which we literally couldn’t stop playing after six straight hours.” King tells me this is what lead to their desire to make a multiplayer game at a game jam. That concept is now Infinite Loop.
“I guess I would say having multiple people sharing an experience really reminds me of the human element in gameplay.”

See, developers are like gamers

Just as most gamers like to dabble in various genres rather than sticking to one, game developers like to do that too.

“Although our titles have had a strong multiplayer focus so far, we really just want to stick our fingers in every pie and try developing games from every genre. There is so much good to be said about the strong community-forming aspects of multiplayer games, and some of the hilarious moments that arise when a group of like-minded people are able to have fun together.”

Next week in our final part of the Chaos Theory Games interview, Nico King discusses S.W.A.P’s Open Beta and what comes next for the studio.

Troubling beginnings

King’s love of video games started when he was about 12, “after being inspired by many GameCube and PS2 games that I would play for endless hours.” He and his friends, James Lockrey and Will Bagley, “were always coming up with interesting new concepts, filling all of these multi-coloured notebooks with ideas and sketches.” The trio were consumed by these ideas, constantly discussing their designs which “were all almost direct clones of games we all enjoyed.” Nevertheless, it was the beginning of a love which would see King, Lockrey and Bagley go on to form Chaos Theory Games.

“At that age, we had no clue how games were made beyond a basic knowledge of the kind of skills involved. We’d heard of the mystical art of programming and heard wonders of its wizardry, I practised my pencil drawing on occasion, but beyond that it was still a mystery. All we knew was that we wanted to make them, and we all had that expectation in our mind that that’s what we would just end up doing by the time we’d finished school.”

After years of research, King and friends “had a good idea about what it took to design and create games, and we had automagically managed to all align within the three perfect development roles… an art guy (King), a code guy (Bagley), and a sound/everything in between guy (Lockrey).”

While the team knew the lengths they would have to go to develop games, none of them had any of the practical skills required to do anything about it. “It was the first time I was ever really exposed to code by taking a software class in high school.”

This would not stop the trio. At the age of 18, King, Lockrey and Bagley formed Chaos Theory Games and began planning their “first five big releases that would all be a number one hit, as you do when first forming a brand new company with no clue what you’re doing.”

After the team had finished High School, they were eager to improve as quickly as possible, attending specialised university/college classes. “We were trying to get our first project off the paper and into our hands, but as we’ve always criticised ourselves for, it was horrendously over-ambitious and it was kind of lucky that we realised this early on and decided to catch ourselves in the act.”

King, Lockrey and Bagley then decided to focus on more realistic prototypes. With reference to an episode of Extra Credits, King told me, “we’re still learning how to fail fast and hard, get our mistakes out of our system, and find out where our strengths are.”

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Based on his early attempts at making video games, King offers this advice for those thinking about dabbling in video game design, “do it. Read every article that comes with a ‘WARNING: MAKING GAMES IS HARD STICKER’ and take that under consideration, but if it’s what you want to do, nothing is too hard. With the number of free tools on the Internet, easily available software, the rise of digital distribution and self publishing, game design is more accessible than ever. I’ve enjoyed every day working on my own ideas, and if you think that’s what you want to do to, there’s nothing standing in your way but you, and time – time’s a bitch.”

Future Aspirations

Having recently completed his studies at Sydney’s Academy of Interactive Entertainment, King does not plan to stop making games. “For me, games are still in their infancy and because the technology that games are built upon evolves so fast, the goal of exploring the complexities of the medium is both a moving and expanding target. It’s the ultimate medium, the Gesamtkunstwerk of human kind: to be able to create worlds that people engage in and refer to their experiences in the first person, as if it’s happened directly to them, is amazing. There is so much that I feel I have to offer to the field, and even a lifetime’s work of learning and contributing probably won’t be enough for me.”

“The big game-changer, to me at least, is the rise of virtual reality tech. If my career is going to take me anywhere, I certainly hope it’s there. We are only just starting to see the beginning of technologies that I would dream about as a kid. Hardware like the Oculus Rift, the Omni treadmill, the new Kinect camera or other motion controllers open up quite literally a whole new world of experiences to create. Once those technologies have overcome their important technical challenges and become mass-market affordable, which won’t be too long now (we all hope), I’ll be developing for those platforms as fast as I can, if not before.”

King has ambitious goals, but, “For now, it’s all about what we can accomplish with the limited funding and man hours that we have access to. I’m keen to experiment with all kinds of platforms: from mobile, to console, to desktop. Our company mission statement, “We strive to design innovative and immersive experiences that challenge, inspire and entertain.” really sums up my approach at this point in time.”

Come back to read part 2 next week where King talks about PC, console and mobile development and Chaos Theory Game’s array of games.