Tim W., editor of the almighty IndieGames.com blog, has compiled a list of his awesome indie developer interviews, including one with the notorious MDickie.
His latest interview, with Tommy Refenes (shown above), is not currently in the list, but must be read at all costs. Tommy’s multiplayer action/strategy game Goo! was an IGF finalist this year. A public PC demo of the game is available from his website.
P.S. Tim, I still want to do an interview with you. Please return my calls! :-*
Scott Sharkey wrote a nice little round-up for the all the indie video interviews 1UP did at GDC last month. The feature has links to the developers’ interviews, and their websites, along with a nice photo of each one (which I’ve collected in the image above). Always great to see the beautiful faces behind the games!
No matter where they’re coming from, there’s one thing you hear over and over again: “It’d be nice to make money from this, but I’ll keep doing it anyway.” If they have anything in common, it’s a simple love of the art and a compulsion to make their ideas real.
Also, check out this great clip from DL.TV, where 1UP’S Garnett Lee expresses his admiration for Crayon Physics Deluxe and Fez (starting around 1:30):
His descriptions of the games are pretty spot-on, in my opinion!
I always enjoy listening to Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago (thatgamecompany) talk about games, and I’m not as familiar with Dylan Cuthbert (Q-Games), but he has good things to say. Hearing from developers who are passionate about what they do just makes my heart swell! It makes you feel very fortunate to be able to take part in this shift in gaming.
Finally got around to reading this Gamasutra interview with Dwarf Fortress co-creator Tarn Adams (the other half being his brother, Zach). It’s a really great read that covers a lot of Dwarf Fortress’s history and pre-history, and also gets into a lot of geeky stuff like pathfinding and fluid dynamics.
But this is the best part:
What’s left to answer is why’d we be so into doing a fantasy game. That’s probably the same as everybody else: Tolkien, D&D, myths, and of course, the movie Beastmaster. (We like the part where the evil priest is like, “You’ll be sacrificed to ‘The God of AAaa,’” like they didn’t even bother thinking of a name, just powering through on the power of their badassedness.) But there were all kinds of things like that. In the movies, books, the arcade, PC, consoles, we were surrounded by that sort of thing.
Yes, frickin’ Beastmaster! I love that movie! I love you guys!
The image depicts YADFA (Yet Another Dwarf Fortress Anecdote), from DF forum member goldminer:
Its [sic] pretty fun to capture invaders and then devise crazy ways of getting rid of them. My current method happens to be a gold arena over an active volcano with an enraged bronze colossus. Goblins get dumped in through a hole from above.
Every year or so, the dwarves lower the bridge, re-capture the colossus and ‘clean’ the arena for future use. I had to build walls around the arena because too much precious iron was getting thrown into the magma.
Thanks to Hideous for scanning/translating for us an interview with Petri Purho in Swedish gaming magazine LEVEL! Petri is the creator of countless experimental games, including the IGF 2008 Grand Prize winner, Crayon Physics Deluxe. He also summons demons onto Earth when he undoes his ponytail and starts wailing on the guitar.
Continuing with the 1UP theme, 1UP has an interesting article up called “So You Want To Make A Game” which features interviews with Tower Defender Paul Preece, Madman Jon Mak, and Finnish Rock God/IGF Champion Petri Purho, giving advice on love, life, and game development. (Mostly game development.)
P.S. I’ll have some super-special exclusive GDC content for TIGS in the near future, but I need to collect myself first. I was not ready for this insanity.
Here is an indie-centric episode of The 1UP Show, featuring an interview with the ever awesome Phil Fish—now an IGF winner at long last.
I’ve had the pleasure of spending some time with a few of the 1UP folks since I’ve been here and, I gotta say, it feels good knowing there are people who “get” indie games within the mainstream press. (Also, they’re pretty cool to hang out with.)
Not sure when video of the award show in its entirety is going to be available, since G4 is covering it this year. It’ll be pretty awesome to see Phil Fish say “fucking” (or rather, “bleep!”) on national t.v. And they’ll undoubtedly blur out Petri’s amazing sign…
In the meantime, hit the jump for some indie-related vids:
Making money is hard sometimes, and if you convince yourself that you need to make money (in order to eat, or fund the next game, or whatever), then you are automatically on a slippery slope and will start justifying all sorts of things, and eventually you are far from your original ideals but that doesn’t seem too bad because you “just had to be realistic”.
Well, fuck that. I’ve seen a lot of developers go that way, and none of them are now in situations that I would be happy in.
Lars Doucet recently did an interview for TIGSource with Jamie Fristrom. And just who is Mr. Fristrom?
Jamie Fristrom is an old industry veteran. He’s worked on everything from DOS games on the PC back in the day to Spider-Man 2 on the Xbox. Currently he’s working on a game for the Xbox 360 called Schizoid, a quirky blend of Ikaruga and Pac-Man that’s being billed as “The Most co-op game ever.” Schizoid also has the honor of being the first game developed in Microsoft’s new XNA Game Studio to be commercially released on Xbox Live Arcade.
Be forewarned, it’s loooooong interview. But a great read that covers a wide range of topics, including game design, XNA, team management, moral responsibility in game development, and Richard Garfield (the guy who created Magic: the Gathering). Definitely worth checking out.
