Interview No. 180

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Patreon Post Date: Mar 16, 2022

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Q: Let's talk about your winning entry for Pico Day 2021. You would work alongside larreth, ScratchPit, and Vinski for MADNESS: Off-Color. A combination of Madness and Pico, that's a pretty clever idea to start. How did you flesh it out from there. Was there perhaps inspiration taken from Madness Accelerant?

A: I hadn't played Madness Accelerant prior to starting work on Off-Color. The initial idea was just to make Madness Interactive but HD and with a control scheme that felt comfortable in the year of 2021. I wanted it to be much more juicy and have more variety in its gameplay than the original, so I started out just by remaking some of the mechanics and systems from Interactive. I was keen to collaborate with people from Newgrounds, so I asked Tom Fulp where would be the best place to find people to talk to/share progress on it. He suggested I use the Collaborate feature on Newgrounds itself and also suggested the Newgrounds Podcast discord. Through the Collaborate feature, I received a DM from Larry. I got him to draw some mockup character sprites and then at the end of the second day of development, the game looked something like this:

The game got people's attention and it was a lot of fun to work on. All of the programming was systematic, so all of the guns and weapons worked the same but just needed variables to be tweaked. After all that had been set up, it was just me making content. Levels, guns, melee weapons. The parts that took up most development time were the boss fights, but I'm glad I spent so much time on them because they're the highlight of the game now. It was about half way into development that Larry started getting a bit unsure of himself and the workload, so he asked if he could bring on a friend Scratchpit. I was keen to get more people onboard and I'm glad I did because he drew some of the coolest looking weapons in the game. When I was showing some videos of the gameplay in the Madness Project Nexus discord, Vinski DM'd me and asked if I needed sound effects for the game - so he'd shoot through sounds for anything new added in. For the OST, I tried reaching out to some metal/dubstep artist on Newgrounds but the deadline was approaching fast so by the time anyone responded, there simply wouldn't be enough time. I was listening to the Somewhere In Nevada album throughout development and it just seemed like a perfect fit, but I didn't feel comfortable taking music made by strangers. I checked the songs pages on Newgrounds and all of them were marked under the terms of being able to use so long as credit was given, and when I started posting videos of the game with the music in it - the clips made its way to the actual artists of the songs and they reached out, super excited for the game and THANKING me??? Like, I was the one who stole YOUR music for MY game and you're thanking me? It was a very eye-opening experience, because we're all just hustlers trying to work on cool shit, and we can respect homies also trying to make cool shit (so long as we're properly compensated for our work) After the game came out, the songs got more listens + reviews on their NG pages, which felt awesome.

Q: A collaboration between Andyl4nd, milkypossum, and yourself that would win Best Game in the 7th Annual Pixel Day and Best Game of January is called Olive's Art-Venture. This collaboration reminds me of the Power of Three game collabs, that involve a programmer, an artist, and a musician making one game. The most well-known being Toss the Turtle. How did you three come together to make this game? What was the process behind working on it? From the first pixel to the final frame.

A: I specifically remember a morning when I was living out in the bush. A bright light was coming through a piece of plastic in the roof that made for an impromptu sunroof. My mattress on the floor, I lent up and scrolled down Youtube. I didn't want to go into Melbourne that day to look for work/an education that would take in a loser like me, but I was feeling more and more guilty for being such a burden to my friend's parents. Scrolling down Youtube while tying up my shoe laces, I saw a video called "All you can eat!" by Andyland. It was such a cute video! I loved the fact that it looped and it used mixed media. I subscribed to him, turned on notifications and then that was that. I would watch every Andyland animation that would come out from that day forward. I was a huge fan of his content for such a long time, but it wasn't until I'd follow him on Newgrounds that I'd get an interaction from him. He followed me back there AND on Twitter. I went ballistic! This person who I had been watching for over a year now was now watching ME? It felt unreal.

I didn't want to bother him at first but since we were mutuals on Twitter, I saw him tweet out that he was streaming on Twitch and decided to jump into the chat. He was working on a music video collaboration, but we started talking about horror films and games and all kinds of things. I felt bad for basically spamming his chat with this back and forth conversation, but he said he liked my games and that made me really happy. I said if he ever wanted to work on a game sometime, he could always DM me and he seemed cool with the idea. The stream ended and I figured nothing much would come of it - a good interaction with one of my idols and I was happy! Then not even an hour later, he shot me a DM on Twitter and asked if I'd be interested in collaborating on a game for Pixel Day. I specifically remember him saying something along the lines of him having a friend who was competing and him being jealous that he wouldn't be able to without a programmer. And like, I didn't care what I had going on. I needed to do this! It was a once in a lifetime opportunity!

We started chatting on Discord the next day, where he would send me this string of ideas:

I wasn't initially keen on the idea because I already knew there would be difficulty with getting a game to recognize drawn shapes, but after doing some mockup programming we decided to give it a shot. Andy also sent me this screenshot the next day:

If there's one thing I can say about Andy, it's that he's amazing at coming up with mockups and initial concepts. He goes with his gut and just makes the best selling argument for them. After seeing this image, it was basically impossible to imagine making any other game than the one we ended up making. This was the very first mockup image and you can just see how much made it into the final game. The main character, the two enemies, the overlay hud, they all made it into the released game. Some of those sprites being the EXACT ones he drew for this mockup. Isn't that just insane?

We got the movement working, we got the character casting a basic waterbolt spell and I used sound effects from Mario Paint/Wario Ware. This is what it was looking like:

The game was coming along really well at an incredible pace. The talk of music came up and knew exactly who to reach out to. I had never collaborated with Milkypossum prior to this game, but I had listened to her music a lot and I just knew she would be the perfect fit for the project. It was like the stars aligned to inject cybersonic rays into my skull, informing me of a godly prospect - MESSAGE MILKYPOSSUM, it said. I willingly obeyed the call. Now that the game is done, I don't think there was another person on the planet who could have done the game justice. The OST milkypossum made for the game is phenomenal and I'm thankful she was available to work on the project otherwise it would have simply been a worse product. I'm not saying I don't know any other talented musicians, but this project specifically and the genres of music it required were MADE for Milkypossum's touch.

The team worked asynchronously. We would wake up, and someone would have posted their work. Whether it be a new song Milky was working on, a new animation Andy had finished or a brand new build of the game I had posted. It was rotationary, never stopping. None of us had to kick the other up the ass. We just kept working and pulling our own weight. It was so incredibly seamless I am convinced one of us signed a deal with the Devil and will lose their firstborn five years from now.

The first draft of the boss was added in half way through development, but it was super buggy and unpolished. Just me playing with the sprites Andy had made, and I promised I would finish it later that week... It took me a lot longer to get around to the final boss fight again. I think it was only in the final week that I buckled down and resumed working on the boss once more. I got feedback from playtesters during this time and made the game easier in a lot of ways, because most people simply couldn't get past Floor 2.

I don't think I could have imagined working with anyone of either Andy or Milky's caliber a year ago. The world truly is a small place and things can change so quickly. You just have to keep going until your turn arrives - otherwise you'll miss the opportunity and hate yourself.

Q: You and quite the handful of Newgrounds members are working on a game entitled SHOOT TRIP DIE. Hopefully getting it on Steam. How was this project formed? What advice can you give to those looking to form a collaboration for Steam? What is the game about?

A: I wouldn't be the one to ask about this. LeviRamirez is the one who is spearheading the operation, being both the primary artist and programmer for the game. He spent a lot of time working on it by himself, but it's only after a while he decided to show all of his friends (including mwa). We gave feedback on the game and got to draw boss portraits. Maybe you can ask these questions to him directly, if you get around to interviewing him! It should be noted that the game is 90% Levi doing everything, with us just playtesting and making music/additional art.

Q: Your latest game is quite the concept. Wordly Defence involves a way to submit data to Twitter in an automated post. Quite ambitious. How did the concept turn into a game? Have you worked on this any further? Is there potential to make an automated tool for Newgrounds?

A: Andy and I are looking to work again in the future, collaborating on a game and pitching it to a company (to hopefully get paid for our work on it). Since it's to advertise a specific website, the ability to automatically post scores to Twitter and promote said website could potentially be a really vital selling point. The idea was tossed around, but I didn't know it was possible until digging my hands in and testing with it. Once I had developed the test, it took very little to make the rest of the game and give it some polish. 

It's done by taking a Twitter URL and appending specific information onto the end of it. A very long string where the spaces and emojis are replaced by unicode. It was a case of trial and error. I don't think it'd be possible to make an 'automated tool' that could be used universally, but I have thought about making a writeup on it to share what I learned and how others can apply it to their game. Food for thought!

Q: What is in your opinion, the definition of video games?

A: A game is an interactive problem that must be solved. We love solving fun problems - and it being a video game allows us to add fun things like sound effects, music, animation and special effects. Imagine a Rubik's Cube but each time you turned it, it emitted a firework and made a fart sound effect. It would be the best Rubik's Cube ever made. Not all games have inherent 'problems' to solve, but rather, we create them by wanting to learn more or uncover mystery or experiment. Games like Garry's Mod might not seem very challenging, but it's up to us to tie a balloon to a chair and discover what happens if someone is sitting in it.

Q: What advice can you give to those looking to start making games? What programs would you recommend? What pitfalls should they avoid?

A: If you want to start making games, you just need to pull up your pants and open a game engine. People will lead you to believe that you need to learn other programming languages before learning a game engine, but that's not true. I tried learning C# through online tutorials prior to using Gamemaker fulltime and it didn't let me apply my learning to anything specific. Yeah, I was making dinky little math equations and word scramblers, but it wasn't what I wanted to be doing. If you start with a game engine, you are able to see the fruits of your labor the moment you press that play button. You're able to interact with your creation in realtime. It's extremely motivating and you will find out what problems you have to learn to solve, rather than a website providing them to you about things you don't care about. You will CARE about the game you're making and have fun doing it. Screw the books, come back to them later, open up Unity or Gamemaker and get cracking with the fun stuff. Unless you're getting paid to do it, there's no reason to act like you need to do things the boring/difficult way.

Start with 2D development, and try 3D development once you've figured out whether you like the program or not. Gamemaker is the easiest program I've used, so I will always recommend that. But Unity is also great, so is Godot, so is Construct, so is Scratch. I wouldn't recommend Unreal because of how bulky it is. It's really hard to get feedback from your friends if they need to download a 100mb file just to test a walking simulator. It's overkill for indie development, in my opinion. If you use Gamemaker, you can always DM me if you need programming help!

Use Aseprite for drawing basic Pixelart, you can compile it yourself for free. If you don't know how to do that, just use Paint.net. Use BFXR for generating sound effects and use the Newgrounds Audio Portal for finding background music. With all of those, you can produce a game that thousands of people can play online. You just need the time and patience.

Watch a lot of tutorials. Having them running in the background like a Netflix series. Passively absorb information simply because you want to. If game development isn't fun for you, then you aren't going to get very far. You get good at the things you enjoy doing even when you're bad at it. Those are the people who rise above everyone else because they spend their free time addicted to their hobby.

Q: What can we expect from Stepford in the future?

A: I'm going to be looking into ways for me to earn some passive income so hopefully a Steam release or two. Aside from that, I just want to make fun and crazy shit. I've made the games I wanted to make when I was younger and I've got the connections I wish I had when I was a small Stepford, so now I'm just gonna do silly stuff. Beyond financial concerns (like paying rent a year from now), I've accomplished what I wanted to do in life and now I'm just enjoying myself. There are a few projects in the works (like an NSFW game with Arzonaut, the Tarot Card collab, a game for CoolMathGames, the pitch Andy and I are collaborating on, etc.) but you'll just have to wait and see! I'm very excited to show you in due time.

Stepford I've crossed paths with firstly on the forums. Their works on multiple game projects has made them one of the best programmers to collaborate with. Stepford and the team behind Olive's Art-Venture reminds me of the days of the Power of Three. They're collaboration on a multitude of projects have brought many a Newgrounds member together. Who knows? This may lead to bigger games on the site and beyond Newgrounds going forward. I can only see a bright future ahead for Stepford.

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

The Tank Tribune is a part of Dohn's Desk Productions

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