jdodson1

Joined 01/23/2012

I'm an Engineer and built the video game community Cheerful Ghost and text based mini-MMO Tale of the White Wyvern.

2757 Posts

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Chasm is an awesome new "Metroidvania" 2D fantasy RPG that is currently on Kickstarter. It is a really interesting mashup of 2D RPG side-scrollery and as such wanted to talk to Jame Petruzzi of Discord Games about it. I want to thank James for taking the time to talk with me and am looking forward to the new beta that should be coming out very soon!

jdodson: What prompted you to decide that you wanted to strike out on your own and bring this game to the world? It seems like you have done everything you could to bring the game to this point, did you consider an eventual Kickstarter or did that evolve later?

James: I was pretty much done with the corporate world, and wanted to do something on my own. Luckily we did pretty well off Take Arms, so I was able to self fund everything so far, and prove that concept of Chasm will work. I knew there was no way I’d be able to fund the whole game, but I took a risk in making a full-on playable prototype of the first area that could be used for either a publisher or Kickstarter. After we spoke with some publishers it became clear we were better off to stick to getting this thing done ourselves.

jdodson: I wonder what you plan to add to the game before its final launch? Will more NPCs be added or the town get a bit larger?

James: We’ll probably end up re-imagining a lot of the world. Everything so far is a rough draft just to get an idea of how everything is going to work. So after the Kickstarter, we plan to take a fresh look on the whole thing and redesign what we need to before getting started on the real deal.

jdodson: I know this might seem odd given the games name and all, but do you anticipate any kind of overworld exploration and adventuring for Chasm? I’ll admit, i’m a sucker for forests.

James: We’ve got you covered with the temple’s Overgrown Gardens! Your adventure will be strictly subterranean, but once you breach the temple far under the ground, expect to find some weird stuff!

jdodson: Recently I have been thinking a lot about what kind of super ability would be awesome to have. I am set on some kind of cross between Nightcrawler and the guys from Jumper. Its hard to set in stone though as I am not sure how they don’t materialize inside a dumpster or person that just happens to be standing or walking where you want to go. I am not sure this is a question.

James: We love acrobatics, so we’ll be focused on bringing awesome special abilities to your character like double jumping, wall jumping, ledge grabbing, and more. These abilities will help you traverse to previous inaccessible areas ala Metroid.

jdodson: Ianuarius has made some pretty awesome weapon art on the forums. Have you considered using any of the fan art in the final game at this point or are you pretty locked in with your current art direction?

James: While we love fan art, we’ll be sticking to 100% in-house assets for the game. Not only perfectly matching the art style, but there’s also the questions of rights, credit. etc. that complicate things. I’m sure we’ll see plenty of fan mods though!

jdodson: I played through the Chasm demo and really enjoyed the challenge. I recently saw that you are adding difficulty levels to the game and I am curious how they stack up with the current demo difficulty. Is the current demo difficulty what will become normal?

James: It’s more game modes than different difficulties in the traditional sense. Hardcore mode brings permadeath and scoring to the game, while the Time Trial only scores you on total time to reach the end of the demo. Everything about the game otherwise is still the same.

jdodson: Will I be able to be killed by a Grue? Frankly I missed the whole Zork thing and feel a bit left out. Actually playing Zork is entirely out of the question!

James: Haha, we will probably add a bunch of nods to older games like Zork, Rogue, and the rest.

jdodson: I am curious what kind of unique weapons we will see in Chasm? Will any of these new items take the player beyond the Sword and magic tone? For instance, if one found a buried spaceship one may find some special gear not made by the town Blacksmith :D

James: We’ll definitely have unique item drops from enemies and other creatures that can’t be obtained anywhere else. As to the specifics, can’t comment yet ;)

jdodson: Thanks for answering my questions! I wonder if there is anything you want to leave us with before we wrap things up?

James: Please check out both our Kickstarter and Greenlight campaigns! We really need help now to secure development for the rest of the game, and doing what we love most!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/discordgames/chasm
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=116879147


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Whew, did anyone buy own a Neo Geo or 3DO? I remember totally thinking it looked like hot shit in the store but I can't think of any game people really raved about on those platforms. What impressed me most about the 3DO was that it could play video in a game, that totally blew my mind. Come to find out just slapping some video in a game didn't really make it awesome but then again how else would we get games like Sewer Shark?

I picked up a PS3 well after its launch and on a pretty awesome sale for $250. It came with Guitar Hero III and a $50 Best Buy gift card a very good deal. Now I am wondering how much the PS4 and Next Box will ship for on launch day?


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Sean Hogan one half of the awesome duo that brought us Anodyne recently posed a question on Steam I thought was pretty interesting in regard to adding a fairly simple level editor to Anodyne.

"Would anyone be interested in this?

The thing is, Anodyne wasn't coded with it in mind, so it might be hard to pull off. But if I did, it would be pretty basic:

- No doors between different maps. Maybe doors in the same map.
- No NPCs or dialogue (possibly the rocks with a single "chunk" of dialogue)
- One and song per map.
- Maybe bosses.
- Likely most enemies/dungeon things
"

I am totally down for this idea. I really enjoyed plunking out a few maps in Portal 2 and loved the process. Would you be interested in seeing a simple Anodyne level editor? Sound off on the Steam community thread:

http://steamcommunity.com/app/234900/discussions/0/810922320220339724/


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"This collection covers over a decade of groundbreaking work by the chipmusic bands 8 Bit Weapon & ComputeHer. After 14 years, 5 tours, and countless studio albums between them, 8 Bit Weapon & ComputeHer has amassed a healthy body of work. This album represents the best of their combined efforts in chipmusic."

If you love chipmusic and want to check out some good stuff you may not otherwise be familiar with I recommend the recent collab album by 8 Bit Weapon & ComputeHer called "Chiptopia." It is over at Bandcamp and you can pay what you wish for the music. Really enjoyed this on my first run through.

http://computeher.bandcamp.com/album/chiptopia-the-best-of-8-bit-weapon-computeher


Ratchet and Clank the movie is set to hit the big screen in early 2015. This makes sense as the game is quite cinematic already and in the "Pixar quality" realm.

https://www.facebook.com/RatchetandClankMovie

Are you interested in watching the new Ratchet and Clank film or are you holding out for the next Bob Hoskins & John Leguizamo Super Mario Brothers 2 film?



Venus Patrol has an interesting mashup of a bunch of new Indie Games on TIGSource. I realize thats two too many sources, so lets start at the top. TIGSource is a forum site dedicated to the development of Indie Games. As such many Indie Game developers post their games development status there and if you keep up with the posts, you can keep up to date with your most anticipated Indie Games. Venus Patrol post weekly issues of TIGSource devlogs and wraps it up in a really awesome infographic style post you can nab here:

http://venuspatrol.com/2013/04/tigsource-devlog-dom2ds-visual-showcase-of-awesome-new-games-issue-14/

So go and check it out. Some of the games mentioned we have covered here such as Chasm but many were new to me.

http://www.tigsource.com/


Back this on Kickstarter!
"The Realm is set in a far distant future where the world has been reclaimed by nature. Our once proud cities now lie abandoned - overgrown with strange plants and twisted vines. The locations in The Realm reflect the real-life landscapes and architecture of the North East of England.

Some humans remain, but they are now leading a more simple life based around small rural communities entirely divorced from modern technology and science. The age of magic and mysticism has returned and there are rumours of stirrings in the forests.
"

Realm is an interesting game about a girl and her golem friend that adventure around in a very lush artful point and click world. The art style is very interesting and point and click adventures don't always get the attention they deserve.


Gabe Newell recently gave out his Steam username and password to showcase Valve's latest identity protection. Gaben's password is moolyftw and I am wondering how many people have tried to access his account since he published it?

Space Whale: Whale From Outerspace wins the award for the coolest space name. Never realised I wanted to play as a space whale until now.

http://thecodebar.abertay.ac.uk/gameprojects/spacewhale/

Interesting new video making the rounds about someone who played 365 indie games in a year. After watching it briefly I now realize how many games are made I don't even know about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7_eAMeQfwo


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Legend of Dungeon is fun new rogue-like that was recently released on the Humble Store. I picked it up and was instantly taken with its unique look and fun gameplay. It is in my "regular rotation" of games I am currently playing and I can say that, for me, it works flawlessly on Mac and Linux(so far I haven't actually played it on PC). I reached out to Alix Stolzer, one half the amazing Robot Loves Kitty Indie duo that created Legend of Dungeon and other lovely games such as Tiny Plumbers.

Since I sent out the questions to Alix, Legend of Dungeon has been successfully Greenlit on Steam and the game has continued on to garner more fans and positive reviews. I want to thank Alix for answering my questions and wish them to a speedy final game launch.

jdodson: Legend of Dungeon is a very pretty game. One thing that visually stands out to me are the shadow effects and how that allows the game such a dark and moody tone. Was this something you set out to do or did it kind of emerge when you were developing it?

Alix: The Dynamic shading on flat sprites was one of the first things we did. It was a technique that Calvin had been curious to try, and we loved the way it turned out.

jdodson: Indie Games are blowing up the video game industry right now. In fact, I can’t think of an upcoming triple A game on my radar. Being part of the current craze of Indie awesomeness I wonder how you look at the video game industry today? With that, are there any new indie games or companies on your radar others should be aware of?

Alix: We really enjoy the creativity and curiosity you see from a lot of indies, and the passion for creating worlds for others to play in. Some games/devs that we are looking forward to that are newer and less out there are Artemis by Incandescent Workshop, Delver's Drop by Pixelscopic, Mc Droid by Elefantopia, and Starseed Pilgrim by Droqen.

jdodson: For people new to Legend of Dungeon, I wonder what you recommend for them to do or remember when they are winding through the depths of The Dungeon?

Alix: Don't forget the lantern in the tavern, and enjoy your unfortunate but inevitable deaths (you will have lots of them)!!

Enjoy the journey enough that when you die, you laugh, and try again :)

jdodson: How has the community response to Legend of Dungeon been since people have been playing it? Anything surprise you about how the game has been received?

Alix: We have been completely amazed by the response we've gotten, and we feel like we've gained a bunch of friends!

jdodson: I was listening to an interview you both were part of on YouTube by thekillerbits. Calvin mentioned that one inspiration for Legend of Dungeon was the ol’ Ninja Turtles arcade hack-n-slash, which is awesome because thats an awesome game. Recently I hooked up Legend of Dungeon to my TV and was playing with a friend using our USB controllers and it was really fun. I sort of died really quickly because I was trying to be funny and ended up as a ghost, which was cool. After collecting a few pellets I came back with 1 HP. It was really hard to get back into the game after that and kept dying. For people that may just want to play with their friends who are not pros themselves, will there possibly be a “press start to continue” akin to putting another quarter in the arcade machine and your player comes back with full life?

Alix: An actual arcade style "____ to continue" version would be really cool, but it would ruin the game in a lot of ways unfortunately, especially the fact that it would be making it beatable every time you play. We are only in Alpha and still balancing things, hopefully we'll end up with a death system that makes most people happy.

jdodson: I love the dwarf and would love playing that character in the game. Will the Dwarf be available at some point to play?

Alix: We think the dwarf is great, but so far we don't have any way of using him as a character. The dwarf is too small! We'd love to have him do something more in the game, so we'll see!

jdodson: The current version of the game I am playing is the Alpha. It seems really polished for an alpha and I wonder what other amazingness will be added before the beta and the final release?

Alix: We have a ton more items and monsters to add, we need to also put in the random NPC's you might meet on your journey. We are getting close to Beta though, it shouldn't be long now!

jdodson: I wonder what the most requested set of features people have been asking you add to Legend of Dungeon?

Alix: The most asked for thing is definitely Networking. it means that we have a game that people want to play together, which is really exciting for us. It's something we just can't add to the game at this stage in development.

jdodson: Legend of Dungeon was successfully Kickstarted and as such I am wondering if you guys will be Kickstarting all your future games as part of the release process? Do you think this is the new model for indie developers to get a game to fans or just something people are doing right now?

Alix: It helped us understand how people would think of our game while it was in early development, and we loved getting all the input from backers. The freedom of funding our own projects is also very nice. So I think it's a very good way for many indies to get a better understanding of the market and we are definitely thinking about using it again.

jdodson: Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, do you have any other awesomeness you want to say before we wrap things up?

Alix: It's been an amazing process, having a game that has become something so big, when it started out as a small side project that we didn't know anyone would like.

Thanks so much for all the questions!

jdodson: (to you the reader) This morning I noticed a new bit of news that Robot Loves Kitty posted to their tumblr about the state of the game making its way to steam. According to them, the game will most likely be released on Steam during the beta or final versions of the game.

http://robotloveskitty.tumblr.com/post/48442710713/heya-do-you-know-when-exactly-lod-will-be-released-on

http://www.robotloveskitty.com/LoD/