Interview

I was recently interviewed by a UK video-game magazine... maybe I'm not supposed to post stuff like this before they publish it.. oh well.... hardly anyone reads this blog anyhow :D

Questions – Neverdaunt: 8bit

1. First, tell me about yourself. When did you first get involved with game design, and why?

A better question might be why didn't I stop designing games? Every kid I have ever met is a game designer. You start with stuff like "Don't touch the floor, its lava." and as you get older the games become more complicated... but most people stop, like there is nothing else to create or learn, I don't really know why. I think games and play is the most natural method of learning for human beings, and most other mammals. I don't think I've stopped making games at any point in my life. N8* itself is designed around players making up their own games to play.. so they can come back to that point, be creative, and teach each other something new.
I am completely self taught, and I have never worked in the game industry before. I wrote code for myself when I needed it, and like creating 3D art. Games are just the obvious next step. Of course everyone told me to start off small, an MMO is no way to start learning how to write games... but I didn't want to write other games. I wanted to write Neverdaunt. I wanted to play Neverdaunt.
I've had the idea for Neverdaunt for so long I don't remember where it started. I attempted to start working on it a bunch of times. Sometimes with a group who would never put in the same amount of work I did, and often while working a full time job. Eventually I realized it would never exist if I wasn't working on it all the time. I talked to my wife, Alix, and naively asked her for one year. Three years later, I'm in beta. If you see her in the game as the goddess Ix, thank her. She has supported me every step of the way, the game wouldn't exist without her.

2. Where did you get the idea for Neverdaunt: 8bit from? Did you always intend for it to be an MMO?

I think it came out of my disappointment with other MMOs. I've played WoW and Ragnarok Online quite a bit, and a few others. But what I imagined those could be compared to what they are... its the grind and leveling mostly. Kill monsters, get XP, collect drops, turn in quest, levelup. But why? What was the point of leveling up? So you could do the exact same thing over again but with different monster graphics? Becoming stronger faster then your friends until they were unable to play along side you anymore? That kinda sucked. I wanted to experience a world, become someone in it. Where magic was something you had to really learn and study, where you could be better at it then someone else because you were more creative. I wanted a place where you excelled at combat because you became good at it, not because you spent more time clicking buttons then someone else. N8 is not completely there yet, but it will be.

What were your key influences?

Lego's, I have spent countless hours of my life playing Lego's with my brother. We would never keep the store models together for very long, eventually they would be torn apart and built into the design of our collaborative universe. Super Mario Bros. 3 ...its my comfort game. Picking up a leaf that turns you into a raccoon makes perfect sense in Nippon, in the rest of the world, its just crazy weird... and that's exactly the way I want N8 to feel. I am Also a big Anime fan, i love stuff like FLCL, Trigun, Full Metal Alchemist and Bleach.. so I'm sure there is a bit of that in there. And I seem to watch Tron a lot while I'm coding?

3. I review a lot of independent games, and while there are many great examples, there seems to be a lot more repetitive, copycat design. Do you agree, and was Neverdaunt a conscious attempt to try something different?

Yes! It drives me crazy. Its not hard to be creative, I can come up with a dozen new awesome game ideas in an afternoon... Why would you make another first person shooter halo clone when you can make a game about giant kittens that destroy cities for points? Especially when your an Indy developer, with no constraints of publishers or corporations telling you what will work and what wont
N8* however was not an attempt to do something different, if I tried to make a clone game it would bore me, I wouldn't want to play it, and I would never even finish it. Its not that I was trying to break the mold, its just that what I wanted to create didn't fit it.

4. Building is a key part of the experience, which really encourages people to experiment and play. Did you want to avoid the more controlled, directed experience offered by mainstream MMOs?

Absolutely. In N8* you can have actual adventures, where the direction and end is unknown. Its not even so much a game itself as it is a playground where you play games and have adventures. Every time you log in you have a chance to see and do something that no one else has ever done before... I think thats pretty epic.
I know its hard to start a game that has no direction but the ones you decide on. People often login and ask, 'whats the point?' to which everyone replies, 'to have fun', 'no really, whats the point?'. I've had so many people tell me they don't even know what draws them back to play, they don't understand why its so much fun. I think its because most MMOs really are not fun, they just seem like fun because of the endorphins you get when you level up and sparkles appear over your head. But your on a one way track to the level cap, the same as everyone else. When you accomplish something in N8* its because you really did something to earn it, failure is a possibility and has consequences. Its fulfilling.

Have you been surprised by the creativity of the players?

I expected to be surprised, but yeah, the content and how people use the blocks they are given, just blow me away. I'm constantly touring the world in awe of peoples designs, and everyone does things a little different. I've watched players skills at building improve drastically from the time they started playing, its amazing seeing their creativity expand. Right this moment a group of players are building a new starting area, the shape and destiny of the world is really out of my hands, I cant wait to see where they take it.

5. There is a combat element, but it seemed less important to the experience than the building. Will you be adding more to the combat in future?

Yes, combat right now is just the swords, but guns and shields are planned as well. There will be attachments for swords and shields that completely modify their actions, such as a sword attachment that causes it to do damage over time, or gain XP and level up. Bullets will be required for guns to operate, with a huge selection of effects... like rocket chainsaws, or healing bullets. Also, there will be more powerups that affect combat in other ways. Also planned is a team system, where holding a fort will give benefits and encourage more fighting. However, combat is not essential, nothing in the game requires you to fight, its really an optional thing for when someone annoys you.

6. For gamers whose only experience of MMOs is World Of Warcraft, the idea of a one person or a small team creating one seems impossible. Were you prepared for how much of a challenge it would be?

No. In no way was I prepared... however every idea in Neverdaunt is built around player contributions, everything from game play to building the world. Its not much of a game without other players... which I think separates it greatly from MMOs like WoW, which seem more like a single player game with massively tagged on. It probably is an impossible task, going in, thats what almost every one told me, except for Alix, I told her I could do it, she believed me, and here we are.

7. The game has a retro visual style that seems to parody the graphics from the 8-bit platforms of the past. Is that a result of limited resources, or was that your intention from the start?

When I started, I was making Neverdaunt (the non 8bit one) and I had this unreachable, amazing ideal that I wanted the game to be. I'm actually a decent artist first, before being a coder, so it wasn't a resource issue. Two and a half years in and I knew it wasn't going to be done anytime soon. So I went crazy. I needed something to be finished soon or I would have to give it up. I practically had a whole game, it just wasn't Neverdaunt, I needed something I could turn this massive amount of code into... I thought what I needed was a Neverdaunt Lite, a cut down version of the game... but lite sounded dumb, then I thought oh, its like an 8Bit version, and everything just followed logically from there. It was probably the best decision I have ever made for the game.

8. Were there any hidden advantages to creating Neverdaunt on your own? Did the lack of resources force you to make any choices that really paid off?

I honestly have no idea how to write code in a group... So I don't really know. But it does let me do things exactly the way I want, even when other people tell me it wont work or is just impossible. Sometimes, when they are wrong, amazing things happen... Resources? I'm not sure I've gained anything from those kinds of choices. My hope is to continue making games that will be even more awesome once I have team of creative minions.

9. Independent designers often struggle to recoup their investment, and MMOs generally rely on a monthly subscription charge. Do you expect to profit from Neverdaunt?

Egads, I hope so. I invested a lot of time into N8* and I really hope people love the game, have fun, and want to support it. I do hope to profit so that I can move on to the next projects I want to do without restriction. Right now there is a way to buy tickets on the website. In game you can exchange these for Hats, Swords, Block Packs and Monsters... but none of those things give any kind of advantage in gameplay. Its really important to me that no one who pays gets any kind of advantage over someone who cant. But they will look cooler in a Velociraptor head with a top hat swinging a guitar around at people. At some later point there will be an optional subscription that will get you a locked cell and a steady supply of tickets, but again, no real advantage in gameplay, and I hope that sets N8* apart from other free to play MMO's too.


10. World Of Warcraft is so dominant that most commercial MMOs have struggled to make a mark, and many fear that the genre will grow stale. Do you share their concern?

Nah, they are missing the mark because they are trying so hard to hit the same mark as WoW, that they are making clones... they think "oh but its different, we have doctors instead of priests" or something. But its the same mechanics with a new paint job, and often not done as well. I kinda hope N8* becomes such a huge success that it redefines the genre... not that I want Neverdaunt clones, but that people realize there is another way to do things that works.

Where do commercial MMOs need to go from here?

It would be awesome to see major game developers come up with some new ideas and take the risks needed to make it work. Gamers don't know it, but they don't really want more realistic graphics and more grinding. Realistic graphics often find their way into the uncanny valley, you get avatars with realistic light scattering skin shaders that end up clipping through monsters as they attack, and the illusion is broken (I think that's something that WoW has done a decent job with, using the stylized graphics) . Any game developer should start by doing some serious research into what fun is, why mammals play and that kind of thing. If you don't understand how that works, and don't think about it every step of the way, you'll end up with something that sucks, or sucks the life out of people who play it.

11. Neverdaunt is still in beta. Will you be making many major additions to the game before its full release? If so, can you give me some examples of what they might be?

Right now I'm working on Tronics, which is a system of building virtual electronic circuits. This will let people create things like trap doors, elevators, rigged explosives, puzzles, better AI for monsters and a billion other things I cant even imagine. After that its the combat updates with Guns and Shields. A team system where players can combine Cells and compete with other teams. And then on to flying ships which will be player controlled and built. Once all of that's in there will still be new block packs and powerups... and who knows what else, the game may never truly be finished.

This is exactly what i was talking about in the last post...

This is the science of morality.