Pascal Biren from Brain Slap Studio takes time out of his busy development cycle to speak about his twin‐stick shooting and exploration title, Hexodius.
Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your role with the development of Hexodius.
Brain Slap Studio is a three men team, we were working together at Eden Games and after a redundancy plan we decided to create our own little indie studio to start working on a game that became Hexodius.
On Hexodius I worked on game design, level design and on the art. Sylvain and Matthieu did the programming part and also worked a lot with me on the game design and the level design, we really like to share ideas and to all have a big input in the gameplay, that’s why we went indie after all.
How did you get started in developing PC games?
The three of us have previously worked on multiplatform (but more console oriented) games in bigger studios (Ubisoft, Eden Games). Hexodius has already been released on PC and will also came out on XBLA this autumn. We did not think of making a PC specific game when we started to develop Hexodius, we were just aiming for the platforms that seemed suitable for the concept and that we could technically aim for. We used XNA framework to develop Hexodius and a X360 style game controller is really well fitted to play this game so the choice of the platforms came naturally.
Where did the idea for Hexodius come from?
For our first game as indie we wanted a concept that we could pull off quite safely, that was action oriented and, of course, that we will enjoy making and playing ! We have interest in shooting game and we figured out that having a bit of an adventure feel in this kind of game could be cool. I also always liked to have a customization aspect in a game that involved a ship or a robot (or something alike) and we decided to develop this in Hexodius. The main influences for the game are the precursors of the twin stick scheme: Robotron 2084 and Smash TV.
What are some of the successes and failures you learned from in developing Hexodius?
I do not have sufficient hindsight for the moment to analyze all the process of making and selling Hexodius and we still have a version to come on X360. However about the developing part we know that we will certainly go for a technology that is easily portable and less limited (Hexodius uses XNA framework, Flat Red Ball and the game engine and tools are for the greatest part custom built).
Also on the game design aspect, I think that we will need to put more focus on the rhythm of the beginning of the experience in our next project. The biggest positive aspect so far is that we were right about the global vision of the amount of work that Hexodius would need and that we were able to release it on the platforms we were targeting (Steam and XBOX Live Arcade).
In its current form, how close is Hexodius to your initial vision?
Actually Hexodius is quite close to the initial concept; we mainly changed the exploration mechanic of the game that was not Hexa grid based.
Some devs admitted their games were too hard upon release because they became experts as they developed the game. Talk about setting the difficulty levels for Hexodius and if you faced a similar challenge.
First versions of Hexodius were really hard but after have it tested by different profiles of gamer we changed quite radically the difficulty curve of the story mode. It seems that some people are now finding it too easy (at least during the first worlds). Tweaking the difficulty can be really hard especially if you want to propose a good experience for both beginners and experts. I guess that the best way to have a really fine tuning is to have a clear target of the level of skills that is required right from the start from the player.
Were there any challenges you faced in ensuring Hexodius would run on the various PC system configurations?
This is something that we underestimated while developing Hexodius, as we were using XNA framework we were a bit limited. One of the biggest problem was the management of various screen and resolution sizes.
Please talk about developing the art style, level design and music for Hexodius.
We wanted Hexodius to have a retro 90’s feeling, but rendered with a nice 3D aspect. I took inspiration from shooting games (Viewpoint, Thunder Force IV), science fiction movies (Star Wars, 2001 A Space Odyssey) and French scifi comics (L’incal, La caste des méta Barons) when I designed the robots and environments of Hexodius.
Regarding the music, we started to work with Stuff, a friend of Sylvain who compose great electro music that we knew that will fit with the game. He did a great job creating several original tracks for the game to set the mood. We finally needed some additional tracks and asked another friend who’s creating music for video games to do the themes for the boss fights, the map and the bonus stage. The soundtrack has some retro influence but is not a full chip tune score, it is more a mix of influence from several periods. You can listen to it freely on Bandcamp.
Outside of creating the game itself, what is the toughest aspect of being an indie developer?
The toughest part is certainly to find out how you can release your game on the platforms you are aiming for. But as we are getting started we may not have seen the toughest part yet.
How did you go about funding Hexodius and did you receive financial or emotional support from friends and family?
We financed the game personally and essentially with the money we received from the redundancy plan of the studio we were working in before (Eden Games). We received great help from friends that helped us in the making of the game, without them it would have been harder to have it done and some part of the game would have been less polished.
Tell us about the process of submitting Hexodius to the various digital distribution platforms and if you encountered resistance in doing so.
We quickly figured out that it will be really difficult to secure a steam release and nearly impossible to have access to the XBLA on our own, so we started to search for a partner to publish the game and started to work with Namco Bandai which helped us to bring the game on Steam and XBLA.
Did you research similar titles when trying to come up with the launch price?
We had the price in mind quite early, we thought of it more on a production value basis that depending of the style of the game. Basically we think that the game has to be worth its price, as we are gamers, we buy (a lot of) games and we have a personal idea of what is a not to high pricing for a game, that’s how we have set the price for Hexodius. As Namco Bandai is publishing the game we also had to agree with them on the pricing but we had the same vision so it was pretty easy.
Can you tell us why you chose to release a demo for Hexodius?
We think that is important to give to the player a way to see for himself what the game really is, especially for action oriented gameplay where it is great to see if the global controls and feeling of the game is enjoyable.
How important is it to get instant feedback about Hexodius from users through online message boards and other social networking sites?
On PC, it is great to have feedback regarding the compatibilities issues, we tried to make a game that will work on most of the configs but as a small indie developer it is difficult to do an exhaustive testing of the compatibility. Also it’s fun to see comments and opinions about the game itself to see if they match with the feedbacks we received from those who tested the game before its release.
How much value do you place on the opinions of those who review Hexodius professionally?
We take them as opinions, I think that a lot of them are required to sort them out and actually make something out of it as a developer. For the moment we do not have a lot of reviews on Hexodius and have a lot of contradictory opinions.
How do you feel about the various indie bundle promotions and the “Pay What You Want” pricing methodology? Would you be interested in contributing to a project like that in the future?
As a gamer it is great because you can grab a lot of games at cheap price and sometimes discover cool games that you were not aware of in a bundle. Indie studios can gain some visibility and do some extra sales on a game that was already released a while ago. But I’m a bit skeptical about the long term influence of this habit as it is adding to the confusion around game pricing. The actual buying price of games seems to be more and more disconnected from the production cost.
What are your thoughts on how the PC gaming industry as a whole is dealing with the problem of intrusive DRM and piracy?
Hexodius was hacked pretty quickly and of course it is a bit sad to know that gamers are playing the game this way. But intrusive DRM can be really annoying as a gamer and it does not seems to be an efficient way to reduce piracy. I guess that we need to find new ways to sell games but right now the balance seems broken as a lot of games are continuously on sale and it’s hard to figure out what is the standard price for a given game.
How do you feel about individuals posting videos of Hexodius?
I think that it is logical as people using social networks share a lot of their experiences (not only gaming) by posting videos. It is somehow becoming a media on its own and it can help the game to be known by more people.
How do you feel about DLC and its current implementation in the PC gaming industry?
In my opinion it really depends on the content, some DLCs are really similar to what we called add-ons (for example the Lord of Destruction add-on for Diablo 2), and I think it can be a great way to extend a game without having to wait for a new opus. So I feel ok with downloadable content as a way to add fresh content in a game, but personally I’m not interested in buying a character skin or an item in a game I’ve already purchased as it does not provide a new experience or really extend the existing one. It’s a shame that the increase of “lame” DLCs is somehow damaging the global perception of additional contents that are interesting.
How do you feel about the online modding community in general and specifically if mods were created for Hexodius?
It is great to see people investing time to create contents around a game they like but the game has to be suited for that to encourage this. I think that Hexodius is not a game that has a great interest for modders because of its structure and style.
What advice would you give up-and-coming indie PC developers who are trying to break into the business?
We are still a very young studio so it’s a bit early to give an advice, but I think that to try to make a good game and have it released is already a good objective to focus on. – End
We would like to thank Pascal and offer our hopes of a smooth release in October. You can visit the official site for more information.
Follow TPG