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[Loren Schmidt]

Yeah, VVVVVV looks awesome. I'm really looking forward to playing it.

[Alex Vostrov]

There's nothing up ahead that changes the rules or mechanics in any way. I think your assessment is a fair one; I focused entirely on picking mechanics that work well together, not on whether those mechanics are new or not (I made a point of not rejecting things because they've been done before). Thanks for taking the time to play and giving me your honest opinion, I appreciate it. I hope you'll give the benefit of the doubt to things I make in the future, I'm also very interested in ideas that fall farther outside established genres.

Do you have any insights into your design process?  For me, it often feels like trying lots of random things to see what sticks.  That doesn't strike me as very efficient.

[Loren Schmidt]

Well, I haven't finished many games yet, but I can describe what my process seems to be like so far. I typically start with a pretty clear feeling for what I want, both esthetically and in terms of play style. I spend a while at this stage just listing ideas that seem like they might be fun. Then later, I implement only the things from this list that seem like the best fit.

I try to give each thing I make a role- this thing keeps us from standing in one place for too long, this other thing requires timed jumps. I try to keep in mind how each thing I make will add to or detract from the desired feel (and how it will interact with other elements of the game).

I think a certain amount of trial and error is inevitable. Some things just don't work the way they did in my head. For instance, the hoppers in this game were originally for creating running fights. They didn't end up being as fun in this role as I'd hoped. After a bit of playing around with different ideas, I repurposed them. Other times I'll remove things from the game entirely.

Another place I do a lot of trial and error work is when tuning things (like the feel of the player character's movement in this game).

I hope that was somewhat helpful. It sounds like you tend to be more improvizational than I am, which seems to me to be an equally valid, but very different, way to design. I'd be interested to hear what your approach is like.

[Alex Vostrov]

I hope that was somewhat helpful. It sounds like you tend to be more improvizational than I am, which seems to me to be an equally valid, but very different, way to design. I'd be interested to hear what your approach is like.

My other games are one-week affairs, but the current one isn't.  I find that it's drifted quite a bit from my original goal.  I kept fixing problems by adding new mechanics and cutting other stuff.

We'll see how good it is when I finish it.

[ChevyRay]

Fantastic game, Sparky. I found myself enjoying playing this much more than I thought I would after watching videos and hearing about it from a few folks on MSN. So I downloaded it, saw in the README that joystick was recommended so I plugged in my controller, and didn't stop until I finished. Really fun, I love how the game inherently encourages fast play (I'm still not quite sure how you did this, but while playing there's some part of me that JUST WANTS TO RUSH RUSH RUSH) which makes the game far more exciting, and makes even normally not speedplay gamers want to take on that challenge. Each enemy behaves very distinctly and there's no real overlap or confusion, making the game's level design very clear and precise, and playing through these levels fun at the same time.

I look forward to your future games. I'd love to see you hooked up with a rad 2D artist and working on something a bit more ambitious both in design and visuals. Great job, and I hope I get to see you at the IGF!

[Loren Schmidt]

Thanks very much for the kind words, ChevyRay. I hope to see you at the IGF!

I'd love to see you hooked up with a rad 2D artist and working on something a bit more ambitious both in design and visuals.

Thanks, I do intend to do projects with a broader scope in the future. Actually it's been bugging me that everything I've released so far has been all low fidelity and pixelly- not because I don't love doing low fidelity art (I do) but because I also love doing other types of art. I can't talk specifics at this point, but I will say that you can expect to see something from me with higher fidelity art in the near future.

[ChevyRay]

They're nothing wrong with working within your own comfort bounds for a first few good projects, to get in the swing. But with the popularity and hype you've gotten with this game, and now with the IGF nomination, you should easily be able to nab yourself a talented artist or two to team up with, as well as musicians/etc. and other folks who are ready to lend their hand in bringing your creations to life.

So yeah, I look forward to whatever high-fidelity projects you take on after this, even for being so blocky and upscaled, this game still had nice visual charm and animations to it (especially the bossfight).

[Golds]

I agree with Chevy.   I think there's an ego thing among people about being an "indie auteur" wherein you craft all the visuals, design, and engineering of your games solo.  There are some people that do this well, but I think often it ends up hurting a lot of indie games.  Besides Star Guard, I feel the same way about Terry's VVVVVV, Eversion, Jason Rohrer, and many others.

It's a little strange that people seem to have less hangups using music from other people, but have this romance about doing their own art.

Personally, I think I'm only an OKish visual designer, and I've done a couple games without any outside illustrative help...  I can understand the attraction of this idea.  But honestly, art-making is not my primary skill, and I think its far better to realize my strengths and weaknesses and do what's best for the game.  Focus your efforts on what you do best, and take advantage of all the fantastic artists we have.

I don't want to be mean.  Star Guard was a really fun playthrough, and I also loved that watery pixel shooting game you did.  I just wanted to bring up this indie art thing that I think is pretty widespread 

[Alex Vostrov]

I agree with Chevy.   I think there's an ego thing among people about being an "indie auteur" wherein you craft all the visuals, design, and engineering of your games solo.  There are some people that do this well, but I think often it ends up hurting a lot of indie games.  Besides Star Guard, I feel the same way about Terry's VVVVVV, Eversion, Jason Rohrer, and many others.

It's a little strange that people seem to have less hangups using music from other people, but have this romance about doing their own art.

Personally, I think I'm only an OKish visual designer, and I've done a couple games without any outside illustrative help...  I can understand the attraction of this idea.  But honestly, art-making is not my primary skill, and I think its far better to realize my strengths and weaknesses and do what's best for the game.  Focus your efforts on what you do best, and take advantage of all the fantastic artists we have.

I don't want to be mean.  Star Guard was a really fun playthrough, and I also loved that watery pixel shooting game you did.  I just wanted to bring up this indie art that I think is pretty widespread

I think part of the reason is that allowing someone to do the art means a loss of 100% control over the design of the game.  Designing alone and in a group are two different things.  The second reason is that artists can be fairly hard to find.

[Loren Schmidt]

I personally see solo vs. team projects as a sort of apples vs. oranges situation. I think both development styles have a lot to offer.

Actually the aforementioned higher fidelity game is a multi-person effort. I'm doing primarily art and design, and my co-conspirator is doing mostly programming (there's some overlap of roles as well).

Golds-
Yeah, it's weird that our attitude about using music by a second person tends to differ from how we feel about using someone else's art, code, etc..

[Alex Vostrov]

Actually the aforementioned higher fidelity game is a multi-person effort. I'm doing primarily art and design, and my co-conspirator is doing mostly programming (there's some overlap of roles as well).

See, I just don't get that.  I can totally grasp the benefit of working with someone else, both to cover each other's weaknesses and to collaborate creatively.  It's the opposite - having someone do "just" art or "just" programming - that's weird.  Are there really people out there who don't want to influence the game that they're working on?  Aren't all of us making games because we're interested in design?  I consider myself designer first and programmer second.

[Loren Schmidt]

I don't yet know how well this particular project will go- we've only just started and I still have a lot to learn about how to do this sort of thing well. I have a good feeling about it so far, for what that's worth.

With this particular project, my friend and I have pretty non-overlapping skill sets and it's a pretty natural fit. He doesn't do art, and I have no experience with the platform we're targeting so he's doing all the code (and I'm learning bits and pieces through collaborating). The decision to team up came out of being friends for a while and wanting to make something together, as well as wanting to combine our strengths and make something neither of us could do alone.

I know what you mean, there really is something weird about specialization. It seems sort of artificial to me to draw clean lines between the different components of a game, when in all the best games they work together so seamlessly. Honestly I'm kind of amazed that games made by a team of people ever have any semblance of self-consistency... it must take a really clear vision and lot of careful coordination to achieve that. Having as little experience with team projects as I do, that seems really amazing to me.

[Brother Android]

This is a really fun, well-designed, and polished game. A perfect, if short, experience. Really, really nice. 

[daphaknee]

god DAMN i am stoked this game got a nomination! congratulations

[Loren Schmidt]

Thanks, I'm kind of alternating between being happy and being worried

[FungusTrooper]

Yeah I just wanted to chime in that this is one of my fave indie games. I put this and Plasma Warrior on a kind of pedestal - they are both very good very retro shooters and are extremely polished.

Good job on this, and looking forward to your other projects in the future.

[ortoslon]

what will change in version 1.0?

[Davioware]

I really enjoyed this game Sparky, the polish was superb. Congrats on the IGF nomination!

[Rudolf Kremers]

And I finally remember what the game made me think of!

Pharao's Curse:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x9mame_c64-pharaohs-curse-hq_videogames
God that takes me back...

[Albert]

Star Guard mentioned here http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26837/Road_to_the_IGF_Team_Meats_Super_Meat_Boy.php