Podcast Interview: Ryan talks about Designing Mushroom Men

Ryan, on the team of Mushroom Men, talks about designing for the Wii...

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Show Notes:
You are listening to the Indie Game development Podcast show, visit www.indiegamepod.com for more podcasts. This interview is inspired by a quake meet up between the Austin Game Developers conference.

I’m here at Austin GDC, and with me is today’s special guest, how about you introduce yourself?

I’m Ryan Madison, the lead designer on Mushroom Men from Red Fly studio

And, what’s the game about and what platform is it on

Well the game is on Nintendo Wii and Mushroom and the Spore Wars, and its about a young mushroom name Axe who doesn’t really know where he is in the world or who he is or where he came from. He’s sort of exploring his identity and then he finds himself in the middle of the Spore Wars which is a war between edible mushrooms and poisonous mushrooms.

And what inspired the game?

Uh, the game was developed over a course of a couple of years by the founders of Red Fly studio Dan Warthik, Christ Taylor. They were really interested in doing a game that harkins back to the old platformers from the days past of Mario even up to the odd World Series. I’m just doing something that was a little but more quirky, a little bit more weird than usual and trying to create specially these interesting characters in a large human environment

Now, since you’re doing design, umm, I guess, what did you have to keep in mind as you were developing and designing for the Wii

One of the things we were trying to do is kind of hold to the core values we had for the game which was making really really cool environments in a combination of the human world and the mushroom world. And really pushing the players to explore the environment and to umm you know, not only explore the environment but the systems as well… have fun in the combat … and have fun trying to collect things through out the world. So, constantly thinking about those aspects and trying to make sure that the game was always focusing on one of those particular things was definitely something we kept in mind through out the development process.

What were some of the challenges you encountered as you designed levels for the game?

Well one of the biggest things we were trying to do is to diversify the environment a little bit, showing the large human world, the small mushroom environments as well as a combination of the two. Um, so trying to develop the scale at first was really difficult, but once we achieved that it was a matter of implementing the game play inside of that scale. One of the levels that is most fun for me is this large shed that you get to use your sticky hand tool in and that’s a great tool to use especially fun in that particular level is because it allows players to be so creative with what they do throughout the game or throughout the navigation in that particular area. So they get to move around, grapple a tight tool, and they get to move around the way they want to and sort of accomplish the objectives the way they want to. And, I think for me that was actually one of the fun aspects of development where were just constantly seeing the creativity out of the developers that were working in the game in that particular level.

As a designer what are the challenges that you usually encounter as you design levels?

Umm

And whats the best way to overcome them?

There’s a lot of challenges, they differ from project to project. For us it was again harking back into those core values I mentioned earlier. You know really trying to make sure we were constantly achieving the sort of visual style of the game, allowing players to push through in a creative way. You know balancing combat vs puzzle vs navigation (platforming navigation) because something we’re trying to do is create a hybrid action platform of the game, so we’re trying to create a good balance between those aspects.
And ways to solve it, I think one of the best things people can do is to test the game, blind test it to bring people in that haven’t played it before. For them to actually sit down and be able to, sort of tell you whether or not you’re achieving your goals, because we get so wrapped up in the development as it gets close to the game that often we forget, you know, what it is we’re looking at in what particular area. So just having someone say ‘Oh I’ve been doing a lot of combat for the past 5 minutes I really would’ve expected this to be (illegible) some navigation or some platforming in between maybe a puzzle here or something else. Just trying to make sure that we’ve got a really good balance of those things, I think that one of the biggest challenges and the best solution is just getting people to play it.

And so what’s next in store for the game, is it on shelves yet, is it (illegible) released?

Game’s coming out at the end of November there’s a PS version as well which is really exciting. It is going to be released a little bit before the Wii version. They’re completely separate games, from there the sky’s the limit, we’ve got a lot of ideas for ways to push the franchise, it’s a really interesting thing, there’re just a lot of opportunities. So we’re really excited about where we can push it next.

And what would the top three learning experiences or learning lessons which you got from developing this game?

Well, just to kind of outline it at a really high level, I think that the top three would be like I mentioned earlier would be blind testing, its huge, getting people into play your game, and making sure that they sort of get it, is really really big. Another one is, just learning how to work really well with the artists and the programmers, as a designer. And if you’re one of those other disciplines learning how to work well with designers, artists and programmers. And I think the last would be learning the limits of your team and of your platform and seeing how far you can push those.

And is there a website already up, where they can visit?

Yes, go to mushroommen.com for more information

Thank you very much

Thank you

Take care,
Action