The Development of the 2009 IGF Seamus McNally Grand Prize Winner, Blueberry Garden

Erik talks about developing the 2009 Seamus McNally Grand Prize Winning Game, Blueberry Garden

Update: Blueberry Garden is now on steam, you can get it here

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/blueberry-garden-podcast.mp3

Or listen to it here…

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Show Notes:
Interviewer: I’m here at the IGF Main Competition and with me today is a special guest. How about you introduce yourself?

Well, I’m Erik from Sweden. I made Blueberry Garden.

Interviewer: What’s the game about?

Erik: It’s an exploration game. You explore this world with different plants and animals, and you kind of try to figure out what is going on.

Interviewer: It got nominated for something. What was that?

Erik: Yeah, well, it was nominated for the grand prize which it won.

Interviewer: OK, so you won the grand prize. Why do you think you won the grand prize or got nominated for the grand prize, too? By the way, congratulations, I guess.

Erik: Thanks, thanks. Well, I guess it’s kind of a personal and strange game about quite unusual topics for the game.

Interviewer: What inspired the game? How did you come up with the idea, and what was the process for making it?

Erik: Well, it was kind of an experiment. I wanted to try different stuff with ecosystems and believable worlds that feel alive. I also wanted to try stuff with, like storytelling without words or sequences or anything. It’s like the story should emerge from the game.

Interviewer: How long did it take to do this experiment and prototype it and realize that you had something that could be interesting and develop more?

Erik: Well, it took a half year to create and then I polished it off during the last couple of months.

Interviewer: Can you talk about the technology behind it? What did you use to develop it?

Erik: I used XNA Cedar. It went kind of smoothly. I don’t know how it will be to release though. It needs a lot of stuff to run it.

Interviewer: Did you run into any challenges, either design challenges or development challenges as you made the game?

Erik: Well, I had a lot of problems with the design. I mean, it’s strange. It has like many bad things, actually. Like, things that you shouldn’t do in game design but I still kept them in the game because I wanted it to be that way. You can actually fuck up so that you make the game really hard for yourself, but that’s kind of the point. You have to think for yourself and be responsible for your actions in the game.

Interviewer: Can you talk more about the storytelling? You said that you wanted the game played to help tell the story, or how did that work?

Erik: Well, it’s kind of a sandbox game. So, there’s no real instruction to it, but I’ve added several things that helps you to create this meaningful story and have fun. That’s it..

Interviewer: And the art work? How did you go about doing that?

Erik: Well, it’s just the way I draw. I like to doodle. That’s the way I draw.

Interviewer: And what’s next in store for the game and for a future project?

Erik: I plan to release the game pretty soon for PCs. I hope that I get the inspiration for a new thing. It’s really inspiring to be here at GDC. It seems like I could do something more.

Interviewer: Where can other people find the game? Is there a demo or downloadable or videos or even a site or community forum?

Erik: Yeah, there is my website. I have a trailer for it, but I will put up a demo pretty soon, I believe.

Interviewer: And what’s the site in case people want to read it?

Erik: It’s Erik Svedang. That’s my name.

Interviewer: OK. I’ll put that in the notes. Thank you very much.