Mr. Phosphorous Talks About IGF Audio Winner, BrainPipe…And Designing Board Games

Winner of the 2009 IGF Excellence In Audio Award, Brainpipe…and some of the challenges of designing actual board games

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

Or listen to it here…

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

Bill: Hello, I’m Mr. Phosphorous (Bill Sears) of Digital Eel.

Interviewer: What’s your game about?

Bill: Well, it’s a game about transcending humanity and plunging into the depths of your subconscious.

Interviewer: What inspired the game?

Bill: Retro video games and just the mindless entertainment, no education value whatsoever.

Interviewer: Awesome. You guys were nominated for Excellence in Audio. Can you talk about the audio process for the game?

Bill: Actually, we won last night for excellence.

Interviewer: Oh, yeah. I was getting to that.

Bill: And we made a bunch of really weird noises on a synthesizer and give it to a programmer.

Interviewer: Cool. Any other advice for someone else who wants to make something innovative in audio?

Bill: Just make lots of weird noises and find somebody that can program them into a game.

Interviewer: Now, when you say program into the game, I mean, where there any special effects used or did you have to use 3D Surround or any of that other stuffor was it basic?

Bill: Our programmer actually made his own program called Eel Mix, so it’s always random and doesn’t repeat itself.

Interviewer: What’s in store next for the studio?

Bill: We have no idea. We’ll figure it out after we get done with GDC. We’ve got a board game that is coming out from Shrapnel Games and all kinds of fun.

Interviewer: If people want to download the game or check it out, where can they do that?

Bill: You can do it from our site: digital-eel or go to Shrapnel Games and get a free demo and give it a play. It’s also available on Mac.

Interviewer: Can you talk more about board games? Do you guys do a lot of board games, or will this be your first board game?

Bill: We play a lot of board games. A lot of the games originally start out as kind of paper board games and then they get digitized, but we’ve got a space combat sim coming out called Eat Electric Death that is classic space combat.

There’s some other stuff on the horizon. We’re just trying to find the right person to do our die cuts and that kind of thing. Hopefully, the game will be out for the summer.

Interviewer: Since you’ve done digital games and board games, which medium do you prefer?

Bill: Both.

Interviewer: What do board games allow you to do that you couldn’t do in digital? What are the nuances?

Bill: Well, with board games it is very much easier to test and you’re not dependent on technology so you can develop it with just scraps of paper and a pair of scissors for a long time. And then apply the finished art assets to it later.

Interviewer: Can you talk about testing a board game? Does it just mainly consist of playing it just a lot of times, or is there anything else?

Bill: Just playing it over and over and over again and getting other people to play it and getting their feedback and repeat until you get something that’s fun.

Interviewer: How long does it take then to develop or to design a board game? I don’t know if the development process is the same as a digital game or if it’s different

Bill: A board game can be much more leisurely. We’ve got some in development that we’ve been playing it for a couple of years, just working with the rules. The actual art assets probably take three or four months once we figure out the rules.

Interviewer: And promoting the board game, distribution. Is that a lot harder than digital distribution?

Bill: We just don’t pay much attention to it. We like our publisher and we’re in it for the art of making the games. The marketing side of it is not appealing, so we just make games and let everything else work itself out.

Interviewer: Aside from your games, what are your favorite board games?

Bill: Oh, I would have to say the classics: Axis and Allies, the old Milton Bradley games, tabletop games like D&D and War Hammer. I love them all.

Interviewer: Thank you very much.

Bill: OK.