The Design Behind The Maw, Xbox Live Game and IGF Finalist

Jay, from Twisted Pixel Games, talks about The Maw…Xbox Live game and IGF Finalist

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

Or listen to it here…

[wp_youtube]Aqy1y_31gW0[/wp_youtube]

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

Jay: Hi, my name is Jay Stuckwich and I’m the Community Manager for Twisted Pixel Games.

Interviewer: What’s the game you have in the IGF?

Jay: Well, today we are showing The Maw which is an XBLA release. It’s also available on Steam as well as Greenhouse and Direct2Drive. Right now, it is a full downloadable game for $10 on Xbox Live and with two downloadable content levels for $1.25 apiece and we’ve got a third one coming out in a couple of months.

Interviewer: How’s the Xbox Live experience going for you guys?

Jay: It’s actually been fantastic. The game has been out since January. It’s doing really well, and we’re only recently out on Steam and the other two downloadable sites. We don’t really have results on those right now, but everything is looking really promising.

Interviewer: So then, this is both on the PC and also on Xbox.

Jay: Correct.

Interviewer: Is there any reason why you chose the Xbox Live versus just focus on the PC, or the mass market?

Jay: Well, basically, we were thinking Xbox Live is the next big thing. I mean, it’s the up and coming, and it’s getting so much more interest in it as of late that that the market we wanted to hit.

Interviewer: Now, can you talk about tweaking the game, things that you had to do after you released it? Can you constantly update the game if it’s already released on Xbox Live?

Jay: Yeah, actually, like I mentioned before, we have two downloadable contents available right now so it is adding extra levels to the game with another one coming out soon. We are always looking to update though. We’re clearing the kinks that might be out there but really it’s pretty solid as is.

Interviewer: Can you talk about episodic content and, I guess, what your strategy is for that; once every month you release them.

Jay: You mean, like for a downloadable?

Interviewer: Yeah, downloadable.

Jay: Basically, it’s just this story can go on and on. We just feel that we want to give the user the best experience they can get with this game and continue the story for them.

Interviewer: You mentioned that you are Community Manager. Can you talk about the community aspects of the game, and exactly why you would need a Community Manager for an Xbox Live game or PC game? What’s the design?

Jay: Well, basically, I guess it’s kind of more of a loose term for what I do right now, but what I’m going to be doing is fielding all the questions that come in from the fans, stuff like that. We’ve gotten tons of emails thanking us for the game and wondering when they are going to see more and plush and all that stuff. They want to see more Maw. They just really, really love it, and that’s basically what I am there for. It’s to keep them all up-to-date on what is coming out and letting them know we’re going to keep doing this for a long time to come.

Interviewer: Do you have to do forum moderation and stuff like that?

Jay: We don’t yet. We’re actually in the process of getting a blog site and forum set up so we can get this community just explosive. We just want everybody that wants to be involved involved.

Interviewer: Can you talk about some of the aspects you are going to do to help keep the community tight, bonded and growing? You mentioned the blog. What are other things that you are going to do?

Jay: Well, we’d like to get a whole website dedicated completely to The Maw. We’ve got a blog segment up there. We can always get podcasts going. We’d like to maybe have question and answer sessions through the website, you know, live chats and stuff like that.

We can either offer special chats with the developers, stuff like that, to get the fans coming and more involved.

Interviewer: Is this what you are going to be focusing on for the most part, or are you working on other games?

Jay: We’ve got lots of things in the hopper, actually. We’ve got a lot of things coming. We’re really excited about the developers that are here with me right now. They’re in meetings all day today trying to get their other projects going so it’s going above and beyond Maw but Maw is definitely our flagship game.

Interviewer: Awesome. Where can they find out more information about the game and, maybe, try it out?

Jay: You are more than welcome to go to twistedpixelgames.com. We’ve got plenty of information up there: videos, interviews with the developers. You can see the new videos. The downloadable content is able to be viewed from there as well. That’s where you will get all your up-to-date Maw information.

Interviewer: Thank you very much.