Development of the art game, El Beso

Perez talks about the art game, El Beso

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/elveso-gdc-2010-interview.mp3

Or listen to it here…

[wp_youtube]ill60t0yPwI[/wp_youtube]

Show Notes:
Interviewer: I’m here at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, and with me today is a special guest. How about you introduce yourself?

Perez: Hi, I’m Perez Fernandez.

Interviewer: What game did you work on?

Perez: I worked on El Beso.

Interviewer: What’s El Beso about?

Perez: El Beso is an art game, and I want the player to enjoy the music and dance around while she also enjoys good graphics and abstract colors.

Interviewer: OK. So, the goal is really to just relax, you know, just to move around the mouse cursor and listen to the music.

Perez: Yes. I wanted the player to relax and dance and enjoy the music in a different way. I think it’s right for some listeners so I wanted the player to really dance and enjoy it where the player always feels like he is moving on a veil, a white veil.

Interviewer: And what inspired you to make the game?

Perez: Mostly the music and then…

Interviewer: What’s the exact music? Is it the same music all the time because–I actually like the music. I think it’s good.

Perez: Yes. It’s [?] “Flowers Do It”.

Interviewer: “Flowers Do It”. Yeah. Check it out on YouTube. I think it’s pretty relaxing. I’ve heard it in other commercials and stuff like that. So, you wanted people to relax. How did you come up with the game play to do that? I mean, what was the process behind it?

Perez: I did a lot of play testing and a lot of prototypes.

Interviewer: Who did you play test it with? What kind of people, the gender balance and stuff like that?

Perez: I tried to test it more with women and not gamer things because I think that it’s more important to have them interested in the game than gamers. I also think that women are more interested so they really love it. When they said the game was good, I know that I was in a good direction.

Interviewer: So, you did the testing. What was the initial response? What was the confusion, and what needed to be fixed?

Perez: The things that needed to be fixed are the controls because at first they were a lot harder than they are now and they punished the player a lot. Now, they almost don’t punish the player. They punish the player sometimes. So, if she is good using the mouse, she can play the game. And also everything that they liked were the graphics because they’re abstract and I used a lot of colors that were compelling to mainstream.

Interviewer: Did you test out the colors? Did you try different other colors and see which ones the women responded to best?

Perez: Yes. I tried several colors. I find that white was a very good color. I don’t know why and then the red is a very good one. And then you look at blue; that’s good. They are primary colors. So, they’re always compelling on people.

Interviewer: And so, for the latest version what did women respond? I mean, what did they say about the latest version? What did they like? What didn’t they like?

Perez: They really liked the music and the movements. I don’t know what they didn’t like. I hope they didn’t like anything.

Interviewer: How long did it take you to iterate and play test and do all this until you got to this final state?

Perez: It would take me a lot of months mostly because I did it while I was working on commercial projects, but then I quit my job and then I worked a month on the final version.

Interviewer: What platform did you develop this for? Is it PC? Is it Flash?

Perez: Yes. This is PC. It’s made in GameMaker.

Interviewer: What’s the next step for this? What do you have in mind now for this, and what have you learned from this experience from this game that you’re going to take forward in future games?

Perez: I learned how to press myself and that I have to follow my ideas, my initial ideas. I would like to go and make this a bigger game with different game play mechanics because I have only one mechanic and only one song. I would like to add more songs and more mechanics.

Interviewer: Well, do you need more mechanics because it might get too complicated and then you can’t relax?

Perez: Yeah but they can separate the lows or, maybe, a different game and another mechanic.

Interviewer: Sure. Where can folks download the game or check it out or find out more information about it?

Perez: They can download it on circle.rio at tembac.com. It’s T-E-M-B-A-C.

Interviewer: So, T-E-M-B-A-C.com?

Perez: Yeah. That’s how I’m known on the Internet.

Interviewer: In terms of future games, do you have a direction you want to go into or are you just pretty much exploring and experimenting with whatever?

Perez: Yes. I want to explore and experiment and do art games. I have several ideas for my future projects. Right now, I don’t have any idea in making any other game.

Interviewer: When you say art games, can you talk about that more? What do you mean by that? You mean, game is art or what?

Perez: Yes. All games are art, but I want to express myself so I let you be friends and see my work from other games.

Interviewer: OK. Gotcha. So, develop your own unique style and voice.

Perez: Yes. I want to do that so I try to label it as art, but I believe all games are art.

Interviewer: Are you going to focus on single player games? Are you thinking about multiplayer games for the future or what?

Perez: Yes. I would like to focus on single player because it is a completely different experience in multiplayer.

Interviewer: Exactly. I was wondering if you thought that could be more relaxing or if you feel the single player…

Perez: Maybe, multiplayer can be relaxing though so, but in single player I can have more control over the experience, and I like to have ultmate control over the experience.

Interviewer: OK. Great. And so, once again, the site is www.T-E-M-B-A-C.com. Cool. Thank you very much.