Development of Igneous, IGF Student Game Finalist

Ben talks about their student game, Igneous

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

Or listen to it here…

[wp_youtube]cNWJKZUHFak[/wp_youtube]

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

Ben: Hello. My name is Ben Gable and I was the Producer on Igneous, the student showcase entry.

Interviewer: What’s that game about?

Ben: So, Igneous is about you place a tiki totem inside and you’re trapped inside this volcano. The objective of this game is to roll and jump through these dynamic and difficult levels to escape the volcano alive. So, really it’s a very simple game, but the environment is your enemy throughout Igneous.

Interviewer: How did you guys come up with the concept?

Ben: So, we really started through a lot of iteration, basically. We started with kind of a combat-based design of the game, still the same theme and inside a volcano. We found out though is that design was for the time and research we had was far too great of a scope. And so, we really looked at creating an experience, like in an action movie, like Indiana Jones or the final level of a lot of video games is always very hectic. So, we’re like, how about we try to make a game that kind of revolves around that constant action and pressure and the premise of you’re on the verge of death all the time.

So, really it kind of was a lot of iteration and play testing until we got to that final action sequence kind of design we have now.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about the iteration and play testing. What were some of the issues that you initially ran into as you were prototyping and designing this game?

Ben: So, every level we prototyped out. We always had the problem of first figuring out what was going to be interesting and fun for the player and still, again, still have that sense of danger. So, when we finally came up with that idea, it was then we play tested it and we made sure that players would–it would be hard to see if they actually understood what they were supposed to do.

And really the difficulty curve of each level was very difficult to tweak and make sure that normal players as well as seasoned players found a challenge out of it. So, really it was kind of going through and figuring out what level was going to be fun and the difficulty to make it such that even a wide range of players could pick it up and it wasn’t too hard and it wasn’t too easy.

Interviewer: What types of players are you aiming for? Just casual players? What was the response from those people?

Ben: So, we wanted to kind of get the old school NRS crowd, those guys who really like those challenging games. At the same time we wanted it to kind of be accessible to everyone as we possibly could. So, what we ended up doing is we found there was a group of people who liked the game but found it was too difficult, and then we had a group of people that would blow through the game. It was real easy and they had no challenge.

So, we ended up making two difficulty modes. One was called Normal for the normal players, and then we made the Impossible mode which is for the hard core players that really want that challenge.

Interviewer: Were there any other changes you had to do or any other features you had to add to make the game more engaging and accessible?

Ben: It was really, like I said, kind of coming up with an interesting premise behind each level. So, it was really picking something that hasn’t really been seen before and kind of engaged the player and make the platforming levels interesting enough and different enough that they felt that each level was different than the last. We didn’t want to have any copied levels from each one.

Interviewer: Did you put in a story into the game?

Ben: So, we’ve got a loose story of you’re this tiki totem, you awaken in this dark cave and you kind of are thrown into this journey throughout this kind of Aztecan city or whatnot. The story, we didn’t really focus a lot on it, but it’s kind of there for people. It’s very loose, you know. It kind of gives you a general idea of what’s going on.

Interviewer: Let’s talk about the technology, What did you develop this in?

Ben: So, Igneous was built from the ground up using C++ so it was from scratch. The only third party program we used was FMOD for the sound system. Everything else we had a guy doing the entire physics engine from the ground up. We had a guy doing the graphics engine from the ground up using DirectX, and then we had a guy dedicated to doing the architecture for the game and merging those two and all the game play codes. So, really it was all from the ground up.

Interviewer: What would you say then are the top things that you’ve learned from the whole designing and developing this game? Something that you learned from this game that you didn’t learn in previous game projects?

Ben: So, I would say what we really learned, especially with Igneous, is that we started out with something that was way complicated, and we found out that in the end it was better to make a game, start with a very simple premise and let the game kind of evolve and grow from that and kind of come into its own rather than set up a bunch of restrictions and try to constrict it to something that, maybe, wasn’t very fun.

So, we really started with a simple premise, let it grow, didn’t really restrict ourselves to anything. We also learned a lot that you can’t be married to your idea. If it doesn’t work, you’ve got to throw it out. So, we threw out tons of stuff that just didn’t work. I think it made it a very better game for itself.

Interviewer: And so, what’s next in store for you guys? Are you going to pursue this more? Are you working on another game project?

Ben: Yeah. We definitely would like to make an Igneous2. It can’t be called Igneous2 because the school we work for, they own the IP but we definitely would be interested in finding a publisher to, maybe, pick us up or fund us to make a game that had very similar game play. We’ve had reaction from the gaming community online and at this convention has been excellent. So, we definitely would like to pursue Igneous2 but we’ll see what happens.

Interviewer: And so, it was nominated for Best Student Game. Why do you think that was?

Ben: I think it was nominated for Best Student Game because I think we really pulled off a very technical game that still has a lot of very cool game play concept behind it. So, I think it’s definitely one of the most technically advanced games in the Student Showcase. And at the same time I think the game play is simple yet compelling that really is a throwback to those old school NES games that really makes it kind of addictive that people just have to beat it. It just looks amazing, so I think it’s all shiny and stuff. I think that’s one of the reasons why it was picked up.

Interviewer: Is there a website that people can visit to find out more about the game?

Ben: Yes. It’s free to download if you go to www.igneousgame.com.

Interviewer: How do you spell it?

Ben: It’s I-G-N-E-O-U-S game.com. It’s available for free. You can download it there and find out more about the game and the team.

Interviewer: Thank you very much.