Independent game developer Bart Bonte recently took the time to discuss his views on the indie game scene, some of his games, and game design with me. Sit back, grab a fresh cup of coffee, and take a few minutes out of your day to check out Bart's insightful comments on the industry, and more:
Chris: I first discovered your work with 14locks. Why do you think first-person games rarely incorporate strong puzzle mechanics?
Bart: I created '14locks' (http://bartbonte.com/14locks/) because I wanted to learn the 3d game creation tool Unity, and there's no better way to learn a new tool or language than by trying to create a game with it. I was also a bit bored at that time with the traditional 'escape the room' games: 2d games where you are locked inside a room and must try to escape by solving little puzzles and exploring the room. I wanted to bring this kind of game elements in a new way. That's perhaps why lots of people enjoyed the puzzles.
Chris: For many, the Sugar, Sugar games are somewhat reminiscent of the Falling Sand Game series. Was that series an inspiration during your design process? If not, what was?
Bart: Many initial ideas for my game ideas are triggered by a certain situation I'm in, or are triggered by an image I see somwhere. A couple of my game ideas even came to me in a dream. But I must admit for 'sugar, sugar' (http://bartbonte.com/sugarsugar/), there is no pretty story and it didn't happen that way: I deliberatly was looking for a way to introduce game elements in a sandbox toy environment.
Chris: Furiosity is a great example of a game running on a single iterative mechanic. What were some challenges in creating later levels? Was it difficult testing how "fun" the game was since you created the puzzles?
Bart: 'Furiosity' (http://bartbonte.com/furiosity/) was built in a couple of days for a game jam (http://www.fuckthisjam.com/) centered around the theme of making a game in a genre you hate. I created it on a whim in a reaction to the mobile pseudo-game 'Curiosity' by Peter Molyneux, where everyone is tapping blocks away from a giant cube with the purpose of clicking away the very last block, and to find out what 'life-changing amazing' thing is inside.
The whole game was an exercise for me to see what game elements I could introduce into this simple mechanic of tapping an array of blocks in just 2 days and
what 'life-changing amazing' thing I could put into the game as a price for the first person to complete the game. You can read about that here (http://www.bontegames.com/2012/11/furiosity-gets-winner-winner-gets.html). What's inside the real Curiosity we still don't know. Every level of Furiosity was created by defining a set of rules. For the later levels it did cost me a lot of time to try and find out if there was in fact a solution for the rules I had created.
Chris: What types of games (video, board, card, etc) do you play the most?
Bart: I must say I'm not an avid gamer, but all or most of the games I'm playing are indie games.
For the moment I'm enjoying 'Kairo' (
http://kairo.lockeddoorpuzzle.com/) by Richard Perrin. It really gives me appetite to start to create another 3d first person
puzzler, after I'm done with the projects I'm working on for the moment. On mobile recently I enjoyed 'Hundreds' (http://playhundreds.com/) very much. The amount of detail that was put into the game design for this is unbelievable.
Chris: EdMcMillan of Team Meat has said that to become a successful indie developer (especially when starting out), you should make as many games as you can. As a somewhat prolific indie developer, what are your thoughts on this? What do you think makes a successful indie developer other than just monetary profit?
Bart: My advice to someone who wants to start making games would be to go for something unique from the beginning and don't try to start making clones of existing games. Don't get your inspiration from existing games, let the outside world inspire you. Keep your scope small, but try to bring something unique. It will get you far more attention than a technically perfect clone of an existing game genre. In my own games I'm always trying to force myself to use a limited number of elements for one particular game and build a complete game around these elements. This helps to keep the projects rather small and stay focused.
Chris: How important do you think it is for indie developers to make mobile versions of the PC/web releases?
Bart: I had been holding off mobile development for quite some time until I did 'Sugar, sugar' for mobile. Developing for mobile devices takes a lot more planning and thinking. iOS only has a few different screen resolutions, but Android is so fragmented, you have to come up with a way to make your game independant of screen resolution. Also for the first time I was confronted with performance speed. I had never before encountered any performance limits on my webgames, but if you want your mobile game to run smoothly even on the cheapest Android devices too, you really have to make sure your code is optimised to the max. But all that hard work and thinking work payed off. 'Sugar, sugar' (http://bartbonte.com/sugar/) already sold over 25000 times since its release a couple of months ago. So my advice would be to definitely look into bringing your games to mobile, but invest proper time into it, so you can do it right.
My webgames are always free to play, my mobile game aren't free, but I don't want to charge money for exactly the same experience as you can get in the browser: I want the game to feel like it was designed for mobile.
Chris: Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or 1 horse-sized duck?
Bart: Bring on that horse-sized duck! Maybe I could try to persuade it and challenge it to have a go at one of my harder puzzlers instead of the fight.
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Short but sweet; a quick interview with some seriously useful information. If you're interested in creating games in today's industry some of the best advice comes from experienced developers, so keep your eyes and ears open. Feel free to leave feedback on the interview and if there's a developer or studio you're particularly interested in, leave a comment. There's some really cool stuff coming up so keep checking in!
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