Paranautical Activity may just be the best game you've never heard of... yet. Combining tactical close-quarters combat of Rogue and the fast-paced experience of Unreal Tournament, players are pushed to the limit, facing off against demons, wizards, and.. butterflies? Mike from Code Avarice was kind enough to sit down and answer a few questions for me about Paranautical Activity, the development process, and the indie game scene. Very exciting stuff!
Chris: Paranautical Activity is quite possibly one of the best fusions of new and retro styles in a game [3D + blocky pixel style, electronic music + classic rogue-like game mechanics, etc]. Was the fusion of new and old a conscious decision during design or did it just gradually shape itself as development went on?
Mike: When coming up with the idea for the game, I wasn't planning on a fusion of old and new. I was really focusing on the old. I basically wanted to create a Doom roguelike as a love letter to the days of the proper FPS. I had the idea for the game several months before we actually started working on it, so in that time a lot of the modern influence came in. I saw games like Cube World with this really awesome blocky art style, and I played great modern rogue-likes like Binding of Isaac and Spelunky.
The pumping electronic soundtrack came when I was getting ready to post our first gameplay video. I had been doing voiced gameplay previews for our old game, Eris, where I slowly talk about features and stuff. I felt that this new game was much more self explanatory, and it was too fast paced for a slow voiceover style. So I decided to put some fast exciting music in the background instead. That choice bled over into the rest of our gameplay videos, and eventually the game's soundtrack.
Chris: Most modern gamers haven't experienced the original Rogue or classic Rogue-like games. With Binding of Issac and now Paranautical Activity (among others), do you see a resurgence in rogue-like game mechanics?
Mike: Without a doubt rogue mechanics are "in" at the moment. They're great for indie developers. They let us get dozens of hours of gameplay out of a very short and simple game. Binding of Isaac can be beaten in a half hour, and yet I've got over 30 hours in the game and I've yet to get close to the end. Procedural generation and permadeath are really a perfect match for small teams with little resources.
The rogue-like genre is expanding and evolving rapidly. No longer is it focused on top down turn based games, it's really becoming a large and dynamic genre. Similar to how the MOBA genre has been expanding to include titles like Super Monday Night Combat which really push the boundaries of the genre.
Chris: Paranautical Activity is definitely a "Unity game that doesn't look like a Unity game", which not only shows a dedication to polish and customization but also the potential in Unity and other game development tools to create games that lose the "cookie cutter" feel. What are your thoughts on use of development tools such as Unity?
Mike: A year ago, I would have said Unity was a children's toy. At that time I was writing my own engines in C++, and every game I'd seen based of Unity looked straight up bad. Now that I've had some time to play with it, I've come to see that Unity (and similar engines) are fantastic tools. The problem with Unity though, is that it's both free and super easy to use. That makes it a great development platform, but also invites tons of shovelware that give the engine a bad name.
When you're using a tool as powerful as Unity, it's easy to get lost in what the engine gives you. You can get overwhelmed with the wealth of premade assets and scripts and forget to make your game. When used properly, Unity is an incredible engine that can do anything a developer could possibly think of.
Chris: Word on the street is that you've been talking to Adult Swim about Paranautical Activity, what's the deal with that?
Mike: Hahaha, yeah. We've been in talks with Adult Swim. They're mostly interested in helping us get onto steam (without the idiotic greenlight process), and helping out with marketing. The rep who called us still has to get approved by his VP, but if all goes well we could be sitting on a pretty amazing deal with them.
Chris: What other games have you worked on before Paranautical Acitivity? Any commercial successes? Any flops?
Mike: Back when Travis and I met, we worked on several prototypes that never saw the light of day. Most of them never really got very far development wise. Eventually we decided to throw together a really quick and easy game, DimensionZ. It was a Galaga clone with some interesting ideas, but it's nothing special. We just wanted to make sure we were capable of seeing a game through to completion.
After that we worked on Eris. It's a really neat idea, a fusion of tower defense and first person shooting. I felt the idea was losing focus, so we decided to take some time off to work on Paranautical Activity.
Chris: The combination of rogue-like elements with an fps is an incredibly fun combination. Are there any other combination of mechanics you've experimented (or want to experiment) with?
Mike: Yeah, the combination really does seem to be a match made in heaven. Rogue mechanics are very cool in that they are really easy to throw into any genre, and they usually mix well.
As I mentioned above, Eris was very much an experiment in genre/mechanic combining. It's got tower defense, FPS action, and it takes place in a large open world.
Chris: What's it like developing the first game where you think "Hey, I should sell this"? Did it become motivating or intimidating? Any advice for developers in a similar situation?
Mike: It's extremely stressful pre-launch. Very few people make games without the intention of selling them, but when the time comes and the game is about to release, tensions are high. No one but me and Travis had ever played the game before, so I was half expecting everyone who played it to hate it. Response has been fantastic thus far though, and I've been having a ton of fun interacting with the small community that's building around the game. Now that the game's out, I feel a ton of pressure to work hard and make the game great for the people who bought it. We're already working on our next patch which will add a ton of content, as well as polish up what's already in the game.
In terms of advice for aspiring developers, there isn't much to say other than work hard, always be ready to learn new tricks, and don't be put off when your first few games suck. (Oh, and START SMALL! Don't try to make the next great MMORPG on your first go at game development. Walk before you run.)
Chris: Which developers/designers (independent or otherwise) do you most admire? Why?
Mike: Jon Blow. He's a really brilliant guy, and he's not afraid to piss people off with controversial opinions. He's one of the smartest people in the industry today, without question. I've seen tons of lectures he's done online, and I've been reading his blog for a long time now. If I could meet any game designer, it would be him.
Ed McMillen is also very inspiring and talented.
Chris: It's early to say, but any thoughts on your next big project? If not, any ideas for new Paranautical Activity features?
Mike: We've actually been talking about our next project, and we've got a pretty good idea of what we want to do with it. It's pretty different from Paranautical Activity, the only real similarity is the first person perspective. The rest is a surprise! ;)
We've still got a ton of work to do on Paranautical Activity, though. We've got 10 levels to add, lot's of new bosses and enemies. Not to mention more guns and items. Paranautical Activity may be out, but by the time it's done it'll have 4-5 times as much content as it does now.
Chris: Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses or one horse-sized duck?
Mike: 1 Horse sized duck for sure. Fighting 100 anything would be awful, plus a giant duck corpse can be used for so many interesting things. I could have it turned into the world's greatest bean bag chair, use the beak as a serving bowl, turn the legs into deadly weapons, or use the head as a childhood ruining duck mask!
Some really interesting feedback and advice from a name you will definitely be hearing a lot in the near future. Currently Paranautical Activity is
available on Desura for 5.99$ and will soon be available on Steam (with your help!). As always, please leave some feedback below and follow us on Twitter, but most importantly support Paranautical Activity!
Comments (2)