Tuesday 30 July 2013

Interview With 'The Basement Studios'

Today we have an interview with a Small Indie development team creating a different kind of game that is fun, innovative and most certainly addictive.



The Basement Studios have been hard at work creating Typocalypse 3D and we get up close and personal exploring various aspects of this sure hit coming to www.Kongregate.com. Enjoy.


1. Firstly for those who don't know, who does 'The Basement Studios' consist of and how did the team form?

Hey! First of all I’d like to thank you Gavin for giving us the opportunity for an interview. We’re a very small indie game development team and we need all the support and exposure we can get.

I’m Andreas Grech, the programmer on the game. With me are Cameron Saliba, the artist and Richard Schembri, the website developer. About six months ago, I started working on a prototype for a typing-shooter game in Unity. A week and a half later, I showed it to Cameron and he was really psyched about it! And that’s when our little indie game dev “company” was born. Roughly two months later, I approached Richard who’s an old schoolmate of ours and told him about the plans I had for a website which would store and display detailed player and game session statistics. He liked the idea and came on board to take charge of this site.



2.The current game in development 'Typocalypse 3D' is currently in the beta stage and will be available on Kongregate.com in the future. How would you describe the game for the readers?
That’s correct. Typocalypse 3D is a typing shooter game which will be released in August, 2013. In the game, you will take the role of a soldier who was assigned to single-handedly defend the stranded army barracks in the middle of nowhere.

To fight off the countless waves of zombies (yup, there are zombies), you must correctly type the word above their heads and this will down them. But you must also make use of the powerups that periodically drop in the field. There are currently four powerups in the game; Slow Time, Landmines, Rapid Fire and C4.

The Slow Time powerup slows time itself, allowing you to handle the incoming zombie waves better. Rapid Fire makes the player go berserk, killing the nearest zombies instantly...while also slowing down time. Landmines and C4 on the other hand are explosives which are dropped on the field. The landmines detonate on enemy impact and the C4 are detonated manually by typing the word above the explosive. Both do area damage to nearby zombies. There are three difficulties in the game, varying from a slow typer to a typing wizard, so anyone can take a stab at it to measure their typing skills.


3. 'Typocalypse 3D' isn't the kind of game you usually see today and it is very original. How did the team come about the creation of the game?

Back in 2010, my friend Marc Tanti and I attended a two-day XNA course at our local university, and for the second day the instructor told us to come up with a small XNA game; so we teamed up, rushed to my basement, and in ~15 hours we came up with a typing game we called Typocalypse.

Both Marc and I worked on the programming of the game round the clock to try and get as much work done as possible in the few hours that we had. When the gameplay was finished at ~5 in the morning, Marc recorded the sound effects and ambiance and then we left the basement to go and show off our game to the class. Funnily enough, we were then too tired the following day (we slept in class) and ended up not demoing the game after all...but I digress.

And so, as my first project in Unity, I chose to “rewrite” my old typing game in 3D...and now we have Typocalypse 3D!





4. The development cycle can be a grinding process, but on a usual day to day basis how does your team go about the development cycle of the game?

All three of us have non-gamedev related day jobs and because of that we have to work nights. Stereotypically enough, we “operate” from a basement and thus it was very appropriate to name our team that. Working in a basement has its benefits; for starters, we can immerse ourselves working on the game without any social distractions from the outside. In fact, the only time we need to leave the basement is when we need our coffee fix...but that’s only until I manage to acquire some coffee machine to leave in our room.

We meet round 3-4 times a week and try to get as much possible during this time, especially collaborative work (level design, mechanics tweaks and fine tuning, etc...). We start by jotting down on the whiteboard what stuff needs to be finished by that day and then brainstorm the best way to go around it. After every couple of hours we stop for a coffee break and then carry on with the “work”.

We also have a lot of game design sessions where we sit down together on one computer and collaboratively tweak the mechanics of the game for hours on end to make sure that we get things right.


5. 'Typocalypse 3D' is a unity developed game and with unity it can be put on various platforms. In the future is there any plans to make it available for different platforms?

Given the textual and typing nature of the game, it is a bit difficult to port the game to a mobile device (small screen, small keyboard etc...) so for the time being we have no plans of porting the game to other platforms.

Then again, we could always remove the on-screen words and add joystick support with a cross hair to turn it into an Action game ;p


6. Is there any specific kind of games that created an inspiration for the kind of genre that you have developed for?

There is no specific game that was of particular inspiration, apart from the original Typocalypse, but after the idea settled we did some research on the current typing games that are currently on the market to see what’s been going on in the the genre. We found some good typing games, but we also realized that there aren’t actually that many games which focus on this genre specifically, especially games that combine typing skills with action elements.





7. There are a number of zombie games out in the gaming industry and it is a very popular genre. What does your game offer that differs from the others currently in the genre?


In it’s essence, Typocalypse 3D is a typing game but what’s particularly interesting about it is that unlike other games of the genre, it takes more than focused typing to survive. See, the game starts easy enough and you will definitely survive with just your typing skills in the beginning, but as the game gets progressively harder, you will need to make strategic use of the multiple powerups you collect throughout your endurance to survive the waves.

There is some learning curve when it comes to using the powerups strategically due to some induced tunnel effect in the game, but every new powerup you collect is presented with a small instruction panel so that the you understand what the powerup is responsible for and how to use it to your advantage.



8. With the beta version of the game out the players can, for now, only take the role of an 'Endurance' level in essence really a survival mode. What can the players be excited for in the 'Story' mode within game and is there any other modes that will be released?

Exactly, the Endurance mode serves as a battle for the highest score with the leaderboards shown on Kongregate.com. On the other hand, what we have in mind for the Story mode is a rail shooter in which the player moves from area to area clearing waves of multiple enemy types, while at the same progressing on the main story.

It is not yet confirmed if we will work on the Story mode of the game or not, and this all depends on the feedback we get once we release the game with the only the Endurance mode.


9. Apart from 'Typocalypse 3D' is there any other games that The Basement Studios are working on or hoping to work on in the future?

Typocalypse 3D will be the our first game, and after it’s released, we will be working on a new game which we’ll submit for a game development competition here in Malta. The competition is tied to a preset theme, so that will restrict us a bit...but I’m sure we’ll come up with something which is, hopefully, both fun to play and interesting as well, whatever that may be.

During a coffee-driven and sleep deprived week, we came up with a Unity joystick-supported local multiplayer coop prototype for the new game, which we’re hoping we’ll be able to use for this competition.


10. Aside from being hard at work in developing the game, how does the team like to relax in their spare time?

When we want to take a break from the game, we usually stop to make some coffee and then either watch some standup comedy or play some games. This gives us time to clear our heads and be able to come up with new ideas for our game (thinking outside the box and all that...).

All in all though, we actually consider the time we spend working on the game as a break from everything else, including the day job and other real life responsibilities. That makes us appreciate more how lucky we are to be working in such an industry.






This is a wee extra for the fans who are already following the development of the game and would like to know more about the people behind the creation. We asked there hobbies, there favorite game and a genre they'd like to see more in the gaming industry.


Andreas Grech, the programmer.

Hobbies: Programming and Music.

Fav game: Uplink

More genre expansion: Local coop multiplayer games


Cameron Saliba, the artist.

Hobbies: Playing games on the PS3

Fav game: Uncharted

More genre expansion: Action-JRPG games.


Richard Schembri, the website developer.

Hobbies: Boxing, drawing and motorcycle riding.

Fav game: No More Heroes series

More genre expansion: RTS on mobile platforms



Id Like to thank The Basement Studios for taking the time out there busy schedule to participate with the interview. Be sure to check out the game you wont be disappointed and who doesnt love shooting zombies?...Exactly!


You can for now play the Beta here : http://www.kongregate.com/games/agnt666/typocalypse-3d_preview?guest_access_key=c76fbfc36958b892437d06fd0746cbd985ac8dab69592fe4e1af134c40da8315


You can also 'Like' and 'Follow' The Basement Studios for updates on the release of the game and future projects :

 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thebasementstudios

Twitter: https://twitter.com/0xTheBasement

IndieDB: http://www.indiedb.com/company/the-basement-studios



Thanks for reading

ZebruhGaming

Follow me on twitter for more game news, reviews and perhaps more Indie Development Interviews.


4 comments:

  1. I can't get the link for the game to work.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Tell me if what andreas has told doesnt work ... Il check it out assp incase there are any other problems. So let me knw :-)

      Delete
  2. Hey Ben,
    Make sure that you're logged out of Kongregate.com before accessing the link. Since the game is not yet officially published, you can't be logged in to view it.

    Let me know how it goes.
    // Dreas.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Just dropping a line to let you know that we released Typocalypse 3D today ;)

    It's available at http://www.kongregate.com/games/agnt666/typocalypse-3d

    Thanks!
    // Dreas.

    ReplyDelete