Interview with 'Falchion Games'

We speak with Ben Burns Co-Founder of 'Falchion Games' on there new upcoming game 'Go To Hell Dave'.

'Go To Hell Dave' is a comical, retro point and click adventure game where the player takes control of the character Dave. You will take Dave on a tour through Hell's 9 floors on this hilarious adventure that cannot be missed. We find out more about the game and why you'll want to explore the not so familiar depths of Hell.

1. Go to Hell Dave as described is a retro point and click adventure game, but how did the this concept come about and what is the story line for the game?

Go to Hell Dave is all about a guy called Dave who crashes his car into a lamp-post whilst driving to the supermarket with his girlfriend. He wakes up at the gates of Hell, but this isn’t hell as anyone knows it. His girlfriend is missing, Satan is nowhere to be seen and Hell has become a dilapidated mess, filled with housing estates, strip clubs and all manner of bizarre and wonderful things.
The concept came about when we decided to start up our own studio and basically just wanted to make fun of British society. We had always had a lot of love for point-and-click adventure games and their naturally comedic tendencies were a logical choice for lampooning an entire country.


2.What do you think it is about Retro games that people love so much?

I can only really speak for myself, but I often find that the nostalgia factor plays a huge role. There’s something almost comforting about playing something that reminds me of my childhood; a simpler time when I didn’t have to take out the trash or pay council tax.


3. It is said that the game will have a lot of British humour throughout, what style of comedy inspired this within the game?

We’re big fans of classic British comedy such as Red Dwarf, Monty Python and Blackadder. British humour can often be quite surreal and at times, a little dark. But we also love American comedy, particularly some of the awesome animated shows such as Archer and the Boondocks. So we’ve mixed it up a bit and tried to be imaginative whilst also using references that people (particularly geeks and gamers) will chuckle at.

4 As its said to be British comedy do you think this type of comedy is universal to more than just the UK?

I’ve always felt that humour is universal. There are certain elements of human life that anybody, anywhere experiences. This is especially true in an age when we’re all constantly connected. Comedy is certainly subjective, but I think that when you have compelling characters and cool locations to explore, the humour comes organically from within the context of the setting.



5.The art style for Go to Hell Dave is a very nice cartoon style, was this to fit in with the comical type of game that it is?

Absolutely. The cartoony art-style juxtaposes really nicely with the often harsh locales that one would expect when exploring the underworld and enables us to maintain an overtone of humour, without sacrificing on the badass.


6. On the prototype videos the character of Dave does have voice acting, will all other character within the game have voice acting and, if so, are you looking to get a number of people doing them or do you plan to do it yourself?

Yes. We are currently in the process of casting all of the NPCs and we have already got some excellent talent on-board, including professional actors who have performed in box-office hits such as ‘Prometheus’ and ‘Jack and the Giant Slayer.’

7.There is mixed views on how it can be a difficult process in creating a game independently, how do you feel about development cycle in creating your game?

It certainly isn’t a walk in the park. We’ve had to sacrifice a lot just to keep working on the game and we still haven’t paid ourselves a salary. But we’ve had a lot of support from friends and family and (perhaps most importantly) from the gaming community. When you know people are excited about your game and you know that you have a fun game in the works, that is more than enough to drive you onwards.


8. Except from the obvious point and click aspect of the game will there be any other game mechanics in the game the player can look forward to?

We have some cool ideas in the works. I don’t want to say too much at this early stage but we intend to implement RPG-style combat, but not in the way anyone would expect and it will be purely optional and not even slightly serious.


9. Go to Hell Dave will also have 9 levels of Hell, What kind of level design and places will the player have to explore?

The nine levels will include a council estate, a country club, a Pokémon-style world of stamp collecting and battling and a boring sewer level (because every game has to have one.)

10. The game will be available on Steam, will it be available for any other type of platform in the future?
We hope to port it to Mac and Linux and we would love to get it on PSN or XBL. We’re also looking into the possibility of Android and Ouya. At the end of the day, we just want people to have access to our game and have fun playing it. So any platform that makes that happen is a possibility for us.


11. Go to Hell Dave will be going on to Kickstarter soon, if funded what is the money going towards for the game?

Amongst other things, the main bulk of the money will go towards paying our artists and voice actors, upkeep of our office and any publishing expenses. Pretty standard stuff really.


12. Some Kickstarters have numerous Tiers in which someone can give more money to back the game, have the team looked into what the Tiers will be like and will there be any benefits of backing more?

Yes. We intend to have some pretty cool tiers ranging from basic game packages that may include t-shirts, soundtrack or art-books. Right up to tiers that will enable you to send us pictures of yourself to be drawn, animated and put in the game as an NPC.

And Thats everything we have today from 'Falchion Games' be sure to check out the progress on the game with videos, art and more about Dave below:

From the office of Falchion Games: Go To Hell Dave

Steam: http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=109393605&searchtext
Fb: http://www.facebook.com/GoToHellDave
W: http://www.gotohelldave.co.uk/

T: https://twitter.com/GoToHellDave

Thanks very much for Reading

ZebruhGaming

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OZ

In my 2nd year at Cali we were to create a 2D platform game based on one of the short novels in the book 'SUM' by David Eagleman. Thus 'OZ' was created. Within the short story of “OZ” in the novel 'SUM'  you are given the chance to meet your creator however you must overcome various obstacles including : Fear , Self-doubt and Self-Pity, this gave us the start of our game and we used this concept. We used three characters in the movie OZ; The Lion, Tin Man and The Scarecrow, the player had to switch between characters to progress through the level. For instance The Scarecrow cant defeat enemies due to 'Fear' so you must switch to The Lions to beat the enmies and there are various platforms that character cannot stand on creating a challenging game as you have to know which character to switch to to progress in the level.

As in the Novel this journey is not a pleasant one, all the levels were created to a dark atmosphere to give a sense of terror and that this is a nightmare scenario. The levels were created on tiler and it was a difficult project for the team as it was software that no one had used before but we worked with what we had and the end product was ok to say the least.

Have a look at the video to see our trailer with some gameplay aspects.

Thanks for reading

ZebruhGaming

Game Dev Story Mobile Review

 This is my first mobile game review and i feel the need to write this full thing on my mobile to spice things up a little.

Game dev story is a game that cost £1.99 on google store and let me tell you right now its worth the money.

It is simulation based game on running your own games company from scratch hiring employees to create the best games in the market  and it is a game that is surprisingly addictive. Sitting for endless hours trying to make the best videos games and reach the hall of fame is a daunting task that that you will not stop until you completed.

It is a game that has a lot of depth which creates for numbers of hours of fun as each year passes there is different events and award ceremony  for the best games giving  you a purpose to get your masterpieces in the hall of fame and finally winning that grand prize of the best game. After years pass consoles get discontinued when there outdated and new consoles come out. The names are innovative and funny from the playstatus to the, intended dig at the wii, the whoops and each console is a nice and strange design and it something that makes the game simple but just fantastic to play in finding out all the other consoles. The full design of the game is simple but satisfying and the sweet pixelated graphics are presented well throughout.

At the beginning of your company you have to hire 4 people from programmers, designers and sound engineers as with each game you create you need to have an employee to write the proposal, the graphics and the sound. As the game is developed you increase the fun, the creativity, the graphics and the sound and as you'd imagine the higher the better. As the game develops you can advertise your company from tv rights to a race sponsorship's to create a wider fan base and to sell more copies if your game. There is also a lot of variety as well with choices of game making from shooters to board games with genres that include robot to reversi and you as the owner have to decide which games and genres match for the better quality of game. For instance a robot shooter will be more popular than an action golf game as they dont match. If you create high levels of fun etc fans hear about your game and line up in stores which can get you pumped for your own game coming out , even though you never see the end product.

Another nice aspect which adds depth is that you have to debug your game and within this process a number of things can go wrong, like a black out which lowers your game points or another company can bring out a similar game which may reduce your sales but this add competitiveness and tension in the game.When you are finally finished with your product the critics will rate your game out of 40. If it gets over the 30 mark your game will enter the hall of fame and you can then make a sequel of that game.

As your company grows you can change building size and hire more staff in essence taking over the gaming industry making bigger and better products each year and creating the sequels your fans so much desire.

There is loads in this game and all the small and simple things will have you loving every minute. It will have you playing  for countless hours and still new consoles will come out and there is also a period in which you can create your own console. Yes you can make your own console. If you want a cheap game with a large number of hours that wont be wasted i recommend this game highly.

9 out of 10


Thanks for reading.


ZebruhGaming


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