Recently
I caught up with Jay Young, creator of Tiny
Robot Justice Squad, our top Greenlight game from a couple of weeks
ago. I spoke to him about the game, as
well as why he has taken the interesting route of being a
Community-Interest-Company and donating any money he makes to GamesAid.
Q. Tell
us all about Tiny Robot Justice Squad
A. It's a 2D side-scrolling arena shooter, and an
unrepentant, straight-forward blaster set in a future that, to me, is what
would come out if Terry Pratchett and Isaac Asimov sat down and wrote a short
story. As you might expect, you battle against waves of enemies who have the
sole aim of ruining your day. Your goal is to destroy them, obviously, but you
also need to destroy certain static targets (called Signal Pods) that spawn
alongside them. These control how many enemies spawn each wave, and you need to
destroy them to move through to the next part of the level. Enemies themselves
come in various shapes and sizes, with different abilities and weaknesses.
Luckily you've got a bunch of guns and special abilities to use against them!
The levels are split up into a bunch of different
arenas or rooms that you progress through, like in SmashTV, and these can also
contain boss fights as well as traps and things. It's 100% hand-crafted, no
procedural generation, randomisation or anything like that.
Q. What
inspired you to make the game?
A. I've wanted to make a colourful blaster for a
while now. I really enjoyed playing Risk of Rain last year, and I think that
really inspired me to finally sit down and start prototyping some stuff. I
really enjoyed how each enemy seemed to have a unique attack pattern. Before
that I'd played Rogue Legacy as well, and I really enjoyed how you never really
knew what you were going to get when you moved on to the next room. I kind of
wanted to mix those elements up with the straightforward arcade fun of games I used
to play in arcades. Remember arcades? They were brill.
Q. How
long have you been working on it?
A. Since around July 2014, which is when I roughly
started making prototypes, working out how things would look and experimenting
with different engines to see which one I got along with the best. Art was the
biggest struggle and time sink, since I have no background in it, and really
need to muddle my way through. Even today I'm still improving stuff and
learning how to draw things better.
Q. When
might it be released?
A. I'm firmly pencilling in a release date mid-way
through this year. Summer-ish. I work alone, and I think there's another 6
months of work left to do or so. But I don't feel time pressure -- it's done
when it's done. I want to make a game that's fun and that stands up on its own
merits, no matter how long it takes.
Q. Why
did you choose the Community Interest Company route?
A. So, game development is a sideline for me. It's
one I take quite seriously, but it's still a sideline. In the big scary real
world, I'm an academic, I just finished my PhD in Artificial Intelligence and I
have a job as a research fellow on a big EU Robotics project. That's sort of
set-in-stone now, so I don't need to make a living from games development. At
some point I started taking development of the game more seriously, and it
stopped being a toy prototype. I had the idea to donate any profits to charity
while talking with some friends about how I might commercialise the game. I
thought it would be nice to finally put what skills I have to some good use!
Really, it was the only choice. A CIC is a special
kind of company that commercialises its output for public good. It's important
since it means I have an obligation to make sure that the money goes to the
right place, so there's a guarantee there. It means people can trust the funds
are not going into someone's back pocket! I plan to be totally open with all
the finances, stats and sales, as things progress, so other people can learn
from the data.
First and foremost though, my goal is to make cool
video games. I really want my games to stand on their own, and be judged based
on their merits. I considered not mentioning the CIC portion of the project at
all, but I decided to be open about it in the end.
Q. Why
have chosen to give your profits to GamesAid?
A. They are an excellent organisation with great
connections to the games industry. The way they work is that they serve as a
central fund-raising body which distributes funds to other charities. I was
familiar with them before, so they seemed like the logical choice. They've
given me some great support lately too!
Q. Do you
have any advice for other Indie developers?
A. Yeah. If you're just starting out, two things:
Master "Good Enough" -- if you're coming from a CS/Software
Engineering background like myself, you'll likely be tempted to over-engineer
your games, searching for nice, clean elegant solutions. In reality, this can
be very time consuming, and 99% of the time makes no difference to the end
user. Simpler solutions that take half the time to implement are key. Second,
don't underestimate how difficult it is to get and manage press coverage, so
start building up contacts and a following immediately. It's hard!
Q. Do you
have any plans for future games?
A. Yes, I have a whole second design document full
of ideas. Some are mobile projects, some are console projects. I'm not worrying
about them right now, but at some point after this project is finished, I'll
look towards prototyping a few. After I've played through all the video games
I've missed out on since starting this project!
