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Outpost Kaloki X Interview
Outpost Kaloki X Interview - ZTGameDomain.com Interview
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Recently Axtuse got a chance to talk with the guys behind one of the first available XBox 360 Live Arcade titles Outpost Kaloki. Find out how translating the game from PC to XBox 360 works and so much more in our exclusive interview!
People answering questions below:
Brent Fox – Art Director
Steve Taylor – Tech Director
Jeremy Throckmorton – Designer
Axtuse: Discuss the origins of your division, Ninjabee.
[Brent:]
When we decided that we needed to differentiate between our “indie” titles and our games we work on for traditional publishers, we needed a new name. It had to be short, memorable, easy to spell and the domain had to be available. We needed up with NinjaBee. We also have a pretty cool logo, even if I do say so myself.
[Jeremy]
That, and marketing research showed that ninjas rock. No one would suspect the humble honey bee of possessing awesome ninjitsu skill!
Axtuse: What were everyone’s individual influences for seeking careers in the gaming community?
[Brent:]
I was working on a graphic design degree when I discovered 3D (This was before Toy Story came out.) I learned everything I could about 3D and landed a job making games shortly after I graduated. I was a big gamer as a kid. Although I play my share of games now, I don’t consider myself nearly as hard-core of a gamer as many of the people I work with but I love games. Game development offers a great deal of creative expression and artistic freedom. Making “indie” games just takes this a step further.
[Steve:]
Basically, I never wanted to do anything else. My father said “stop playing video games”, so of course that’s all I could think about when I was younger. A couple of cool people gave me a boost along the way, and I’ve been making games professionally for about 10 years now.
Everyone has various reasons to be here, but I think we all find the work to be more creative and entertaining than pretty much anything else we’ve done for a living.
[Jeremy]
At the risk of ripping off Steve’s answer: I didn’t even realize there was a choice. It’s what I’ve always wanted to do, and what I’ve been fortunate enough to end up doing. Nothing combines so many elements together in such an alluring package: art, music, interactivity, story... it’s all there, and I can’t imagine doing anything less.
Axtuse: Discuss the prowess that this team has in the gaming community, and everyone’s individual role.
[Brent:]
Wahoo/NinjaBee has a very strong art team with varying levels of experience. We are not a big studio so our artists often get a chance to work on many aspects of the game. Given the opportunity, we can compete with many of the top game studios.
All of our artists have a college degree in their field. This is not a requirement but I find that the best artists have a lot of training. We always use the software that is appropriate for the project but we use 3DSMax, Photoshop and Painter most often.
I am proud of the art in Outpost Kaloki X. We achieved a fun look and feel for the game that is very original. Maintaining consistency was not always easy. We had to convince some of the artists to stay away from rusted metal and skulls that are found in many games and go with the light-hearted and quirky style. I’m especially proud of the art because we did it on such a tight budget. As good as Outpost Kaloki X looks, the stuff we are working on now is even better! Having such great artists around, like Shawn and Jeff, makes me look good.
[Steve:]
We have a mix of old experienced guys and newer less experienced people, which we think works out pretty well. The old guys say “Here there be monsters!” and the young guys say “No, no, this is totally going to work!” We have some programmers with college degrees and some without. Some guys have worked on more than a dozen games each, and for some guys the projects we’re working on now are their first commercial titles. We’re small enough that it’s hard to have people really specialize, so we all have some background in graphics, audio, AI, file systems, whatever, but in practice the various people start to “own” certain parts of each project and become the expert on those parts of our engine technology.
[Jeremy]
Our design staff consists of some experienced designers, and some new ones, but we all have a passion for what we do. Our studio’s data-driven gameplay philosophy lays the guts of the game bare, allowing designers an immense amount of control over pretty much every aspect of the game.
Axtuse: Some people speculate that “indie” developers are just two-bit hack jobs that couldn’t cut it in the gaming community. Then there are many (like myself) that are in full support of independant developers. Is the term “indie” a positive or negative term to this team, and how do you feel about being key players in the gaming community?
[Brent:]
Some are . . . but there are also many extremely talented “inde” developers. In fact, we have many employees that are very experienced in the “gaming community” and they are also making “indie” games. (I would bet that most readers have played a game or two that one of our employees has worked on.) Developing an “indie” game simply provided us the opportunity to make our own game, the way we wanted. We had time and budget restrictions but we decided how to use our time and budget. We hope that this model is successful and we can continue to develop more “indie” games. We proudly consider ourselves “indie” developers.
[Steve:]
We’re a funny mix – we do traditional contract work for publishers (as Wahoo Studios) as well as completely independent stuff (as NinjaBee), so we feel like we have a foot in each camp. I love both sides of it, frankly. The projects we’re working on for traditional publishers right now are great, and the publishers have been awesome to work for. This is something we’ve done for a long time and something I think we’ll keep doing for a long time. Still, the indie work has a certain level of personal involvement and potential return that’s pretty hard to find in projects for publishers.
I believe that “indie” development is only going to become more and more viable in the near future. Maybe not as dramatically or instantaneously as some people think, but it’s something we take pretty seriously. I’m proud of being part of the indie community, and I’ve interacted with some indie developers who I sincerely respect, who I know take their jobs very seriously and end up with development methodology comparable to mainstream game developers.
[Jeremy]
I’ve never really understood that point of view. To me, it’s like saying only big-budget Hollywood films are worth watching. Fortunately, that’s not the common view for movies, as indie films do garner plenty of respect; films like Memento, Lost in Translation, or The Terminator, to name a few. Of course, that’s the movie industry, not game, and I’m sure you’ve heard it all before. I’ll shut up, and let Brent and Steve do the talking. They make good points.
Axtuse: Tell us all about the award-winning sci-fi tycoon game Outpost Kaloki.
[Steve:]
Outpost Kaloki is a humorous space station tycoon game with funky visiting aliens, unique characters (including a beautiful princess and evil nasty bad guys), cool stations, a variety of station add-ons, a couple of interesting stories, a bunch of stand-alone levels, and a lot more.
[Brent:]
You just have to try it. It is just different enough that a description doesn’t do it justice. It’s more fun than it sounds.
[Jeremy]
It’s a tycoon game made for consoles, not just a game ported from the PC. It’s a tycoon game with a story. Plus, it has hearts spewing from pink ships. How can you resist that?
Axtuse: When and why did you decide to create a port for X-Box 360 Live Arcade?
[Brent:]
The instant Microsoft said we could! We love making console games, we believe in the potential of X-Box 360 Live Arcade and it provided a way that millions of people will be able to try our game for free. It was a no-brainer.
[Steve:]
I agree with Brent. This opportunity has been fantastic for us, and we latched on to it as soon as we possibly could. We showed the game to a friend at Microsoft and they had faith in the idea and talked to us about Live Arcade. So we said “Umm... yes, please?”
However, I take horrible offense at the word “port” above, and I challenge you to a duel to the death. This game is tremendously more than a port. One thing to keep in mind was that we originally designed this game to be a console game, and started pitching it to publishers as a traditional console product. This turned out somewhat difficult. Some industry friends convinced us to release the game independently on the PC, so we did. But this adaptation of the game is more like a return to our original vision for the game. In addition to being able to implement (and revise) the cool Xbox control scheme we had first envisioned, we also reworked content, rebuilt graphics, added music and effects, implemented cool new technology, added significant new gameplay elements (such as attacking aliens and defensive expansions), and designed new exclusive stories and levels. In addition, we took advantage of a bunch of cool Xbox 360 Live and Live Arcade features including achievements, leaderboards, and a lot more.
Axtuse: Explain the difficulties (If there were any) for converting Outpost Kaloki from PC to X-Box 360.
[Brent:]
Nothing was more difficult than we expected but was not easy. We know what we are doing and our programmers are geniuses. Steve (one these brilliant programmers) can tell you about the specifics.
[Steve:]
Yeah, right. I played Civilization and let Kevin do all the work. :)
There were early difficulties with the hardware and tools being new, but Microsoft worked extremely hard to improve these, and they got better very quickly. The system itself is way powerful and the difficulty was in trying to take advantage of as much power as we could with our limited time and resources. The additional technology and content I mentioned certainly took a lot of time and effort, but the Xbox 360 itself is the easiest-to-develop-for console system I’ve ever worked on.
Axtuse: Describe the experience the team had working with a next-gen console.
[Steve]
It was awesome. That’s pretty much it. I love console development, and the Xbox 360 has, overall, been a delight. What may be more important is the support that we received from Microsoft during the process. The technical group in general and the Live Arcade team in particular put huge amounts of effort into all the Live Arcade titles, and I think this will show clearly in the cool Live Arcade games you’ll be able to play when the system launches.
[Brent]
It was incredibly exciting to work on the latest console before it was even launched. The hard part was keeping our mouths shut and not telling everyone what we were working on.
[Jeremy]
It was great! The power of the 360 really lets us do what we want to do without having to worry about the systems specs too much. Being able to make a game that’s not just like all the other games out there and really make something that is “us” on a console is a real treat. Now that we’ve had a taste of Xbox Live goodness, I can’t wait to put out another title for it.
Axtuse: This team has two awards, very creative projects such as “Piano Commander”, assisted in the development of popular titles, seems to have a strong multi-player focus, and now has 30% more ninja power with Ninjabee. Discuss what Wahoo Studios hopes to bring to the gaming table in the future.....while playing Warcraft III.
[Brent]
In short, great games . . . both on our “indie” side and also our games for traditional publishers. We aim for truly creative and original titles. As we prove that we can do it, with games like Outpost Kaloki, we hope to get the opportunity to develop our game ideas that are even more original. I believe that a truly original game may not sound convincing in a description. If you know it is fun, you have most likely played something similar before. We will just have to prove that our ideas are great by making these games. We are also hoping to move up to around 70% more ninja power by the end of Q1 2006
[Jeremy]
In the years to come we hope gamers will enjoy seeing what comes from our experience, passion, and a desire to make something a little different.
We want to thank the guys at Wahoo Studios for letting us chat with them about the future of downloadable gaming. We look forward to digging into the game when it hits XBox Live next week during the 360 launch! Check out their websites below.
www.ninjabee.com
www.wahoo.com
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