clysm… the Barbarian!

A long time ago in a far away land, there lived a Barbarian and his went by the nickname clysm… Ok, ok. So the title makes no sense. Let’s start again.

clysm.. the Game Maker!

Better?

From a screenshot, you might think that Seiklus is a totally amateur platformer. I distinctly remember seeing a screenshot for the first time and actually being turned off the idea of downloading and playing it. Luckily word of mouth is a powerful tool and I heard some genuinely heartfelt praises about one of the most influential indie games to be developed. I downloaded it, played it and was blown away. Screenshots do NOT do this game justice. Even more amazing, clysm was learning how to use Game Maker as he was developing it.

He’s been working on his new project, Avaus, for quite some time and being the curious type that I am, I decided to bounce a few questions off the guy. He was more than happy to answer.

Introduce yourself..

I just go by clysm in connection with game creation and my website. I was born in 1977 and I live in Louisiana, USA. I currently work as a technical writer.

What systems did you own growing up and what videogames did you play? Have they helped shape you as a developer?

My family's first home console was the Atari 2600. We stored it in a closet with our board games and treated it as one - taking it down every so often to play a few games and then putting it away again. I began spending a lot more time playing video games when I got my second-hand Commodore 64. C64 games had an enormous influence on me. Some of my favorites included Boulder Dash, Bruce Lee, Below the Root, Gauntlet and Mail Order Monsters.

It was always exciting for me to go anywhere that had arcade games. Some of my favorites were Dig Dug, Forgotten Worlds, Strider, Victory Road and Xevious. I had friends with the Atari 5200, the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Sega Master System so I was exposed to those pretty often. I especially liked R-Type on the SMS and that remains my favorite version of the game. I finally got a NES of my own around 1991 when I saved up enough money for it during my first year of high school. I liked many of the popular first-party NES games as well as A Boy and His Blob, Blaster Master, Crystalis, Dragon Warrior 3 and 4, Faxanadu, Final Fantasy and others. I later got a Super Nintendo in a trade - again, many years after the system's release. My favorite SNES games included Axelay, Gradius 3, Final Fantasy 2 (US), Secret of Mana, Super Metroid, Tetris Attack and Zelda 3.

When the CD-based systems and Nintendo 64 emerged, I wasn't very impressed with them. I ignored them and instead focused on collecting more games for the consoles that I had. I also tracked down others that I didn't, such as Turbo Grafx 16. I eventually found a few games that convinced me that not all 3D titles were terrible, such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and Jumping Flash 2 and these days I even like the way some of the rougher old 3D games look, such as Silent Hill.

Other Playstation favorites include Castlevania SOTN, Klonoa, and Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus.

I've also enjoyed many PC games over the years, such as Day of the Tentacle, Out of This World, Populous, Planescape: Torment, The Secret of Monkey Island, SimAnt and Starcraft.

The consoles that I still have connected now are PS2 and Game Cube, on which my favorites include Beyond Good and Evil, ICO, Katamari Damacy, Rez, Silent Hill 2, Skies of Arcadia, Steambot Chronicles and some of the scrolling shooters and tactical RPGs.

Many of the aforementioned games have influenced and will likely continue to influence my own work.

When did you become interested in game development and specifically Game Maker?

It has always been a dream of mine to create my own video games. In fact, I've actually dreamed at night many times about new games, some of which I can remember and plan to try re-creating eventually. I spent a lot of time with Commodore 64 games that had editors, such as Boulder Dash and Lode Runner. I also worked on some games using Gary Kitchen's GameMaker, which until pretty recently was unsurpassed in my experience.

I completed a few games using the DOS game creation program ZZT. I wrote a game on my TI-82 calculator in college math instead of doing well in class.

For years, I looked out for another game creation program that was as good as Gary Kitchen's but on a modern platform. One of my periodic Internet searches led me to discover Game Maker by Mark Overmars. I don't exaggerate when I say that finding this program was one of the highlights of my life. I tried a few sample games that others had created and immediately knew that this was the program I was looking for.

How seriously do you take game development?

I take game development very seriously in the sense that it's one of my goals in life. But I'm really not sure yet whether I want to create games for money. I'd certainly rather not have to think about money while I create them. It would be great to make some money from my games without actually selling them.

Where do you draw influence from for your projects?

Seiklus was roughly based on a game that I started years earlier using Megazeux, another DOS game creation program. That game was called Out of the Glade and I never completed it. And the basic engine for that game was based (and I think borrowed code from) another unfinished Megazeux game: Slimed! by Evan Furchtgott. Some other specific games that influenced aspects of Seiklus include A Boy and His Blob, Below the Root, Out of This World, Klonoa, The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and Super Metroid.

For Avaus, I've drawn inspiration from several specific games, such as Blaster Master, Choplifter, Katamari Damacy and some others that may kind of spoil parts of the game if I name them, odd as that may sound. I came up with the basic idea for one area of the game while listening to a song by Deine Lakaien, a music group that I like.

I mentioned that I sometimes have dreams about video games. Many elements of the games that I create and in some cases the main concepts, come from my dreams.

What is your development schedule currently?

I try to work on my current project every day. Sometimes that doesn't happen and sometimes all I do is draw a single sprite or background. Most of my game development time is very late at night. I often think about the games I'm working on throughout the day though.

Do you find that every project presents different challenges? Is developing games a constant learning curve?

Seiklus was the game that I made while learning the basics of the Game Maker program. I learned constantly as I worked on it and reworked major aspects and areas of it completely several times as I learned better methods. People sometimes ask me how I coded certain things and I'm embarrassed to tell them because my code is so sloppy and I'd do things quite differently now.

I'm still learning all the time as I work on my games. It's not so much referring to the manual anymore (though I still do that at times) as coming up with ways to implement the ideas I have. Sometimes I kind of wish I had paid more attention in math classes but I can usually get around that by getting help from friends who are good at math.

How much planning goes into your projects? Do they turn out exactly as you originally visualized them to be?

I plan my games extensively but not in advance. My ideas are usually pretty vague when I begin a new project. I come up with ideas all the time when I'm not actually developing and I end up with many pages of notes on paper. Sometimes I have to shelve ideas that aren't compatible with my current project so that I'm not too tempted to start another new game.

What part of development do you find most enjoyable or is it just enjoyable as a 'whole' experience, seeing something slowly coming from your head onto the screen?

I think that your description represents my attitude pretty well. I enjoy the drawing and I also enjoy getting my code to work the way I want it to (or in an unexpected but even better way, as sometimes happens). Because I haven't planned my games carefully in advance so far, I often change major aspects based on experimentation. As much as I enjoy the actual development, I suppose that my favorite part is coming up with ideas and knowing that I can actually implement them. I'm very glad to have found software that allows me to do this smoothly, without endless behind-the-scenes coding before I get to the creative parts. I expect such programs to continue to improve as independent development becomes more popular.

How long was Seiklus in development for and how long has your latest project, Avaus been in development for?

I worked on Seiklus for about six months. I've worked on Avaus for about three years but not continually. During that time, I've also worked extensively on another large game called Velella, which is a joint project with friend and fellow developer, Robert Lupinek (a.k.a. Darthlupi).

Is there anything else you can tell us about Avaus, aside from what is on your website?

It's a rescue-themed game. I started out wanting to create a scrolling shooter but I ended up mixing in a lot of other things as well. I'm not sure how successful it will ultimately be but it's fun to develop. I hope to have the game finished by the end of 2007. At this point, I think I'll be able to meet that goal.

Is Velella your first team project? What is it like working with another person (as opposed to working by yourself) on a game?

I guess it is the first time I've worked on a game with someone else. It isn't especially difficult - we both work on all aspects of the game rather than taking on distinct roles. The only problem is that we put the game aside for extended periods of time rather than finish it.

What stage is Velella at, in terms of development?

It's a relatively large game with a lot of different areas. Although we've barely touched it in the last year or so, we've put a significant amount of work into the game. We talk sometimes about how it won't take us long to finish it up when we get around to doing so but we always seem to be distracted by other projects. I plan to focus on Velella after I release Avaus and typically when one of us gets inspired to work on it again, the other does as well. So it might not be too much longer.

I read a good deal of time ago in a thread that you lost motivation towards the end of the development of Seiklus - do you think that motivation is a tough obstacle to beat? How do you think it can be overcome if it is an issue?

With Seiklus, I think I was just anticipating the game's release. It was during the testing phase that I tired of working on the game. I didn't enjoy spending a lot of time on it without adding anything new. I had many more ideas that I could have included in the game but when the end was in sight, I decided to go ahead and finish it.

I sometimes find myself losing motivation in general because I'm tired or distracted by other things but I always get inspired again as I come up with new things to add to a game. Sometimes when I find myself uninterested in working on a part of a game, I realize that it's because I'm working on something that won't be especially interesting for the player. Some things that are necessary but not especially fun to work on I put off and save for times when I don't feel like thinking and can work on kind of mindlessly while I listen to music or something. It's usually not hard to think of some aspect of a game that I can feel motivated to work on at any given time.

One thing that can easily lead to a loss of motivation is thinking of a new idea for another game. I find that I can often overcome this by forcing my new idea into my current game, even if it doesn't seem to fit at first.

Are there any points where you have considered giving up on a project and moving on to something else?

I've never seriously considered abandoning one of my major projects. If I ever found one going in a direction I didn't like, I'd just change my overall vision. Again, I can be temporarily distracted and often am.

Did you have any idea that Seiklus would be so influential in the indie-gaming community? Have you played any of the games it has influenced (Knytt, Painajainen, etc) and what are your thoughts on these?

I didn't think much about the impact that Seiklus might have outside the Game Maker community - that was really the only independent gaming community that I knew of at the time.

It's always fun for me to hear from people who have been positively influenced by my work. I definitely know of Nifflas' games, as he contacted me while he was working on Within a Deep Forest and let me try an early demo. I think he does some very nice work and I'm looking forward to Knytt Stories. I also know Painajainen - it's another Game Maker title and I generally keep up with those.

It looks as if you take the time to play a good deal of indie games - are there any games or developers that you would like to mention as inspirations to your own work?

I have to say that I didn't play a lot of independent games before I released Seiklus, except within communities surrounding specific tools (such as ZZT and Game Maker). I had happened upon a few random independent games that I had enjoyed, such as Frozen Fruit Frenzy by Karl Hofer and Ikachan by Pixel. Within the Game Maker community, I guess that the creators whose work I admired most before I released Seiklus were Jph Wacheski and Shawn Noel. I've since discovered many other favorites and I generally try to promote the ones I like on my site, on Gamemakergames.com (when applicable) or elsewhere.

I've made a few quick games that were directly influenced by other independent titles: a couple life simulation games inspired by Jph Wacheski's Seeds and a couple fan games of Sparlatacus' Johnny series.

Are there any games (or game types) that you specifically dislike and think lack creativity?

Plenty of games and types of games don't really interest me but I guess I ignore them more than dislike them. As for lacking creativity, the first thing that comes to mind is games that center around shooting guns. I think it would be interesting to see a sort of moratorium on games that involve guns - maybe even combat in general - and see what alternatives people could come up with.

I guess I could call sequels and games that fall squarely into existing genres uncreative but I enjoy some of those games, creative or not. However, I sometimes wish that developers whose work I enjoy would do something new instead of spending their time on sequels, even when the sequels are good ones. And I sometimes imagine that the developers themselves would probably rather try something different as well.

Does the term ‘innovation’ enter your head when you develop a project and how much importance do you place on this?

I think about innovation quite often. Sometimes I focus so much on avoiding formulas that my ideas become kind of incoherent or devolve into what seem like mere gimmicks. For example, I'm considering including some elements in Avaus that are kind of hostile toward the player. I need to decide whether they add to the experience enough to offset the annoyance that they might cause some people. Sorry to be vague but I don't want to spoil the specific things I have in mind in case I do follow through with them.

Do you think enough innovation is happening in either the commercial industry or indie communities?

In commercial games, I like some of the innovations made possible by new technologies and techniques but I place more value on innovations in how people approach game design. I sometimes think that some video game genres don't really deserve to be genres, in a way, when individual titles become too similar. Sure, incremental improvements in a formula can be a good thing but they can also be kind of a waste of time for a player who is looking for something more than a simple diversion. On the other hand, I think that telling a strong story using an existing gameplay formula without really breaking new ground can still make for a game that's definitely worthwhile.