An interview with Dave Gilbert of
Wadjet Eye Games, creator of the Blackwell series and The Shivah.
Hi Dave, let's begin with an introduction of yourself, and what you do.Sure thing. My name is Dave, and I'm an indie game developer from New York City. I started writing freeware games back in 2001 and in June of 2006 I decided to give the commercial thing a whirl. A year and a half later, I'm still making them.
What are you currently working on at the moment?At the moment I'm working on the 3rd game in the Blackwell series, entitled "The Blackwell Convergence". It's a return to the present day, meaning you'll see Rosangela again instead of Lauren.
Any side projects? Or are you currently fully committed on Convergence until it's completed? Is there a rough release date already for the third chapter in the Blackwell series?There are a few other things I am working on, although they are more "cool ideas in the back of my head" than anything else. I am aiming for around February of next year for Convergence, although it's a verrry rough estimate. The game was already designed and plotted out when Unbound was done, so there will be a significantly smaller wait this time around.
February does sound optimistic, knowing your attention to detail...The majority of the work always happens in the last month. It is a bit optimistic, but the deadline gives us something to shoot for. We might be late, but without some kind of guideline it would never get done.
Although I did say February was "rough". I haven't actually announced a deadline yet! That was the first lesson I learned from Legacy, heh.
You had mentioned that there would be five games in the Blackwell series. Is that still true? Do you have an ending written for it already, as a closure? And will there be another game featuring Lauren as the main playable character? If not, is she going to make an appearance in any of the upcoming chapters?The "five games" thing is a bit of a guideline for myself. There are five main backstory/plotpoints that I want to hit, and so I've wrapped each one in its own game to make them all digestable. Sometimes we might take sidetrips, like we did with Unbound (which was originally supposed to be part of Convergence and doesn't count as part of the "main five"), so in the end there might be more than five.
I do have an ending in mind, yes, and I know what will happen along the way. There might be sidetrips if I get a neat idea or somesuch, but for the most part I'll be sticking to the path I've laid out.
As for Lauren, she'll always be an ever-present figure, whether she's the main character of the game or not. She was a major part of both Joey and Rosa's lives (or death, in the case of Joey) and continues to effect them. She might return in a game, or in some other fashion, but she might not.
And yes, I'm being vague on purpose.
Since Blackwell Legacy is selling well on several casual game portals, can we expect to see Unbound taking the same distribution path?Haha. Legacy is only on two portals for now (and about to go on a third), and the game has done very well. So well, that they are willing to take Unbound as well. You'll see it on iWin and Playfirst. No deal has been signed with Big Fish yet. Playfirst even wanted to try selling Shivah, which came as a pleasant surprise!
You price your games according to content, which is understandable. What we'd like to know is, how much should we expect to pay for Convergence? Or is this undecided yet?As of right now, I'm pricing it at the same level as Legacy. I.e. $14.99. Things might change by the time it comes out, but that's what I'm aiming for.
Are you going to make a game in a different genre during the production of the entire Blackwell series? Or perhaps I should just ask... when is Shivah 2 coming out?More than likely! I get the feeling that I'll get a bit burnt out on Blackwell eventually, and I'll need to take a break and do something else just to refresh. I know that if I ever do that, I'll always return to Blackwell eventually. I've been plotting this story out for four years and don't plan on giving it up.
As for Rabbi Stone, I want to bring him back, definitely. I spoke last year about doing a sequel before doing the second Blackwell game, and I never ended up doing it. To be honest, I was only going to do it because of the public demand for it and not because I had anything really stellar in mind. So, I'm glad I never made it.
Over the last year I've been thinking about Rabbi Stone in the back of my head, and I've come up with a very nice story arc that I think people will like. But I know that if I DO bring him back, I'll want to do it right. So for the last several months I've been talking to venture capitalists and investors and People With Money to see if anyone wants to give me a few dozen grand for the cause.
The original Shivah really springboarded this whole Wadjet Eye thing, so I figure if there's any IP that can attract potential investors, it would be Rabbi Stone. Of course if that never pans out I'll probably bring him back anyway.
Will you be retaining the same development team from Legacy and Convergence for the fourth and fifth game? Since your plan includes five games in the Blackwell universe.The dev team changes, depending on the team members. Ian Schaephler did both the sprites and portraits for Legacy, but he's got a very busy fulltime job now and doesn't have the time. So he's just doing the portraits this time. I've got another sprite artist to mimic his sprite style and we go on from there. So the team might change.
Tell us a little about your experience working with Erin. Will you be working with her again on another Blackwell game? And how has the response been for Unbound?Working with Erin was awesome. She was enthusiastic from the beginning, and didn't mind that I made the game a bit longer than originally planned. We'd both be in coffee shops on wifi connections, chatting over MSN like we were in the same office. It was a great way to work.
She was ideal for Unbound because the budget was very small and she was willing to work within that micro budget. She's got that "busy college kid" thing to deal with these days, so I don't think we'll be collaborating anytime soon. Although I'd love to, since she was a lot of fun to work with.
The reaction to Unbound has been really positive! I was worried how people would react to the change in visual style, as well as a total change of player character. Would they be upset that it was Lauren and not Rosa? Or worse, what if they played Unbound and decided they liked Lauren better! Turns out my fears were unjustified since people generally like both characters.
Nobody minded the simpler graphics, although people did miss the character portraits, which won't disappear again.
I didn't mind the character portraits not being there.That was the only major complaint about the game, it seemed.
Doesn't seem to be much difference, to be honest..I thought so too! I do think, despite the simpler graphics, that Unbound is one of the best titles - gameplay wise - that I've ever made. Legacy was too bogged down by narrative and didn't have much gameplay. I learned so much from that game, and Unbound became MUCH more balanced as a result.
Will Convergence improve upon Legacy and Unbound in any way?I learn lessons from each game, and I try to incorporate them into the next one. The "switching characters" thing will definitely remain, and the dialogs will be quite a bit shorter (although there will be more of them).
Also, the one thing I learned from Legacy is Rosa herself. I wanted to establish Rosa as being kind of a social misfit, and I succeeded but you didn't really learn anything about her aside from "I am scared and nervous." Rosa's a very intellectual and analytical person, and I'm going to focus more on those qualities in the next installment.
She'll still be a social misfit, but the focus won't be on that so much.
Who do you like better? Rosa or Lauren? Who do your fans liked better? And did you base these two characters on actual people?That's a tough question. Some people say that Rosa feels more real and that Lauren feels more like a stereotype, and some say the exact opposite! Personally, I found Lauren more fun to write since her and Joey have a pre-established relationship and I could just launch right into their banter. The Rosa/Joey relationship is more complicated, since they are in the process of getting to know each other.
But to be honest, I like them both for different reasons! They aren't based on anyone specific, although they are both very "New York" types of characters.
How much of Convergence is already done? Which year do you think the last game will be out, or are you planning to milk it till it's dry?I'd say about 40% of the coding is programmed, and almost every character is designed (albeit not animated) and almost every background is outlined. (albeit not colored in!)
I can't really answer the second part of the question. I'm guessing we'll be following Rosa and Joey around for a few more years at least.
Where do you see yourself in five or ten years' time? Still working on 2D adventure games? Or trying to finish the Blackwell series?A very good question! I do want to try out other genres eventually. I love RPG games, and even plotted one out a few years ago. If I ever get the budget, time, and (heaven forbid) the staff to make it, rest assured I'll try!
The fact that people really like my work - and enable me to pay my mortgage every month - makes me feel very happy. It's a weird life sometimes, but I feel very lucky that I am able to do this.
It could be a long ride for some of your fans. Are you really going to finish the Blackwell series, even when you're rich and retired? Or are you secretly working on the final game, so that when you finally call it quits, you can just release it?It won't take that long to finish. Right now, things are slow because I am spending a LOT of time doing the business development and such.
And doing interviews...haha. yes! It's your fault!
Eventually, I hope to be able to afford hiring people to do that stuff for me, so I can create these games a bit faster. Although, from what I understand, one game a year isn't a bad turnover rate.
Alright, last question. Can you leak something from Convergence?Yes. Here is Rosa's new look. (pictured right)
Santa Claus Vs the Ice Demons by Ablach Blackrat is another Game Maker winter's contest entry. This one's a danmaku game. I found it pretty easy until level 7, then increasingly difficult. Use Z to shoot and X to move slowly for more accurate movement. Your belt buckle is your hit-target.
Motnxoqe is a rather clever strategy game of a variety that I don't recall ever seeing before. You have no direct control over the units in your "army", instead placing and removing road blocks on the map with the left mouse button. Any units that encounter an obstacle, either a wall or a roadblock, will turn 90 degrees clockwise and continue on their way.
Gem Tower Defense by Peter Holko and Dorian Cox is, yes, another of the hundreds of flash tower defense games. But this one has a few new interesting mechanics: you place down five towers each round, but can only choose to keep one, the rest become rocks. You can also combine two of the five if they are the same level and color to make a stronger one. There are also special towers that you can create using special 'recipes' of other towers (the recipe list is shown under the game window).
I thought I'd mention another old game that probably has escaped the view of people not in the GameMaker community, Destruere Pizzicato (Or how I was a pizza cutter in 2D land).
Bernard the Bard is what some consider to be the greatest game made in the MZX game creation system.
An interview with Messhof (Mark Essen), creator of the Punishment series and Flywrench.
A one hour video of the IGS panel has been posted at GameSetWatch. Participants include Derek Yu (Aquaria/Bit-Blot/TIGSource), Greg Costikyan (Manifesto Games), Mark Morris (Introversion), and Eric Zimmerman (Gamelab). I found the conversation pretty interesting, especially the analogy at the beginning that Greg started and Derek moved into hilarity.
Aquaria has been released.
Lux is a chain reaction game. When you click on a pattern of light, it expands, and any other pattern of light in that range also expands, continuing in a chain reaction. You receive more points for longer chains. There are also lights which expand on their own and give you negative points unless you click them quickly, and there are special lights which give you extra points. There's also an online high score table. The game doesn't have very much depth, but it's pretty relaxing.
Aveyond 2 has been released. Because it's an RPG I didn't have time to complete the whole thing before posting this, but I enjoyed the first one and its freeware prequel and from what I've played so far it seems solid, so if you like this genre of game it's probably worth trying out.
Democracy 2 has been released. It's really only recommended to people interested in politics (like me), but for those who are it's pretty fun seeing how the author of the game arranged politics into this neural net of interacting cells each feeding into other cells. It's a very deep game.
FLYWRENCH has been released. It is this game, for those who remember the video but not the name.
The main goal is to get between two points in a series of stages, with increasingly complex obstacles in your way: the trick is that you can move through an obstacle if you are the same color as it. The level design is probably the best part of the game, I had a lot of fun with it. I also liked the movement system, where you have to flap to keep you aloft; it's a rare movement system that I can only remember being used previously in the Atari 2600 game Fathom.
Derek has written an interesting post over at the Bit-Blot blog, talking about Aquaria's evolution as a game and some of the design decisions that drove its direction. It's part four of a seven day ramp up to the game's release on Friday.
Garden Gnome Carnage is one of the better games created for the Game Maker winter contest so far. It's a pretty unique arcade game where you move a building left and right to swing a gnome who is attached to the top of it around in order to protect that building from invading elves. The gnome can also pick up bricks from the building and throw them at the invaders.
