XBLA & XBLIG Ratings

You guys should know the drill by now.  Today we have Andrew Russell the creator of the Xbox Live Indie Game Dark answering some questions about his recent release.

Question: How did the idea for Dark come about?

When the Dream Build Play competition came around I was running through ideas for what I wanted to try out in a game, preferably that hadn't been explored in detail before, and I hit upon the idea of doing something with 2D occlusion.

The obvious example of this is shadows, which is what I did. Rain is something else I wanted to try, but didn't have time for in the competition.



Question: Could you describe Dark for anyone who hasn't seen it?

Dark is a difficult game to describe. Gameplay-wise it is an admittedly short and somewhat-rough physics-puzzle-platformer. The appeal of Dark lies in its atmosphere and its ability to engage a player's imagination and emotion.



Question: How large was the team that created Dark and how long did it take to develop?

The game was a one-man effort over the four months of the Dream Build Play competition.

That being said, I did have a lot of people help by playtesting the game and providing feedback and advice. Also: the game's music comes from Kevin MacLeod's excellent collection of Creative Commons music.



Question:  When you first set out to make Dark was it always planned to be a puzzle-platformer?

Once I decided to make a game based around 2D shadows, making it a platformer on a physics engine was the obvious choice. The platformer mechanic is easy to implement and well with the Xbox's controller. The physics engine makes sense for showing off the 2D shadows.

A puzzle-platformer (as opposed to an action-platformer) was selected because it works well with the slower pace and dark atmosphere that I wanted to explore with the shadow system.



Question: Looking back on Dark what are the things that you are most proud of?

The shadow-casting algorithm in Dark is something I am very proud of. On a purely technical level it's rather impressive.

The game's atmosphere is something else I am very proud of. During development it's hard to tell if you've gotten this right, because you're playing the game over and over again and experiencing all the bugs and flaws along the way. But the reaction it has received from people playing it the first time goes to show that I pretty much nailed it.



Question: Was there anything you were hoping to get into Dark that did not make it?

Oh yes! I could write for pages about the many ideas that I wanted to explore and didn't have time to.

To just mention one: I was hoping to have many more creatures in Dark. I wanted to have some interplay between very geometric, shadow-casting creatures (like the "Triangle Men" and the player in Dark) and more organic, light-emitting creatures.



Question: Now that Dark has released are you planning another Indie game?

Absolutely! The next thing I am going to explore is one of the chief complains about Dark - the movement system. After making a game based around that, I'd like to return to my exploration of the ideas that I didn't have time for in Dark.



Question: Can you give us some tips or hints for Dark?

There are a couple of rough edges in Dark that some people get stuck on:

You have to go backwards in the factory level - lots of people get lost there. I'm afraid I didn't have time for the big structural changes required to make it as obvious as I would have liked. Follow the green dots when they appear in the floor at the bottom of the level.

If you find yourself "stuck" on an edge and unable to jump, you need to know that the game will only let you jump when you're completely still or when the very bottom point of your character is on the ground. Depending on how you get stuck, either mashing the jump button or letting go and waiting for everything to stop moving will set you free.



Question: If you could change one thing about Xbox Live Indie Games as a platform what would it be?

Being an Australian, I'd like to see it made available for end users in Australia and New Zealand (right now it is only available for developers in these regions).