In my opinion, Xbox Live's Indie Games is the perfect platform for hand drawn games like Jon-Paul Keatley's Run Away. So, I tracked him down and had him answer a few questions for us.

Question: How did the idea for Run Away come about?

The game play came from one of my earliest memories of games. It was about this little guy who was trying to go jogging. The story came about because I had noticed the tendency with modern games to have giant plots involving the liberation or destruction of civilization. I wanted to make a small game about a small story, so I figured I would tell a story that plays out millions of times a day, the pursuit of love. Every guy has at least one story of nervously walking over to a girl’s house to declare his love. Well at least I do but then again I am single so I might just be doing it wrong!



Question: Could you describe Run Away for anyone who hasn’t seen it?

Today is the day. Today I tell Angry Girl I love her. I have written it down on the calendar, to not do it now would make me a liar. With a lump in my throat and a butterfly house in my stomach I step out into the clean sunny morning. Today is going to be my day!  Run, jump, trip, stumble, bound, bounce, and roll your way to love.

How large was the team that created Run Away and how long did it take to develop?

I was the only person involved in development, I did however have a lot of friends who gave me advice while I was making the game and generally kept me going.



Question: Run Away's art looks all hand drawn.  Is that the case?  If so, did you do it all yourself?

I did indeed. I got the animator’s survival guide, a good tablet, and the artistic skills of a 3 year old. It is the first time I have done animation on such a large scale. The test for each new thing that I drew was if it made me smile, if it made me smile I would add it, if it didn’t I would redraw it. The She-Rex was by far the hardest; she under went three redraws and even a sex change. She really went above and beyond for this project.



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

I would have to say it is the amazing feedback I have gotten. 4 months into the project I was really beginning to question what the hell I was doing. I had focused on the game at such a low level for so long that I couldn’t see the forest for the trees, I worried that it wasn’t fun to play or that no one would get it at all. So when I started getting really positive feedback while in play testing from complete strangers it was like walking into a dark room and having all your friends jump out and shout surprise! It was truly the best feeling in the world.



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

An old flat mate told me it should have its own song. So I spent a day or two locked in my bed room with a battered old guitar, a cheap microphone, and some open source wav editor. Sadly it was not meant to be. I went in thinking flight of the concords and left thinking cat in a blender. I did actually record two songs for it but I have since taken them out to the woods with a bag of lime and a shovel.



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

I am working on a new project with a couple of friends. It is a scrolling beat em up and I am expecting great things from it. The artist, game designer, and coder I am working with are all truly exceptional people in their fields, its like working with zen masters. Honestly if it wasn’t for my cheeky smile and tea making skills I would worry about being laid off.



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

If progression be your trouble use the long jump to get a safe distance from the pursuer and don’t be afraid to run into something if you are too far ahead. Also you can roll through some small objects. 



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

Before I start ripping on the poor platform, I should say that it is the first and only of its kind and on the whole is a truly wonderful system. XNA is an utter joy to work with and hides a lot of stuff that you simply do not want to care about when making a game. With that said it would be really good to have some kind of global score storage system or in fact just a generic global store that you can read and write to would be amazing. Even if it was limited to a couple of K it could still be used to do some great stuff. Another thing is the guide and storage APIs. They both throw exceptions like toddlers throw tantrums. I didn’t want to care about either of them as I wanted to focus on the actual game but ended up spending a lot of time at the project dealing with them.