Interviews

Tell us a little bit about yourself/company/team?
Discord was formed in 2009 by life-long friends James Petruzzi and Tim Dodd. Our original intention was to kill time, and have fun creating stuff. At some point we realized we had a shot at doing something really cool and unique, so we put our heads down and started working on what was to become Take Arms.

What made you decide to use the XBLIG platform for your game?
I think both of us have always wanted a game on a console, and XBLIG is the easiest path to that. No publishing deals, devkits, etc. are needed. It’s an awesome platform, just a shame it isn’t a little better managed.

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Tell us a little bit about your team?

We are two standard Italian nerds. Francesco, from Benjamin Ficus production, is responsible for the plot, level design and guilty of all the misspellings. Despite his love of creating video games, his computer skills suck hard He was lucky enough to find Matteo, his colleague. Matteo, from HeartBit interactive, is the genius behind the programming.

What made you decide to use the XBLIG platform for your game?

Around two years ago, Francesco made a game with RPG Maker. It was a small but fun adventure of four nerds trapped in a fantasy world. Everybody (his friends and his mum) was pleased with the game and kept telling him “You got talent”, “You should make some money with it”, and “Eat your vegetables” so Francesco decided to turn his small project into a real game! He discovered that a friend of a friend (Matteo, from HeartBit interactive) was a very talented programmer who already worked in the amazing field of game development. Francesco showed his project to Matteo who said “your game is pretty cool, why don’t we collaborate to put it on Xbox Live Indie Games. You do the level design, story and other crap while I do the serious coding and programming. It shouldn’t take much time, right?”

TWO years later, here we are!
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To kick things off can you give us a brief overview of what Renegade Ops is?

Renegade Ops is a top-down, dual-stick shooter, where you get to drive around in cool vehicles, with even cooler weapons, and wreck havoc in awesome environments, with the goal of stopping evil megalomaniac Inferno from taking over the world. You play as one of four characters compromising the “Renegade Ops”-outfit, under the command of their big-muscled-big-mustachioed leader General Bryant. Each of the four characters has a unique vehicle, special ability, and unlockable upgrades earned through an RPG-like leveling system. Renegade Ops is fast, tough, crazy, and loads of fun!

What inspired Avalanche to go from creating large open world games like Just Cause to a digital download title like Renegade Ops? What games out there inspired you guys to go the direction you did with Renegade Ops itself?

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Tell us a little bit about yourself/company/team?

We’re a young Dutch company, consisting of two guys; Casper van Est and Gert-Jan Stolk. We founded DoubleDutch Games in 2010, and Speedrunner is our first game.

What made you decide to use the XBLIG platform for your game?

Well, XBLIG is basically the only option you have when you’re a new studio with no track record and no money and want to make games for a console. It’s a really great platform for people like us, as it allowed us to actually create a product and have it released. We’ll have to see whether or not it’s actually a viable platform for making enough money to keep our heads above the water, but then again, we hope it can serve us as a stepping stone to other platforms such as Steam and XBLA.

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Gamers the world over exude opinions and complaints about the games they love, and lament at the fact that developers hardly ever seem to hear them. Mike “Mike Z” Zaimont, Project Lead and Designer on Reverge Labs’ upcoming fighting game, Skullgirls, is just such a gamer. A long time lover and competitive player of fighting games, Mike Z has used his programming expertise and fighting engine in combination with the art and characters of Alex “o_8” Ahad, Creative Director on the game, to create the game he’s always wanted to play. Skullgirls is many things, but at it’s heart it’s what happens when a gamer takes his expertise and makes a game out of it. Of course, that could mean anything, that could mean making another Marvel vs. Capcom 2 just because that’s one of the games Mike Z loves, but instead Reverge Labs has taken it one step further and is implementing a myriad of conveniences and thoughtful design changes that fighting game enthusiasts such as myself have been clamoring for, unwilling to be complacent with the traditional fighting game design and features. Check out the Q&A after the jump and find yourself exclaiming “That’s amazing! Why hasn’t anyone done that yet?” all the way through the interview. Read More

Éric Chahi is well-known in the industry for his innovative work on Another World (called Out of This World in the U.S.) and Heart of Darkness—and for his nearly ten-year absence from the industry. XBLA Fans sat down at E3 2011 with the legendary game designer for a quiet chat about art, inspiration, and the craft of telling stories.

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Developer Housemarque’s Outland has been on XBLA for only a few weeks but has already claimed its place as one of the service’s best games.  We recently interviewed the game’s Lead Designer Aki Raula, so strap yourself in, choose between light and darkness and be sure to dodge those pesky bullet-hell, um, bullets.

XBLAFans: So, Outland has been released and has received glowing reviews. How does that feel?

Raula: It feels like our hard work has been noticed and people appreciate it. We are very happy of the spectacular reception for Outland – it is, and continues to be, beyond our expectations. As a small studio we also hope the review success translates to sales so that we can keep on making great games!

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Technically Brawler Week is over but we have a slight addendum…

Associate Editor John Carson recently got the chance to speak to Edmund Mcmillen and Tommy Refenes better known as …
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I recently had a chance to sit down to do a short interview with Brian Provinciano of Vblank Entertainment. What I had intended to be a short interview that wouldn’t take up too much of his time turned out to be a great 30 minute conversation about his roots in the gaming industry, Retro City Rampage, and its predecessor, Grand Theftendo. Below you’ll find just a few of the highlights from our conversation. Special thanks to Brian for giving us such an in-depth interview. We’ve  posted the audio below. Give it a listen and see some of the highlights after the jump.

[podcast]https://xblafans.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/04/XBLAFancastRetroCityRampageInterview.mp3[/podcast]

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The The Dishwasher: Vampire Smile releases on April 6, so we sat down with James Silva, Head Dishwasher of Ska Studios, to talk about the game, the road leading up to this point, and the road ahead.

James began serious work on game development in 2000. His first title was Zombie Smashers X , which was featured on the demo disc of a PCGamer magazine in 2000. He felt like he’d made it big then, but it still took some time before he really had some momentum. James really got noticed in 2007, when he won the Dream.Build.Play contest with The Dishwasher: Undead Samurai. By winning the contest, James received $10,000 prize and an Xbox Live Arcade publishing contract.

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