indiegraze.com

on January 29, 2018

Straight from a landscape in an audiophile’s dream, Beat the Game combines adventure, sound mixing, and unusual recording mechanics to provide surreal gaming experience, and Worm Animation’s Art Director Cemre Ozkurt treated me to a conversation, not to mention a piece of interview exclusive art (see the image between the first and second questions, aka Kumadam_Scene_03). Side note, there will be a 15% off Steam sale for the game on Jan 29, Feb 5, Feb 15, and Feb 19.

Erik Meyer: The game focuses on collecting sounds, which are used to make music. This involves a variety of objects and interactable assets the player must hone in on, so how did this correspondingly effect your level design? What was your thought process as you chose locations and spread things around?

Cemre Ozkurt: We use the classic collecting keys and open doors kind of approach, but instead of keys, we used sounds and when the player collects those sounds they can play them and mix them with holographic sound mixer. When the players collect all the sounds, they can reach Live play, which is a music puzzle, and that music puzzle is the golden key to finishing the game.

We create the freedom for the player to choose where to go or what to collect first.

We give only one direction to the player, which is “find objects and sounds”.

After they find the first sound, we launch the sound mixer so they know that they need to play music, and if they play music in the right order, there are creatures that like their music so they know that they are moving forward.

As the game progresses, this gives the player a sense of accomplishment.

Even though we had an initial gameplay plan, our main thrust wasn’t the gameplay or mechanics, it was ruled by the music and visual arts; we had scenes in our minds and we were trying to figure out how to bring those to life and create a fun-to-play game experience at the same time.

EM: Once sounds are collected, players create looping music via an in-game music program, an interface reminiscent of sound design software like Fruityloops. From a developer standpoint, what did you see as essential to this game element having the right feel, and what is your philosophy behind UI components?

CO: We keep every music element in synch and layered the music with Kick, Hi-hat, Tom, Ambient, Acapella… For example, when the player plays one of the kick drums and after that plays the other kick drum, we shut down the previous kick drum.

This way player cannot overlap two different kicks, Instead, they are going to create a kick drum transition that music producers often do.

So even though the player has no musical knowledge, they can experiment with the music-producing tools in a simplified setup. This way, whatever they play in the mixer, they can still hear a decent sound.

This approach is not our invention; almost all music development applications have the same layout. We’re just translating it to an adventure game.

For the User Interface design, we were inspired by the 80’s synth, graphical 3d sound spectrums and abstract geometric artwork. We made highly-detailed characters and objects in the game; visually, they are already busy and noisy, so the UI has to be very clean. I personally like minimalism in UI design. It should feel like a traffic sign, where the player has to rapidly understand what it is, even without careful inspection.

EM: From the motorcycle to the protagonist to the dreamlike landscape, the game has a unique look and incorporates unusual 3D assets. As you decided what kinds of things to include, what did you feel best complemented your vision for BTG? What kinds of things got left out? What made everything feel consistent in the Dali-esque landscape?

CO: I grew up with French cartoons, I love reading Lucky Luke, Astérix, and Tin-tin. I like the simple framing and easy-to-follow stories in them and the beautiful adventure feeling; I’ve made cartoons and 2d films inspired by them. As I grew up, I thought I would keep making cartoons, but instead, my artistic vision morphed into surreal and abstract video game design. Meanwhile, I was working as a 3d character designer in the US. I worked in Electronic Arts, Activision, Blur studio… after I made enough Mickey Mouse and Spiderman for the game industry, I decided it was the time for making whatever I want.

There is a whole world out there that has been overlooked. This game could be a multiplayer music producing and sharing platform, incorporating much better mixer and music producing tools, integrating deeper levels and stories.

There could be online and the story mode with different characters. Each character could represent different genres and could play the game with shared samples from different genres and people.

We have created the first prototype of a new game genre, which can be called “Music Making Adventure”…

During development, we had a hard time describing what we were actually making, because there was nothing completely similar to what we made.

EM: Describe the workflow at Worm Animation; from beginning to end, how did you go about adding game elements? When you had an idea for something to incorporate, did music come first, or visuals, or a new cutscene?

CO: Visuals come first, we initially make concept art, and that concept art drives the entire game. That is why the story is abstract. We wanted to make it feel like watching a David Lynch movie. I don’t think we really nailed it in that aspect, but we tried.

The music and game design chase surreal, abstract visual symbolism.

EM: The Roboball intrigues me, as it feels like a piece of the game that fits yet has its own unique feel. How did you come to include it in the project, and what do you see it bringing that otherwise would have gone undone?

CO: I made the Roboball and the most of the character concepts of Beat the Game in 1999-2000. By the time I finished the character model, Star Wars: The Force Awakens had come out. After I saw BB-8, my jaw dropped. I couldn’t believe how close they were. It was just like the Roboball, but instead of an accordion mechanism, BB-8 rolled. Even though they look similar, I didn’t want to kill my little Roboball, because we had done so much animation and character setup. Without Roboball, there would be no fast traveling and laser spot, so we had to have him on board.

Speaking of look-alike characters, it might sound unreal, but I hadn’t seen or played Psychonauts before I start modeling the main character Mistik. I love Tim Schafer’s games; I grew up with Monkey Island and Full Throttle, but somehow I missed Psychonauts. Probably because I had kind of stopped playing those games with a PlayStation 2 around. I never liked the extremely low polygon graphics. Instead, I had focused on pre-rendered film quality graphics by that time. Even if I had seen Psychonauts, I would probably still use this character, but I might have given him a different hat or bag to make him look a bit different.

EM: You mention a commitment to quality, engaging games without a need for violence, so let me in on that thought process. Some games rely on outright violence, while others have characters fight robots or mix violence in with a quirky narrative, so what do you see as the challenges for an indie game studio that cuts out violence altogether?

CO: Violence can be exciting for a while, but it inspires bad feelings after playing destructive games, and you feel awkward. I know this because I wasted my entire summer playing Quake 2 online during a summer break when I was in art school. After I went back to art school, I was extremely happy, because I was actually creating something with a group of artists. I felt like my soul slowly fused back into my body, and I start to think clearly.

So, I wanted to build a game that makes the player feel positive. Especially creating music is amazing.

I think waiting to drop the kick in music is much better than camping as a sniper and waiting for someone to pass.

EM: The game has won a number of awards, and you’re quite active on social media, so what has that part of the development cycle been like, in terms of time commitments, fan suggestions, and putting information about your game out into the world? What has come easily, and what lessons have you learned in hindsight?

CO: Our producer, marketing manager, editor, social media manager, my lovely wife Yesim, is handling the social media work. I have learned from her that posting like a person, not a robot, is the most important thing. Creating some studio language and creating key characteristics is important. That creates positive interest, and posting consistently holds things together.

EM: Now that the game has been released, how has your day to day changed, and what do you see on the horizon? For a project like BTG, what does the process of supporting and updating look like? And what is next for Worm Animation?

CO: The game has been released on PC and Mac, and we are currently working on the Xbox One release. At the same time, we are working on a new game project idea and possible investor opportunities. We are also testing new technologies, playing games, making and playing music and collecting ideas for our next project.

This time, we want to create a free-to-play mobile game and see what we can do with these small, less powerful, touch screen devices. It is definitely a challenging market with an extremely satisfying user base.

It is incredible how many people you can reach with mobile devices. This time, we want to reach the broadest audience possible.

In case you missed it, here’s the trailer: