Interview: Transmogrify’s Andrew Strauch
Tasked with escaping from a facility filled with strange creatures, Transmogrify hands players an experimental device that morphs enemies into puzzle solutions; with a Kickstarter effort underway and inspiration coming from Calvin and Hobbes, I chatted with developer Andrew Strauch on the finer points of his work. Also, check out the demo.
Erik Meyer: Conceptually, the game stands as a sci-fi platformer where you turn enemies into objects and use them to solve puzzles. As you’ve worked to implement and maintain various challenges, which aspects (art, level design, code, pacing) have required the most cooperation between team members, and where have you been able to simply run with your individual talents?
Andrew Strauch: There has been a lot of cooperation and teamwork, but I would say that art and music require the most coordination. Nick White, our composer, does all the music, and Tim Tsang, our artist, does all the art. I have my vision of the game, but they get the autonomy to make a lot of decisions and shape their respective areas, and they do a great job with it. As far as myself, I do all the coding, level design, animation, and writing and recording of Grace’s voice lines. I still incorporate lots of feedback from my teammates, as well as people on social media, and I go back and refine the game, and keep repeating that loop.
EM: I note the inspiration connection to Calvin and Hobbes (Calvin uses a transmogrifier box to transmute with hilarious results); given that Calvin’s wild imagination means anything can happen in the comic, how do you maintain a similarly unpredictable feel with the transformer device in platformer puzzles? As the mechanics and solutions need to be fairly set to provide for balanced level design, what qualities of the game’s main tool (freezing enemies or turning a flier into a cloud, for example) provide the same kind of magical feel?
AS: I love Calvin and Hobbes, and I would say that the name itself was the main inspiration, as well the magic behind something turning into another thing entirely. I wouldn’t say we maintain the unpredictable element – enemies predictably transmogrify into objects so that the player knows which enemies they need to solve particular puzzles. We have some enemies later on that have random transmogrifies, but they will be limited as they can make gameplay tricky, given the nature of enemies and objects mattering in the game.
As far as maintaining that magical feel, I think we try to capture that with empowering the player to be able to transmute and pacify enemies and then use them to advance. Later in the game, some enemies will transform back on a timer and be immune to being shot temporarily – so it makes the action even more valuable, as it becomes restricted. We also are trying to make the enemies, their mutations, and the objects they turn into as fun as possible with their behaviors, animations, particle effects, and such. A fan favorite, for example, is a Sonic the Hedgehog-style spring that the Leaper enemy turns into, and you can use it to bounce to high platforms.
EM: The game uses the Godot engine, as opposed to Unity or GameMaker, so I’m interested in the technical reasons for this choice. What do you see as the code/pipeline/deployment advantages of Godot, and what other criteria led you to choose it versus other software?
AS: I love Godot. I have been developing games as a hobby for over a decade now. In that time, I’ve done many game jams, prototypes, and even larger-scale unfinished games with engines and tools such as Torque, Flash, HaxePunk, HaxeFlixel, GameMaker, Construct 2, LibGDX, Unity, Unreal, and now Godot. I realized I was waiting for Godot. I had a lot of fun making games with the others, but from the moment I picked up Godot, I just thought it was awesome. For one, I support open-source software. As far as the engine itself – one of the challenges you experience in game development is building your Frankenstein stack.
Godot is not the best at everything, but it does everything inside the engine. This is a huge saving of time and effort from having to constantly switch back and forth across multiple programs, such as your level editor and animation tool, then importing everything, testing, realizing you need to make changes, and repeating that cycle ad nauseum. On top of that, you not only have to deal with the individual bugs and limitations of each tool – you are also responsible for reconciling when tools aren’t compatible with each other or have specific problems when they interact. I just want to focus on making games, and Godot lets me do that.
They rolled out huge upgrades with version 3.0, and they are upgrading the animation suite now, too, which is exciting. Their lead developer, Juan Linietsky, gave us a shout-out on Twitter right before they announced the animation upgrades, which is just one example of how they have a great community. Godot has challenges as well – open source is harder in general, because you need to sometimes figure things out on your own. The in-engine code editor isn’t the best, and the documentation can still be improved in some areas. That being said, I still do nearly everything inside Godot, features and documentation and tutorials are improving, and the community is growing. All of that combines to make me feel excited to work with the engine and invest more time and energy into it and the community, and I also feel confident in the developers to continue delivering great features for everyone. The future is bright with Godot.
EM: The project emerged from a game jam with an “unconventional weapon” theme, and instead of doing a simple run-and-gun, you settled on a mechanic that alters the environment; do you see game jams (like Ludum Dare, for example) as testing grounds for concepts that could grow into larger efforts, or do you see them more as team-building exercises, or serving altogether different roles for indie dev teams? When you agree to participate in a game jam, what goals do you have in mind?
AS: Game Jams are what you want them to be. You also get out of them what you put into them. While those statements may sound vague, they are true. You can set out with whichever goal your heart desires for a Game Jam, and that’s great. The cool thing is you can accomplish some, or even all, of the goals you mentioned.
I would say they are excellent breeding pools for new ideas since you iterate quickly – you make a game in a weekend. They are also superb team-building exercises, because they demand good communication, cooperation, and that everyone brings their A-game to get across the finish line. For indie dev teams, they can use a Game Jam as a proof-of-concept, just like software firms do with Hackathons.
Game Jams are quite a challenge, at least they were for me when I first did one. However, you learn and grow so much that I highly recommend them to anyone interested in gamedev, or just looking for an interesting experience, even if they don’t want to be a hobbyist game developer. A Game Jam is the single best way to improve your gamedev chops and learn quickly. You can do one with a group, or solo. You can pick a smaller one, or a giant one like Ludum Dare that has a huge community and its own hashtag on Twitter to talk with people. I’ve done all of those flavors I mentioned, and each one has been a special experience for me that I will remember forever, because at the end of each of those weekends, I made a game!
EM: Transmogrify is currently on Kickstarter, which hosts a large number of indie game projects at any given time, projects ranging from a few thousand dollars to efforts that have pulled in millions. In the conversation of small, scrappy studios that do a lot without much revenue versus gigantic companies with deep pockets, what role do you see crowdfunding playing in your work, and how do you see it contributing to the industry as a whole?
AS: For us, Kickstarter has been a great way for us to reach people. We have been fortunate to get lots of great feedback from people who love the art and gameplay, but we still need to get out in front of more gamers. Kickstarter has given us a big boost for growing that community, especially since we launched the free demo on our website. We have a core gameplan, and I have self-funded the game so far. Funding through Kickstarter allows me to retain Tim and Nick for longer, and if we hit our stretch goals, we can add even more features, such as custom death animations and multiplayer.
EM: You’ve released a demo, so beyond giving players a taste of your work, what kinds of feedback have you found most helpful? When you look at in-game experience, narrative elements, and difficulty versus reward, do you compare notes mostly within your studio, or do outside voices play a role in balancing the game’s look and feel? What kinds of responses have surprised you?
AS: I personally look at every scrap of feedback I get. I try to respond to everyone, and I always write everything down, even if I don’t necessarily agree with it – I will consider it. Honestly, most of the time, they are right, and I take the pointer and go polish up whatever I just showed them and make it better. That’s what it is about – checking your ego at the door and listening to people, because the goal is to make the game better and create a better game experience.
I would say that I try to let the best idea win. I want the best ideas from everyone, and then I balance them against my own judgment at the end of the day. I have mostly just been surprised at how helpful everyone has been. Maybe not that people have been helpful – but to the degree they have given me detailed feedback on what they would like in the game. Often, that feedback gets directly applied, too.
EM: You’re a team of three, so can you give an example of the music, art, and coding/dev work as it happens between your perspective titles? If you have a creative element you want to add, what does decision making look like?
AS: Aside from Tim owning the art and Nick owning the music, we all get a say in every area of the game. I need to make an executive decision sometimes, if I feel like we are getting off track or into feature-creep territory, but most of the time we get to incorporate the best parts of everyone’s ideas.
EM: As you stand now, looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest asset challenges and benchmarks that take up your time, and how do you see these shifting throughout the development arc? When does it move from adding to honing, and like a painter working on canvas, how do you know when it’s done?
AS: Marketing is the hardest part going forward, as I alluded to above with Kickstarter. There are so many good games by numerous talented developers, it is tough to get your voice heard. I am doing my best to balance marketing with development. The expression “Art is never finished, just abandoned” comes to mind. It’s a cliche, but it’s true. At some point, this game will be finished and you just have to let it go and move onto the next one.
In case you missed it, here’s the trailer:
