Could you tell us a bit about yourself and how you got into developing games?
I am a 33-year-old creative living in London, working across a range of creative outlets. I am not good at describing myself so I will just say I am driven to expression and storytelling, wherever it be visual, or with words or sound. I have been into developing games since I was a teenager when I was initially involved in the modding and level design community for the classic FPS Duke Nukem and the role-playing game Neverwinter Nights which I designed several adventures for, spending many weekends in my room getting immersed in these worlds I create.
In terms of my indie development I have been working seriously on games since my Interactive Fiction Glitch – a multimedia game based on cyberpunk and science themes, I got the itch to develop games when I realized that they were the perfect medium for combining all the different art forms I pursue – sound, words, and art.
Who inspired you to create games?
No one creator inspired me, but I am a big fan of John Romero – the creator of the classic FPS doom, I love his enthusiasm for game design and his common sense yet creative approach to game development and design.
Yes, the first games I ever played as a child were Descent on the PC and Magic Carpet from the legendary Bullfrog games. Descent was a game that blew my mind as you could fly your spaceship in the mines you had to explore in a 360 /3D environment. It was a game ahead of its time I think in a lot of ways.
I was also a fan of strategy games like Red Alert as well as RPGs. One memory that sticks with me is being 14 and being really excited to play the early Bethesda title – Terminator Future Shock, another revolutionary for its time FPS set in the Terminator universe. It featured more structured missions than other FPS of the time, as well as advanced 3D graphics, and an emphasis on linear narrative development, but it also allowed you as a player to explore a lot so it never felt like an ‘on rails’ game.
Could you tell us a bit about the past games you have released?
Yes certainly, so the games I have released so far have been a mix of interactive fiction, weird sort of ‘art’ games and FPS/collection games. I have been a doing the infamous LudumDare jam for the past 2 years and this has helped me evolve more as a developer – you have 2 – 3 days to make a game to a theme and it always an enjoyable challenge.
My first game as I mentioned was Glitch which I would describe as an existential headfucking game exploring questions of consciousness, I built it with Twine a free to use interactive fiction tool, as well as coding a more unique design to enhance the overall feel of the game itself with CSS.
The next few games I made were experiments largely, with two FPS using the GameGuru engine – these were Kill Stalins (an absurdist one level FPS where you have to kill Stalin clones) Shroom Hunter (a collect mushrooms and bash zombies game made for Ludum Dare) and The Comedian (a game I literally made as a joke about one of my friends). After developing these three games which were in one way or another sort of experiments I did begin to get more adept at tools like Unreal Engine and began to do more serious work with that engine.
Still, it got some good feedback and one fellow game designer even said it was the best thing he had seen anyone do with GameGuru but that it was limited by the engine, so I took that on board to commit to Unreal Engine fully. The stream of the playtesting on Jinni can be viewed here
The next few titles to emerge from that process were Torn – a dating sim set in hell and Nourish Nosferatu– A vampire hunting game where you had to make an ethical choice about who to sacrifice in a cyberpunk town. Finally probably the most complete and most traditional game like game I have made with Unreal Engine has been NanoMaze – a variation on the traditional maze game where you play a nanobot escaping other nanobots in futuristic landscapes. I have also ported this to mobile though it is not yet ready for Commerical release.
There are a few projects which have been consigned to game design hell too but that is the nature of this beast often, I have been working on and off on a project called City of Shadow for several years though I seem to run out of steam on it – it’s a noir adventure game in 3D.
All my games are on https://drnoir.itch.io/
You are currently working on Cosmic Winds how did that project come about?
t came about from an experiment on unreal engine, I wanted to mess around with the flying sim demo that ports with the engine, the idea then sort of organically developed from there after I managed to get a simulation of a space environment and some basic collision events running. It’s my most ambitious idea yet but the prototype looks quite promising. It will be a long term project for at least the next year. I am co-working on it with Harvey McCauley another developer I have collaborated with in the past.
You can read more about how it is developing here www.cosmicwinds.co.uk
There are a whole variety of different game engines out there these days how do you choose a particular game engine for a particular project?
I look at how many platforms the engine can support, as that is important, what sort of tech it supports in terms of graphics and tools, and also ease of use and my own knowledge with it. I think some tools are suited better than others to certain types of games. I love Unreal Engine now I have really taken time to learn more about its powerful features and it is my engine of choice.
What is the most interesting thing about being a games developer?
The challenge of coming up with new ideas, the joy of storytelling and the sense of reward you get just for finishing something.
What do you think is missing from the videogames industry today?
I think primarily that what is missing is games that really make you think, wherever that be through challenges or through philosophical problems or questions. This is my view is quite a modern phenomenon as many games in the past covered those sorts of things really well. However I also think due to their being more indie game out there it is also a sort of golden age, but for indies not so much for the commercial side of things, which seems to have gone down much of a linear route, as one might expect.
Here at Artistic Echoes, we are always on the for new indie game makers to check out do you have anyone to recommend?
Yesbelow is the website of a game Developer called Salvatore Anziano in America, he is a very talented guy who has produced some games which I have been consistently impressed with. He builds with Unreal Engine often working alone and we have had many chats when he has done an all-nighter etc. His games have a futuristic yet humorous touch to them and we seem to share a similar idea about what games should do. His website is here
What future plans do you have in the games industry?
I would like to eventually set up my own indie studio with friends but for now, I am happy to work on indie projects and slowly better my programming and overall game design skills.
Find out more:
itch.io : https://drnoir.itch.io/
Website: http://chrisgodber.co.uk/
