Typically, buying cheaper items means sacrificing quality.
But "Defy Gravity" challenges that notion by giving you one of the most innovative platformers on the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace for only a dollar.
Developed by Fish Factory Games, the game follows Kara, a space explorer who discovers an ancient alien ruin. As she ventures inside, the dormant security system activates. Standing between her and her prize is an assortment of laser traps, falling platforms and flying objects.
The plot is paper thin, but it’s mostly an excuse for the game’s linchpin: the gameplay.
Manipulating gravity is the key to moving forward. Kara’s gun fires blue pockets of gravity and yellow balls of anti-gravity. The gravity wells attract Kara toward it, while the anti-gravity wells repel her away.
Supporting the gameplay is some top-notch level design, and as the game goes on, the challenge really ramps up.
For the average puzzle gamer, it shouldn’t take more than an hour or two to complete. But the quality of the game far outweighs its limited quantity —a lesson more developers should learn.
Earlier this week, I spoke on the phone with Lead Designer Paul Fisch, a 26-year-old biomedical engineering master’s student at Tulane University. During the interview, he talked about the development process, plans to add additional content for the game and his issues with the Xbox Live Indie Games platform.
Q: How many people worked on the game?
A: There’s three people who did all of the principle work on the game. Myself, one of my friends who’s a Ph.D. student in biomedical engineering and my brother who lives in Atlanta. He used to actually be a game designer, but now he goes to school.
Q: How long did you guys work on it?
A: Most of the work was done over a three-month period, but I would say the last 10 percent of the project always seems like it takes double the time, so probably more like five or six months of part-time work.
Q: What went behind the decision to sell the game for $1 on Xbox Live but for $5 on PC?
A: The way the XBLIG marketplace works is kind of like a race toward the bottom. It seems like it’s much harder to do well with a title that costs more than $1 because of the way the marketplace ranks games. The top downloaded list is based on the sales of the title a day, but the price is not taken into account. If you sell a $3 game once, it’s not like selling a $1 game three times. So you would have to have a lot of sales for your more expensive game … to compete.
Q: Was there anything that didn’t make it into the game?
A: Oh, there’s a bunch that didn’t. There’s another version of the game that’s going to come out on Steam in a few months. That version is going to have significantly more content. It’s going to have double the levels, and it’s going to have a second quest mode where some of the game controls are changed. Like almost everything responds to gravity wells, and you don’t really have the yellow gravity wells. It makes it a very different experience to play it like that. There’s also going to be a last boss, and the plot is going to finish.
Q: Is version 2.0 going to come out for the Xbox?
A: No, it is not. Maybe it could potentially later, but it’s not in the plans right now.
Q: Why not?
A: Well, for one reason it’s the price point on the Xbox, though we might be willing to do something later.
But also, the code base for the PC version is significantly different than the Xbox version. To bring changes over wouldn’t be a small amount of work.
Q: Are PC users going to have to pay for the game all over again for the next version?
A: We’re actually discussing that still.
We’re not sure if we’re going to do this yet, but we’re considering the idea of when you buy the PC copy, we’ll give you a gift copy that you can give to a friend. So you could get two copies for the price of one.
We would like to make money, but we really like people to see what we made.
Q: Did you ever consider making a level editor?
A: Yes, [laughs]. Well, the problem with that, for Xbox especially, is that you’re not allowed to share user-generated content over Xbox. If you made levels, you couldn’t send them to other people. It would be more realistic to do that for the PC version, and we’re considering that because we are still implementing things into the game.
Q: In the game, there’s never a “game over” screen, and the checkpoints are pretty forgiving. Why is that?
A: I don’t really like the old-school NES games where you’re playing the same level over and over again just to get to the one hard part. It’s just not fun.
I like a game that’s kind of shorter, and I get to enjoy the whole experience and not have to worry about restarting every time I die.
This is as close to a "game over" screen as the game gets. Photo courtesy of YouTube user Northernlion.
Q: To me, the plot in “Defy Gravity” felt like an excuse for the gameplay mechanics. Why is that?
A: We’re going to add more to the plot for the PC release, but plot was not the focus of this game at any point.
We really put the plot on very close to the end of development. This game was really about this idea of gameplay where you’re manipulating gravity in a new way.
Q: Where did the idea of manipulating gravity come from?
A: I was thinking about other game mechanics, like the conc jump and the rocket jump [from “Team Fortress”] and manipulating physical forces. And it kind of just came to me.
Q: I read a forum discussion where you wrote, “Innovation is combining many ideas into something no one has ever done before.” How important to you is the need to innovate?
A: I wouldn’t make a game that I didn’t think had original ideas. And I do think there are a lot of titles on XBLIG where somebody’s like, “I’m going to remake the old ‘Snake’ game for the calculator and add nothing.” I mean, those games do well on the service, and I’m not knocking them, but I feel like the purpose of making an indie game is that you can take those big risks and make games that people haven’t played before. The budget is low, and you’re not going to lose millions of dollars if the game bombs.
Also, I don’t feel like, as an indie developer, you can really compete with a big studio. If you’re like, “I’m going to make a ‘Quake’ clone,” … it’s going to be much worse than something that’s made by a bunch of people full time over a year professionally.
I feel like you have to push the boundaries and make new games that people have never played before, because those could be hits.
Q: Do you see a lot of innovation in the marketplace?
A: I think there could be more. I think there is some innovation, but I think there are a lot of derivative titles. People are doing that, and they’re doing well for themselves. Business is a part of developing games. But I do wish that there were a lot more innovative games at the top of the list.
Q: What are the advantages and disadvantages of using XNA and the Xbox Line Indie Games platform?
A: I mean, it’s very cool to get the exposure, and I probably would’ve never made the game at all if XNA didn’t exist, but our next game is not going to use XNA. It’s very low level in that you’re required to implement everything yourself. All of the scrolling code and all of the codes that would be reused in every game like menus, you have to make all of it from scratch. It’s much more time consuming then using the Unreal Engine or Unity, which is what we’re looking at for our next title.
Q: As you know, the Independent Games Festival just chose its eight selections for the Student Showcase, and “Defy Gravity” didn’t make the cut. Are you guys going to make a game for next year’s selection?
A: We might. I don’t know if we’re going to have our game ready by next year.
Also, I’m not sure the type of games we make are the kind of games that IGF is looking for. It seems like they’re looking for games that they can hold up and be like, “This game is a piece of art,” and not necessarily that is has great gameplay. So I’m not really sure that’s the right avenue for us.
Q: Do you have any ideas on what your next game is going to be about?
A: Right now, we have some plans, but these are very fluid.
We’re considering doing a 2.5-D game that’s going to be 3-D, kind of like Shadow Complex … where it’s 3-D but on a 2-D plane, so it’s still a side-scroller. There’s definitely going to be some gunplay in this game.
The other ideas are kind of complicated. .... It’s much easier to show somebody when it’s more ready.
Q: What do you want to do after college? Is this a hobby or a potential career path?
A: [Laughs] I mean, if it really took off, I would maybe consider it for a career path. But right now, I’m thinking I’m going to go on the Ph.D. track of biomedical engineering. And that’s a pretty long track.
For PC gamers, visit Defy Gravity's website to download the demo. Xbox Live members can download it via the Indie Games marketplace.
