Reset Glitch interview: D-Pad Studio talks Owlboy

Since its entry into the Xbox 360 scene, the Community Games have had a fairly rocky start. Aside from a general lack of quality titles, Microsoft hasn’t exactly done their best to bring consumer awareness to the few great games that do hit the service, often resulting in poor sales – it’s a shame that a title like Weapon of Choice has gone largely ignored.

From here on out I’m going to try and make it a point to highlight some of the best games either already released, or coming to Xbox Community Indie Games because believe it or not, there are good games on the service. It just, you know, requires some digging.

One title I’ve been highly anticipating is Owlboy. It sports a great art direction, a charming lead character, and classic 2D gaming, but with its own vertical platforming twist. I recently got in contact with the guys behind the project, D-Pad Studio, to see if they would be willing to give me an update on Owlboy, and perhaps answer a few other questions I had on the mind. They obliged and artist and writer at D-Pad Adrian Bauer answered a healthy helping of questions I tossed his way.

For the full interview, hit the jump.

–On the studio

First off, can you tell me a little bit about D-pad? When did you guys form and how many people are involved?

D-Pad started when Blake, Simon and I all kind of said ‘hey, we need a group name and can’t keep calling ourselves the Project Rhapsody guys.’ Blake and I knew each other in the days of using Multimedia Fusion. We would help each other design RPGs and share code to see how far we could push the program. Mind you it wasn’t real coding, but we still pulled off some cool stuff given the awful cruelty of Click Team’s products.

Anyway, Simon signed on because he was interested in Rhapsody. He wanted to help with the art and to be honest he outclassed myself and Derrick (former group member, he dropped out because he just didn’t have the time anymore) in the art department. Blake and Simon began a little experiment with XNA that later became Owlboy and over that time we began to better focus on what we all did best and not try to stretch too thin. Jonathon came in a little later into Rhapsody’s development and made some amazing melodies and sound effects, which he did again for Owlboy. A few months ago Blake got in contact with Stephen to help with programming and I think that pretty much sums up how we all got together (well, what I can remember).

We aren’t based anywhere in particular, very much an internet group. Blake, Stephen and Jon are from America, Simon is from Norway and I’m from Canada. Blake and Stephen are programmers. Blake completed the engine and tools and Stephen is helping us add new content while Blake is busy with work. Simon is an artist & designer with dabbling in programming and music. Simon uses programs like MMF2 to experiment with game ideas and small projects on the side. I’m an artist and writer and I dabble with game design and programming (MMF2 also). I’m not nearly as prolific as Simon is with design ideas, but ah whatever, we always have ideas to pitch at each other, blueprints to hammer out for possible use. MMF2 has really allowed us all to experiment with lots of game concepts and I think that really gave us a good foundation. We have tried and failed with lots of stupid experiments in the past so we are pretty mature about game making. We have lots of crazy ideas but we know when and where to do stupid things and when to remove them.

Looking in the long term, is the ultimate goal to become a full-time developer?

I think in an ideal world we would be doing this sort of thing for a living, but we need financial support to do it and right now we don’t have anything out there that will generate income. It’s tough because we don’t have a single location to cover and it would mean supporting at the least Simon and Blake since they do the bulk of the programming and in-game art.

Being an indie developer, what are some of the hurdles you guys face?

I think the biggest hurdle for us is the population not concerned with indie games doesn’t know us or feel much loyalty. I feel as if we create games that don’t realistically compete in the professional market. I think that our defining style of game design and visuals is kept as professional as possible but maybe I’m just kind of jaded about what kids expect in games. You want to make something fun and new but at the same time make it a solid experience that really can’t be divided on for quality of construction but just personal taste of the player. I would be much happier to make a game that pulls in a small dedicated audience than a game that really didn’t live up to what we had in mind and is trashed objectively. We shouldn’t be wasting people’s time.

–On Owlboy

From whose mind did Owlboy and his world develop from, and was it a collaborative effort?

Simon and Blake started the project as a way to experiment with XNA. The game is really Simon’s project in visuals and design. They would be able to better respond to this question. Maybe we can update this later with their included responses. I work with Blake to hammer out level design and finish up what he outlines (say for cutscenes, I will redo the dialogue and modify other things, or I will complete the room details if he has started something before me). There is no order of involvement but usually since Blake is programming the new puzzle he will set up objects and events, then I will polish them and add, and then maybe Simon will do something to unify the feel of it if it doesn’t quite match his vision of it. We work off each other’s changes and additions, slowly refining it.

What kind of worlds will we be playing through?

I’m not sure if Simon wants me to talk too much about this but there are about three to four major dungeons with lots and lots of puzzles and action to get through. There is a large town/city area that comes into the game after the first dungeon and a few smaller places to roam around.

What about boss fights?

We like boss fights and mini-bosses. We have lots of ideas for all kinds of extra big battles that may or may not be added in time. I would think that if it has to come up later, if we can’t offer it up for free it will be a minimal as possible. I don’t know too much about the pricing scheme for Live but that would be super stupid to ask people for a few bucks to add on some secret content. We aren’t out to nickel and dime our players.

When designing a game seemingly so vertical in nature, what kind of issues do you run into?

Again a question more for Simon, however it does change how I see level design. We have to ignore the old tropes of platforming and invent new ones. We can do things to kick players out of the Mario habit, but it’s up to us to never punish the player for using flight and to understand what the camera system does for the game.

Can you describe the game and how it plays?

We design situations, puzzles and bad guys all around what a player can do with flight. Say for example a goo monster that jumps off the walls and onto you, and as more jump, you the player can only glide through a dangerous environment. Nature shows about birds have also helped to inspire ways to use our mechanics. In short Otus can fly/hover and move along the horizontal, he picks up objects with different properties and helpers with different abilities. You can throw and shoot (helper’s weapons) in all directions. These things can be seen in the gameplay video we posted but maybe we could have shown off more about how they get used in combat and such.

Will story be sort of a secondary element, or should we anticipate something more meaningful?

Simon is writing this story and has put a good amount of effort into it. I think if anything the characters should be a real highlight of the game and I’ll do my best to pull every bit of personality into the dialogue. I’m very focused on making the plot top notch and working within the story that Simon has set up.

It seems that too often we’re treated to music that fails to stick out and is so orchestral that it goes largely unnoticed in its own ambiance. What about Owlboy; should we expect some nice tunes lacing the levels that might leave us humming the beat years after its release?

The music in Owlboy is retro but when your character takes flight we add a much fuller melody with fewer technical limitations over the already playing retro music. Jon is an amazing composer and he really knows how to make a melody worth whistling to.

If you don’t mind, could you describe to me a little bit about the issue you guys are currently having with the game and whether it’s soon to be resolved?

Right now we are just trying to get Stephen familiar with our game, he is actually located near Blake so that helps, but Blake is very busy. It’s frustrating to say the least.

What about a launch date, any word on that?

Later this year, I hope, unless this issue above doesn’t get resolved.

–On Community Games

There seems to be no shortage of developers upset that their Community Game didn’t sell, with the most recent example being Clover. How do you feel about this? How will D-Pad get Owlboy noticed?

We kind of expect low sales, for reasons I got into earlier. It’s hard to judge costs for the game because well… we’re a bunch of guys doing this for fun. We talked about setting the price low, like $5 because really, if we do an excellent job there is no reason not to grab it, and if we end up doing an average or above average job, $5 is nothing still. People still seem to complain about pricing and I’m of mixed feelings about that. Games are expensive but great games can be found for $20 to $25 and it’s hard to ask strangers to pay up for a much smaller and simpler game.

How do you feel about Microsoft’s treatment of Community Games? Do you think the upcoming rating’s system will help highlight the quality titles, resulting in better sales?

I don’t know too much about this subject, sorry. A rating system should help keep things like 24/7 Clock at the bottom. If users can rate without playing or paying for a game it could be a problem.

Has D-Pad considered looking into XBLA, PSN or WiiWare development?

Other consoles would be great but after looking into it, there really isn’t any payoff for investing in these things. Nintendo for example demands that we have an office address that is also not a residential. PSN was just plain expensive and difficult to get the tools for. Dev kits are what make it so hard for us, these are expensive and we need publishers to support what we are doing with our software.

I see you have two other projects on the site. Any news on those and are they XNA games, too?

Rhapsody is an old game we began working on together, but it was made with MMF2 and despite what we got out of the program, it was too much of a problem to keep working on and too big to do over in XNA. In the future we will return to it but it will be massively updated and changed.

Bluesky is a graphic novel that I’m currently writing/drawing on my own.

Any final words on Owlboy, your company, or any if its projects?

We might get snagged and our projects delayed but a delay just means a chance to retool ideas that we might not have invested in fully. It also gives us time to break and further develop other concepts that we can make later. It sucks, but we make the most of our time.

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I’d like to give a big thanks to Adrian for answering all my questions without hesitation.