Exclusive Interview With Pixel Worm
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We had a chance to speak with Javier Busto, Mike Oviedo and Joshua Meeds at Pixel Worm recently about EMILY, a Sci-Fi, Metroidvania style game that is currently in the fundraising stage on Kickstarter. So, without further ado, I present to you the Pixel Worm
Josh
You seem to have built a team with some very experienced people in the industry. Could you give us a little background about how Pixel Worm was formed? What is its vision statement?
Pixel Worm
The core of Pixel Worm originally worked for a mobile game developer located in Miami, FL. There are very few game companies located in South Florida, so some of the more experienced people in the area, including some brought in from outside Florida, worked there. During our time working on free-to-play mobile titles, many of us wanted to branch out from mobile development and make fully-featured games; games that we would want to play ourselves. Pixel Worm doesn’t have an official “vision statement,†but I guess that’s what it would be, we want to make in-depth games that we wish already existed so we could play them ourselves. The mobile developer we worked for shut down in July, and shortly afterward the three lead developers in the company – lead artist, designer, and programmer – got together to form Pixel Worm, and once we had determined which game we wanted to make, each of us used our own contacts, former coworkers and friends to fill in whatever was needed to bring that vision to life.
Josh
The trailer introduced us to a dystopian future where the world is facing the problem of overpopulation, a threat of a widespread pandemic, and the authoritarian rule of a monopolistic and evil corporation. What were the primary influences which inspired the themes being explored in, and also the setting of the game?
Pixel Worm
As dystopian as it might sound we think that our story could be a possible scenario in the not-so-distant future. Nano-Bots are actually real, and as technology advances it seems to get smaller and more efficient, thus micro robots healing people will definitely be happening sooner or later. The virus that’s overtaking the planet in our story is also an actual real-life virus called adenovirus, which does make people mutate, perhaps not so drastically as we depict on our trailer, but we are aiming to touch on plausible scenarios and not solely on fiction. Part of the plot that we haven’t talked much about deals with hacking, it touches points related to technologic dependency and how vulnerable to attacks we have become. You can expect to interact with the militia and even receive help from them.
Josh
Would you be able to tell us a little more about the sorts of enemies we will expect to see in the game, aside from the ones shown in the pre-alpha trailer? Are there some really interesting or exciting ones you could tell us about?
Pixel Worm
In the pre-alpha trailer you can see three basic enemies that we’ve fully created: a little wheeled robot on the ground that rushes the player and explodes, a drone that flies around searching for the player and then chases after her shooting, and a big robot that stands there shooting missiles at the player. And of course there’s the mini-boss with his hookshot utility tool. One thing that wasn’t seen in the trailer is there are arenas where the enemies spawn in waves, each wave getting harder, and for the player to continue on they must defeat all the waves of enemies. We’re still designing the enemies that will be in the rest of the game, but you’ve seen those green toxic-waste pits and lakes in the trailer? There will be giant mutated fish jumping out of some of those, as well as some fish-bots that jump out and onto land and start pulling themselves towards the player. And in other environments there are going to be monkey-like enemies that swing from chain-to-chain, Tarzan-style, dropping things on the player from above.
Josh
In the trailer, we’ve seen Emily shooting laser beams from her Synth-Blaster as well as being able to navigate walls with the help of a grappling-hook like contraption; what other sorts of skills and gadgets do you have planned for the game, or is that a secret, by any chance?
Pixel Worm
We’d like to keep most the future powers and abilities secret, because not knowing what things the player can eventually do improves the feeling of exploration, and of course we’re still designing everything Emily can do. But one thing probably most people didn’t notice in the trailer was an active energy meter in the upper-left corner of the screen, under the life bar. Most active abilities are going to use up energy, and when Emily is out of energy, she can’t use them anymore until she gets her energy back. Energy Containers will be hidden throughout the game that can expand it, same with Life Containers (you can see a Life Container at the beginning of the trailer). I will give a sneak peak at one ability Emily will acquire later in the game: she is eventually going to be able to attach to certain walls and move up and along them. These are the same walls she can use the hookshot on, but those walls can extend beyond her ability to hookshot up since the hookshot requires energy for each shot while the wall attachment uses energy in a different way, so using the hookshot the players will be able to see areas they can’t reach, and later when they get the attachment device they can come back and explore further.
Josh
One of the primary goals is to make EMILY a game that will allow for complete freedom of navigation about the game world. Would you be able to tell us how the open-world aspect of EMILY will play out? For example, how will area transition work – is Emily going to traverse the world by means of a travel map screen? Are there areas that you wouldn’t expect to be able to go back to once you’ve gone past a certain point in the game’s story?
Pixel Worm
We have a map system that will reveal itself as players reach new areas, iconic of Metroid games, there will be some areas that you will only be able to reach if you have the correct configuration or upgrades. This doesn’t mean that if you come across locked areas without the correct configuration you won’t be able access them later in the game. We are trying new ideas with the ultimate goal of finding a good balance that feels familiar to old-school players but refreshing at the same time.
Josh
Will the story progress in a linear fashion, or will the player’s decision in the game impact upon the final outcome of the story? Would the order about which the player explores the world or the side quests they choose to complete make a difference to how the story progresses?
Pixel Worm
We are aiming for a non-linear progression system — we want players to experience and explore as they please. In order to create immersion we are giving players the power of choice, and yes, their choices will directly impact the unraveling of the story.
Josh
How big of a game world can players expect to explore? What sorts of environments will we be seeing in the game?
Pixel Worm
We want to deliver an extensive game world, however, we do not want to be over-ambitious and promise too much. We are keeping our focus on real expectations with our budget and time. You can look forward to exploring several environments, slums, underground facilities, assembly areas, urban environments and ultimately you will be able to travel to space and access orbiting bases!
Josh
There has been some recent backlash from the community over a couple of crowd-funded games that have been perceived as not having delivered on what was promised. At least two crowd funded titles come to mind that has made the unexpectedly and rather premature transition from alpha to final release. Any thoughts on this?
Pixel Worm
We’ve seen that happening and are very disappointed by it. It casts a bad light on crowdfunding when a successfully-funded project either never ships or ends up half-baked because they didn’t plan their budget/time well and/or had team members abandon ship. That’s not going to happen with EMILY – first off, we are experienced game developers, we’ve all previously taken games and other commercial projects from beginning to end, and some of us have been releasing commercial titles for years. This experience lets us choose realistic goals and schedules, keeps us on track during development, and teaches us what to do when things start to slip. We’ve also made sure to budget for every expense that many Kickstarters don’t think about, like taxes and the cost of making physical pledge rewards, and we’ve even dedicated some of the money for “overhead†— basically emergency funds to cover anything we didn’t think of, just in case. In addition, the core of Pixel Worm has already worked together for over a year. We know what we are like and what we are capable of, and we trust each other. Pixel Worm also has an official operating agreement we’ve all signed that deals with what to do when there are disagreements and how to keep the company going if the worst happens.
Josh
Communication with one’s supporters seems to be a very crucial aspect of crowd-funded projects that has been brought up many times. Supposing the Kickstarter is successful, what steps will you be taking to ensure that your supporters feel that their voices are heard and that there is a satisfactory product to look forward to at the end of the development process?
Pixel Worm
We plan on giving them access to our development forum and blog; they will be able to track our progress along the way. Opinion polls and weekly updates are also part of our plan. We agree that communication with supporters is essential and having their opinions at hand will help us deliver a game that surpasses their expectations.
Josh
To what extent do you see the game’s development process being influenced by the Kickstarter or early access supporters? Do you already have a road map of sorts of the planned features, story line and general direction that the game will go through? Or will the development of the game be mainly influence by what the fans and supporters want?
Pixel Worm
We’ve got a definite plan for the game’s storyline and features and all – we are making EMILY a game that we want to play ourselves, and wish already existed. Having said that, we’ve seen how some projects, such as Richard Garriott’s Shroud of the Avatar, have been greatly improved by supporter feedback, so we plan on involving supporters in some of the decisions through our forums and definitely in the beta test. But they are going to be helping us tweak and perfect certain aspects of the game; it’s not being crowd-designed.
Josh
Finally, are there any other projects in the works for after EMILYÂ has been released? Are there any particular genres or themes that Pixel Worm is looking to develop for with regards to future projects?
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Pixel Worm
Pixel Worm strives to evolve with every project. Like everything else we’ve done previously, the production of EMILY was a learning experience, especially stemming from the circumstances that brought us all together in the first place. The thought of a sequel to EMILY is always something that would be considered, but we prefer to take what we’ve learned along the process, and apply that excitement to new game titles. For now though we are applying everything we have to EMILY. We want to make sure EMILY is the game we really want, and only then will we start thinking about what to do next.
Josh
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Any closing words for both current supporters and future supporters of EMILY?
Pixel Worm
First we want to thank everyone who’s been kind enough to believe-in and support our Kickstarter campaign. It’s a very competitive environment, but it has also been a great experience. For future supporters, we need your help to make this happen!
We at Mouse n Joypad would like to thank Javier , Mike and Joshua for their time and look forward to seeing EMILY in its final release. Hopefully you’ve found this interview informative and that the game has piqued your interest. The kickstarter for EMILY will end on 16th October 2014 (UK and US time), so don’t forget to head over and give your show of support if you’d like to see EMILY released to the gaming masses: RIGHT HERE
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