Talking indie with Ishisoft

How is the life of a game developer who goes about things the old school way, on his own out of his bedroom? We tried to find out a little more...

First of all, tell us a bit about yourself...
I'm a bedroom games programmer from England. I'm also a professional games coder at the same time, although I've only been in the industry for around half a year so far!

...and a bit about the games you have made so far.
I've released a few games online now, starting off with a couple of remakes of Amiga games - Pushover and Clockwiser. My next major game aside from university projects was Treasure Treasure: Fortress Forage, a two-player platformer that I'm really proud of; the co-operative aspect turned out really fun. After that I made Johnny Platform's Biscuit Romp as DS Homebrew, and later ported it to XBLIG, followed by Johnny Platform Saves Christmas!.

How and when did you decide you wanted to make games?
Making games is pretty much the only job I can ever remember wanting to do, ever since I got my Amiga 600 when I was young, so I definitely have my gaming roots firmly in the retro 2D camp. I started coding as a hobby during school and eventually got into a games programming university course.

Johnny Platform seems to have won many a gamers heart... how did you get the idea for the title, scenario (the DS crossover) etc. - was it a solo project, did you need the help of others?
The idea originally started as a personal challenge to make a game in a week, so the game idea had to be small. The game mechanics are in part based on the PDA Games minigame from Alien Hominid, as I'd been playing that a lot at the time.

I wanted the game to be a no-nonsense old-school platform game. The name "Johnny Platform" is meant to highlight this, the character is just part of a platform game and doesn't have any other backstory. My friend James O'Hare did the design for Johnny and the evil robots, while I put together the rest of the game. The scenery and environments are also just standard platforming clichés, except maybe the biscuits - I did those because I was eating some at the time. With it being a simple game none of the development was too challenging, so I guess the biggest hurdle was fitting it all into a week!

It arrived on the Xbox Indie games scene, how difficult was it to get on Microsoft's service?
The porting of the game to the 360 went very smoothly, and getting it released was quite painless. Microsoft have done a good job in removing as many hurdles as is realistically possible to getting a game out and making it playable by people across the world.

Why did you go for a sequel to Johnny Platform instead of a new concept, what´s new in the sequel... fine-tuning?
I had plenty of new ideas that I thought would work well in a Johnny Platform game, like new enemy types and Johnny's roll move, so Johnny Platform Saves Christmas! was a way for me to make use of them. I also wanted to make a game that was tailored for the 360, so the sequel includes full-screen HD graphics rather than simply a scaled-up DS screen. I chose a Christmas theme because I thought it would give a nice overall theme to make the game feel different from the first, and also to prove that not all Christmas games have to be cheap cash-ins or reskins of old games.

Which platform do you think is the most feasible (money, easy of use etc.) one, or which do you prefer ...
I personally like XBLIG because I generally prefer console gaming over other forms. It's nice to know that the player will definitely be using the Xbox 360 controller, and that their console is guaranteed to be capable of running the game. On the PC there is always the worry of whether their machine is powerful enough or if they have the right things installed. The iPhone certainly has possibilities too, though I'm not interested in buying a Mac to try it out at the moment. From a sales viewpoint all of the platforms certainly have possiblities as long as the game is good. There is much less competition in the XBLIG marketplace, although of course the XBLA market overshadows it significantly.

Which programming languages/skills/schools, do you think people need to concentrate on before thinking about making a game? Other considerations?
It really depends on how technically minded you are and how much time you want to spend learning things before you can make something resembling a game. Programs like Game Maker or Multimedia Fusion are a more visual way to put things together, but if you want to have more flexibility in the long term, I would definitely recommend learning a language like C++ or C#.

When they have these skills, what´s next on the agenda?
The main thing is to start small. I'm sure its been said plenty of times before, but even trying to complete a small game like a tetris clone will take much longer than you expect. Secondly, practice! Whether you're writing code or drawing artwork, you can improve greatly over time as long as you put the effort in. Don't worry about making mistakes and just go for it.

Main reasons you would/wouldn´t you recommend anyone getting into developing games?
Game development is definitely hard work, but in a good way (most of the time, at least). If you're willing to put the time, effort and love into a game, it's so rewarding just to know people are playing it.

Tell us about your inspirations, or what you dislike most about the gaming business...
I have far too many inspirations to pick a favourite. The entire indie games community itself is very encouraging and motivating; it's amazing how productive some people can be! My favourite game or console is also too hard to choose, especially since it depends a lot on my mood at the time. As for things I dislike about the games industry, there's plenty I could mention, but I'm not going to in the interests of maintaining a positive attitude! I love the industry at the end of the day, so that's what matters.

... and finally what´s next for Ishisoft?
I'm working on more potential XBLIG games at the moment, although it's too early days to say what they are yet! I'm trying to mix things up a bit and stay away from platform games for a while, though.

I've also been doing a bit of sprite work for Erin Robinson's Puzzle Bots game, so keep an eye out for that soon!

Thanks for your time and good luck :)
Thanks!