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It’s been quiet here at the App Shack, but that is the sign of a long and arduous week. Thankfully there has been a break in the onslaught, and we are back with an exciting interview with Rodeo Games (the brains behind the Hunters series). With Hunters 2 releasing this week, hopefully this article gets you excited for the game if you aren’t already. Watch for our review soon.
Initials stand for Ben Murch, Adam Clixby and Richard Brooks.

BM: We were all friends before Rodeo formed. Laurent was my next door neighbour when I first moved to Guildford. Adam, Rich and I all worked together at Codemasters. Then two things happened. Firstly, the App Store appeared, which empowered people like us to make and publish the games we wanted. Secondly, Laurent and I got stranded in Vegas for an extra week when the whole volcano ash cloud thing happened. In between all the gambling and drinking, we outlined what to do and hit the ground running with Adam and Rich when we got back!

BM: I really hope not! The Hunters universe is pretty bleak. A sort of morally bankrupt place where killing people is seen as a means to get paid! Private corporations running things though, that seems more believable. You can already see the current world going that way a little now, and you can imagine someone like Branson landing on Mars and claiming it in the name of Virgin.

BM: Haha, good spot! It was originally in there for a joke, because that Hunter had 100% accuracy when we were testing the game. Then we just got attached to the name. It seems to fit for some reason.

RB: From a technical point of view, using a top-down camera allows us to do a lot to make the game look as good as it does.  It means we can keep the fidelity of the graphics really high.
BM: Yes, our choice of viewing angle is mostly based on the nature of the game. Top down is the most effective for turn based strategy. The whole up close and personal view could be cool for kill-cams, but the amount of work we’d have to do to get it in the game wouldn’t be worth the payoff!

AC: Absolutely.  The daily contract system is something we really liked about the first game – and something we got a lot of positive feedback about.  By getting a new set of contracts each day, you really want to keep coming back – it keeps the game feeling fresh.
Something else we’ve included in Hunters 2 after a lot of requests is a ‘hardcore’ mode in which your hunters are permanently removed from the game if they are killed on a mission.  It makes for some very tense (and cowardly) play!
BM: We’ve also totally revamped the talents system. It’s now more dynamic and personalised than before. Each hunter has access to general talents and two specialist trees. Figuring out which combinations work for your style of play is really cool.

BM: We do have something really really awesome lined up, but we can’t talk about it just yet.

Ravenous Games is
currently a one man indie operation. I work alongside other indie teams and
sub-contract as necessary.

Just me
I’ve always moonlighted doing game development but before doing it full-time I was a web developer.

Woblyware is
responsible for creating the original League of Evil. Ravenous Games came along
and pretty much did a straight port of the Flash game and helped build some iOS
exclusive content with no real direction for the story. For League of Evil 2,
BulletProof Outlaws came up with a GREAT story line and illustrated a whole
bunch of comic book pages. The game actually feels much more rewarding knowing
there is a plot backing it.

When we finished our game Cave Run and started looking for another game to port over to iOS we came across League of Evil online and contacted the authors.

Woblyware and Ravenous
played tested the levels and did our best to estimate a good average level
time. For League of Evil 2, we actually averaged beta testers level times and
perform some analytics on the save game files to help determine a difficulty
curve. The results is much better progression during the chapters and more
reasonable level times.

We are looking to
cater to a wider audience this time around with League of Evil 2. We know we
won’t be able to please everyone but we are thrilled with the new look!
Hopefully the original fans will appreciate it as well. We know we will lose
the hardcore pixel-junkie fans for the sequel but gameplay is king and League
of Evil 2 is still has the same great gameplay (and controls) as the original.
We took extra care to make sure it plays as well as the first game but honestly
believe this game is superior in every way possible.

Jeff and I have worked
on projects in the past. He’s an incredible artist and did a fantastic job with
the art on League of Evil 2.

We
plan on putting a couple updates out for League of Evil 2. We also have a
couple more pixel games coming courtesy of Woblyware. As for League of Evil, we
will determine based on League of Evil 2’s success whether a third game is
something we should consider!

Recently I managed to get in touch with Rion Holland over at Lab Rats Studio, the development team behind upcoming Third-Person Shooter M.U.S.E. This game is shaping up to be a down-right awesome shooter and brings back memories of arcade-style multiplier mayhem. Look for preview screens after the break.

– Can you give us some basic background about Lab Rats Studio? When did you guys form the team and what motivated you to enter the development scene?

Lab Rats Studio was formed a little over a year ago by four Wake Technical Community College students with a passion for game development. We all knew finding jobs at game studios in today’s economy would be very difficult with no experience, so we decided to do it ourselves. Lab Rats Studio was one of the inaugural companies to complete Joystick Labs’ three month game development business accelerator program in Durham, North Carolina. We all had a drive to work on our own game and have creative control over the process, which is what led us to create Lab Rats Studio. We realized that the mobile market was growing and there was not a lot of heavy competition for a game like M.U.S.E. yet.

– How did you come up with the ideas behind M.U.S.E.? Have you drawn inspiration from any other games?

As a lot of other games do, we of course drew inspiration from other games that we enjoy. We knew we wanted to create a third person shooter that was visually impressive and consisted of “console-like” shooter gameplay. We sometimes describe M.U.S.E. as a sort of Sci-Fi Max Payne set in a dark alternate present day. Others have noted inspirations from games like Duke Nukem and Gears of War. We then added on top of the shooting a layer of arcade scoring and combo systems that gives the game a competitive aspect to compete with friends to get high scores where players can post high scores to leaderboards via GameCenter or OpenFeint. We, of course, feel like M.U.S.E. is totally different than any other game out there, especially on the mobile market.

– What sort of struggles have you guys faced during the development of M.U.S.E. so far? How have you managed to overcome them?

Our biggest struggle has been that this is our first marketable game as a new game studio, so it has been a learning experience for all of us. We didn’t have a lot of time to spend in pre-production, which is a crucial stage of the game development process, that made us come up with concepts and designs within the production cycle. We also had a pretty large vision for what we wanted M.U.S.E. to be which had to be managed to make it work for mobile devices.  As an independent game development studio, we struggled a lot with money and keeping a staff of up to nearly 10 people. All of the people on our development team are extremely talented and dedicated individuals that have continued to work their butts off for the past year to make this game happen. We have managed to create this game on a shoestring budget and are very proud of what we have accomplished.

– What do you guys hope to bring to the App Store with M.U.S.E.? How will this push the iOS gaming platform further into the future?

We are bringing fun and immersive gameplay to the shooter genre on mobile devices. We took a play style that is popular on consoles and made it work for mobile devices so that people looking for a slightly more traditional “shooter” gameplay experience will feel at home in M.U.S.E. The controls have been through much testing and iteration to bring an intuitive and comfortable feeling as similar to a controller layout as possible. As briefly mentioned before, we added an arcade style scoring system and RPG inspired upgrade system to give the game some competition and replayability. Players will also be able to purchase currency via IAP for faster upgrades, or can play through the game and gain currency upon beating levels based off their scores. We are also very happy with the level of detail and quality of artwork we were able to accomplish on mobile devices that will only continue to get better as both we and the hardware continue to develop in the future.

– M.U.S.E. is looking really awesome. Can you tell us about some of the key features that we will see in the game?

M.U.S.E. will feature:

• – Gorgeous visuals that showcase the full power of the iPhone4S and iPad 2 and rival console games for graphical richness and detail.
• – Arcade-style scoring system that awards players points for combo kills and massive destruction.
• – Compete against and challenge friends for the highest scores in Game Center (iOS) and Open Feint (Android)  leaderboards.
• -“Adrenaline Mode” that is both a beginner’s lifeline and an elite player’s high scoring tool.
• – Equip a variety of high-tech weapons as you fight against an army of cybernetic enemies.
• – Upgrade your character as you play with over 80 individual upgrades for Sid and his weapons.
• – Destructible environments rigged for maximum destruction and pyrotechnic mayhem.
• – Immersive single-player campaign with a storyline told through comic book-style cutscenes.
• – Full support for iOS 5’s AirPlay mirroring so you can watch your explosive firefights on your big-screen HDTV.
• – iCloud saving so you can play on one device and pick up where you left off on another.

– You’ve mentioned an “Adrenaline” Mode. Can you expand on that feature?

“Adrenaline Mode” is a feature we have added to M.U.S.E. that is similar to a “rage” mode in other games where Sid literally shoots himself in the leg with a shot of adrenaline and goes into a state of heightened awareness and power. First off, adrenaline is gained by dispatching enemies or destroying environment objects in game. When your adrenaline meter is full and begins to flash, you can enter adrenaline mode which will slowly regenerate the player’s health, puts an outline on enemies and destructible objects to make them easier to see, bursts the player into slow motion after kills and destruction so they can plan their next move, and puts a bloom effect on screen. While in adrenaline mode, you can extend the timer by continuing to kill enemies and destroy objects, and the longer you do so, the more your adrenaline multiplier increases (the 0.0x in the top right). Every kill in adrenaline mode is multiplied by this value, so kills 60 seconds into adrenaline mode will yield 6x the normal score value, and then multiplied again by whatever your current chain value is.

To put it simply, each enemy and destructible has a base score value that is multiplied by the value of the combo chain, and then again by the adrenaline multiplier if you’re in it. So if you kill a Vorg Zed Ultra (base score 700) with a 3x combo chain when the adrenaline multiplier is at 2.5x, you’ll net 5250 points. Adrenaline mode is both an emergency lifeline for those that are about to die and need that extra boost, and a high-scoring method for the elite player that is trying to top their friends’ high scores.

– When do you hope to release M.U.S.E.? Have you discussed a price point?

M.U.S.E. is planned for release in December 2011 just in time for the Holidays. We plan to price the game within the same realm of our competition.

– What does Lab Rats Studio have planned for the future?

We plan to put out a content update for M.U.S.E.: Episode 1 about a month after launch that will include two more levels and a final boss fight level to complete the episode. There will be some added enemy variations and possible new upgrades and weapons to use. After that, we plan to continue the game through three episodic installments to complete the franchise. We are striving to be a premiere cutting edge game development studio on the mobile market.

We really appreciate Rion and Lab Rats Studio taking the time to chat with us about M.U.S.E. To learn more about M.U.S.E. and the studio, check www.labratsstudio.com and follow them on Facebook and Twitter!

You may recognize the name Rocketcat from seeing some of their previous games like Hook Champ and Super Quick Hook.  Currently they are working on a RPG that goes back to the roots of classic RPG’s with no fetch quests and no grinding. Intrigued by their progress I asked them for a interview.  If you have any questions you want answered by RocketCat then shoot me a tweet or leave a comment on this article. Enjoy!
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Q: What role do you play in Rocketcat Games? (programmer, publisist etc)

A: Level and gameplay design mostly, and I run the company.
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Q:What do you feel you gain from each succesful game publish? Do you utilize the best elements from previous games or do you just start from scratch?


A: Each game teaches important lessons that we use in the next game. Even though Mage Gauntlet is a completely new genre, you’ll still be able to see the influences from previous games.
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Q: Regarding your recent game Mage Gauntlet, how do you feel this will alter the course of your studio. For example will you start branching out into other genres like Tactical RPG’s like Final Fantasy or revert back to the hook and jump that was loved by many?


A: You’ll see us move into the action-RPG genre for awhile. We also have been thinking about doing turn-based RPG’s, because we could easily make those using the same RPG engine. I don’t see us going back to the hook racing games anytime soon, at least for iOS.
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Q: Any plans for a sequel to Mage Gauntlet?


A: Yes, probably two direct sequels to continue the story, and also one limited story, all action spin-off.
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Q: What do you feel about making a platformer with rpg elements that also incorporates the hook and jump mechanism?


A: We were going to make a grappling-hook metroidvania sort of game. We stopped working on it because it just didn’t seem to fit the iOS platform too well, for a variety of reasons. We might revive that project later on, maybe as a PC game instead.
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Q: What kind of sales do you expect for the new game?


A: No idea! If people find it and like it, it could sell a lot more than the hook games did, just because action-RPG’s are a really popular genre. Grappling-hook-racing is a much, much more niche genre in comparison.
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Q: How do you think people will react to the game and its spin of the RPG genre?


A: I think people that like classic-styled action RPG’s, but don’t like 40 hours of KRPG style grinding, will like this game. All the top-down action RPG’s I can think of right now for iOS are Korean RPG’s, which seem to universally have a really big focus on pointless grinding. We might even be the first classic RPG to hit the App Store that doesn’t have a “collect 10 firewood” quest.
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Q: Can you give us details on an example of a typical quest in the game?


A: There are no quests in the game, in the modern-day sense. That is, no collect 10 quests, no kill 20 quests. Instead, you’re exploring and fighting your way through the game’s story.
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Q: What is the main story of the game? What is your goal?


A: In the game story, your quest is to find three missing wizards that are important in preventing the Archdemon from escaping his banishment. You’re given a powerful magical gauntlet to assist you. About midway through the game, it becomes clear that you have to stop the Archdemon yourself.
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Q: How replayable would you say the game is? Are there many collectibles and other things you can find after the story?


A: There are a lot of secrets, collectibles, new swords and other equipment you can find, and achievements. There’s also a nightmare difficulty mode, with remixed levels and enemies, that you unlock by beating the game. For completionists, there’s a star-grade system for each level which unlocks pets that follow you around, and an optional kill-enemies-for-rare-hats bit.
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Q: How does it feel to be manager of a game company? Are you stressed out all the time trying to get your games to the next level or is it fairly laid back?


A: The last month of development for each game is pretty stressful. Otherwise it’s not, really.
When do you estimate the games release date?
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Q: When do you expect the game to release?


A:The game should be out either early Septermber or really late August. Not sure until we submit it
—————————-If you have any other questions you would like me to ask RocketCat Games you can comment on this post or  send us a tweet at our twitter page! Twitter:http://twitter.com/#!/TheAppShack
Check out their site here:http://www.magegauntlet.com/