Welcome to Show and Tell, a new regular that gives local Australian Indie Developers the chance to show their latest work, whether its a finished game or a work in progress. Today we’re talking to the folks at the newly formed Soundplay Interactive.
Can you introduce yourself and tell me a little bit about your studio/team?
My name is Trevor and I’m the game & audio designer for my newly launched studio, Soundplay Interactive. Soundplay Interactive is a studio that’s really passionate about game design and audio design, the studio is based in Melbourne, Victoria.
My goal for the studio is to not only develop fun and engaging games, but to also assist other studios in designing and implement audio in their own projects when they don’t have the facilities to do so themselves. I really want to push my projects to explore the relationship between game design and audio design in an interactive space.
Soundplay Interactive is currently working on a debut title for iOS & Android that is due in the near future, I’m also working on audio asset packages for Unity 3D, as well as designing, producing and implementing audio for several client projects.
What game are you working on at the moment?
I’m really lucky to be currently working with a group of three really talented developers on what will soon become Soundplay Interactive’s debut game. Dewald Hein (Programer), Duncan Little (Programer) and Yangtian Li (Artist) have all been working with me over the past few months to develop a rough prototype into a fun, polished and releasable title.
The debut game is roughly based on a prototype that was created at the 2012 Melbourne 48 Hour Global Game Jam, since then, we’ve had time to refine the game, to think about the mechanics and to break down what it is that is most fun about the game and concentrate on that, I think we’re really getting there!
The game is a side-scrolling endless runner, where the player has to jump over or slide under both ground and air based hazards, while doing this, the player will also need to collect the spirits of evil monsters, by collecting the spirits, this fuels the players power up ability providing them with different ways to navigate the environmental hazards and game environment. We really want to try and create a fun collecting system in the game that’s heavy on player reward.
While we have no in game shots ready to show at this stage, I’m really excited to be able to reveal our latest piece of concept art created by Yangtian Li (www.yangtianli.com) for the still untitled game right here on Kotaku! We’re really proud of it and I think it captures what we’re trying to do with the game perfectly.
The teams programmers, Dewald and Duncan are currently working hard on creating custom systems in Unity 3D that have allow us to support and create extra content for the game in a much easier manner.
They’ve also been creating custom plugins that allow us to create random systems that effect gameplay. Early on in the development cycle we realised that to keep the game interesting we needed unique environments while keeping it random.
We came up with a solution where we would create a variety of small chunks of the environment like puzzle pieces. During the course of the game, based on a few parameters, the system chooses random chunks, and sews them together to create a never-ending unique level.
By tweaking a few parameters we can control the flow of the level and dictate the difficulty curve as time progresses.
Where and when can we play?
We’ll let you know as soon as a testable build of the game is ready to go, for those that are interested in testing the game on both iOS and Android devices shoot an email to teststuff[at]soundplayinteractive.com and we’ll get in touch as soon as we start the next test phase!
The final build of the game will be available for sale for both iOS and Android devices in the near future!
What’s next for your studio/team — any big plans?
The main thing for Soundplay Interactive at the moment is to do our best to create a game that people want to play, a game that provides an experience that players value and want to experience again and tell their friends and family about!
If you want to keep up-to-date on our processes and updates, you can follow our blog over at www.soundplayinteractive.com
Any words of advice for those who want to get into the games industry?
Make games, start networking and start reading!
The best thing you can do if you want to get into the games industry is to just start making games, grab some sheets of paper, some pencils and a dice and make a prototype. Get people to play it, record their reactions, it does’t matter if you get a negative response or a positive response, each time someone plays one of your games you will learn something, this will make your designs better!
The really great thing that’s happening in the games industry at the moment is how the tools that were once inaccessible to those that wanted to make games are now free to use or still affordable for those on a small budget. Look at software like Unity 3D, Game Maker, UDK and Stencyl, all of these are well documented and have great community support if you ever get stuck.
The next best thing you can do is to start networking with those already making games or that are in the same position you are, look at attending events such as the International Game Developers Association (http://www.igda.org) events, find your local events and head down and meet the awesome people that are in your local industry, they’re supportive, friendly and are move than happy to share stories, feedback and tips over a drink!
The web is a valuable resource of games design material and case studies, below is a list of some fantastic sites that I frequent as well as a few books that may be of interest!
Websites:
Game Studies
IndieBits
GamesIndustry.biz
Gamasutra
Books:
Rules of Play
The Art of Games Design
Half-Real
Rise of The Video Game Zinesters
I’m always happy to talk to people looking at starting to make games, if you want to get in touch try the below contact details!
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