Shelled!

Imagine a 3D game that was originally a turn-based tank game. In this game, players only objective is to destroy each other using a wide-array of explosive devices and wacky gadgets and weaponry. Now take that concept and make it where the turn-based element is dissolved. So players can freely move about the play-area, blasting everything in sight and getting those same weapons to destroy and completely demolish the play area. That description belongs to a game called Shelled, by RedThumb Games. You can check out the review of the game, and below is our interview with the creator, Joshua Dallman.

VG Core: With Shelled, you mentioned a while back that there were plans for two separate versions of the game. Is that still a possibility, or is this release of the game complete and final?

Dallman: The game is complete and final.

VG Core: In a previous interview, you stated that you were determined to "make par" with Shelled. As developers 21-6 and Maxgaming have risen the bar in independent gaming. Do you think the indie scene in general needs to keep raising the bar, or do you think only dedicated developers should aim for the above-par standards?

Dallman:Great question! Opinions on production quality vary widely. In the end, it all comes down to your goal. Do you want to get published on the portals, through distributors and resellers, in boxes? Then go for the highest production values you can. The more your game "brings to the table" the further it will go down those paths.

On the other hand, if you don't care about running a business and just want to make games, throw production quality out the window! Production quality does not make a good game. Presently I am producing at GarageGames, and would you believe that the most innovative and exciting game we are publishing has a graphical prowess barely above MS paint? But it's so much fun, you don't notice or care about the graphics, and we snapped it up for publishing in a heartbeat without a second thought, and expect it to be a quiet hit. Meanwhile, most publishers wouldn't get past the screenshots to even try the demo.

Dallman: As another example, a few years ago I played a game that was created in one day, code and art. It was awesome! I kept in touch with the developer, and he continued development on it, including a graphical update. Well, that update killed the game! The original had an MS paint charm to it like it didn't care whether it looked good or not, and was just pure fun. The update had a self-consciousness to it; like a grungy punk rocker who is suddenly worried about their disheveled hair being the "just right" kind of disheveled.

Indie does not yet have an aesthetic the way indie music or film does. If you know better but don't care, that's indie -- you're just having a good time. But if you don't know good production quality from bad in the first place, AND don't care, that's just being ignorant.

Many indies are struggling to learn what good production quality means. They want to get to the point of having a good looking game. Good production quality is "conventional," and they are pre-conventional. But once they reach the point of conventionality, they often stay there, churning out great looking great playing games that do little in the way of artistry and innovation. If they do move beyond conventionality, they become post-conventional. The problem with post-conventional is that on the surface pre-conventional and post-conventional appear the same (sloppy). The difference is, one knows better but doesn't care (post-conventional), the other cares but doesn't know better (pre-conventional).

Dallman: For indies to have a unified aesthetic, they have to transcend into this post-conventional space. Once that happens, the budgets required for their games will go down, and the quality of their games (by way of proportional time they're now spending on gameplay) will go up.
People will start to seek out "indie" games as a niche more and more. And they will be able to make money, in the same way indie bands and filmmakers do, because there will be a real theme that draws people to that type of game. It's hard to say if first there needs to be the eyeballs and audience, or first there needs to be the games.

In any case, it's important indies first learn conventional production quality, but once they've learned it they need to know that they have a choice whether to stay there or move beyond, and that moving beyond isn't moving back.

VG Core: Previously you mentioned that a lot of gamers didn't quite know what to make of Shelled. I'm curious, has the gaming community looked at Shelled differently since its release as a full version freeware title?

Dallman:I think people still don't know quite what to make of it. Is it a third person tank game? A first person shooter? A trajectory strategy game? In fact, it's all of these. A valid critique is that the game isn't focused enough; a valid counter is that it's exactly this unique blend that makes the game truly different. As an artist, I'd rather make something new that flops, then tread where others have before and get accolades that are so expected that they can practically be heard in advance.

The only thing different about Shelled's perception since its release is the question about why the heck I wouldn't try to sell a game that looked and played this good when there are tons of games out there making small sums that look and play far worse.

VG Core: Yeah, actually I’m curious about that. Why is the game being offered as freeware when it could easily have a budget-price tag on it? I’ve played games of far worse quality (in any category of design) that went for the unworthy price of $19.95.

Dallman:There was no one reason, it was multiple. First, I released my previous game Sploidz (sploidz.com) for free, and got big points in the indie community for doing that. It was a good experience that I wanted to repeat. Second, and most significantly, I've since joined up with GarageGames. Doing so, I wished to put Shelled and Red Thumb Games to rest as I'm now working on more exciting things. Finally, I looked at sales statistics for indie games and determined that I'd only be making a few grand a year at best, and the potential return in reputation, PR, and good will by making the game free was worth far more to me than that. The game has been out for a month, and I feel really great about the price decision.

VG Core: You mentioned in a previous interview that it got pretty tight, financially, during the production of Shelled. Exactly how much did you put into the game, and did it seem like it was worth it during the hard times?

Dallman: Shelled cost $8,000 self-funded from my tech support day job. In my 10th month of development I was laid off so I moved to Mexico to complete my game and live cheaply on savings from contract work. I stayed a month, sleeping on beaches and in my car, and when I came back to the U.S. I kept living in my car for almost a year while I finished the game, in order to save further on expenses and have the time to work on it full time.

It was a tradeoff -- I was homeless, but I was a game producer full time! Struggling to finish the game was hard, but getting a taste of what full time producing work was like was motivation enough to keep me going.

VG Core: How common is it in the indie scene for designers to give up nearly everything to finish a project or complete a game?

Dallman:Rare, but stories are out there. For one, I point to Josh Ritter of Prairie Games, who explains what it took to make the indie MMORPG, Minions of Mirth: "We were self-funded for a portion of Minions of Mirth's development. We took everything we had, including credit cards, and maxed ourselves out. We moved to a remote town in North Dakota to minimize our cost of living. In 2005, we found a partner to assist with the funding. In short, we all took a tremendous risk." Josh is still in that small North Dakota town, minimizing living expenses and maximizing opportunities. His game has been a big success, and things keep opening up for him.

VG Core: In its current state, do you think the independent scene is marketing the right games to the right kind of gamers? Or is it possible that the gamers just aren't paying enough attention to the titles that branch outside of Bejeweled, Zuma, and Texas Hold E'm?

Dallman:The problem is that indie games can be every bit as vapid as their non-indie counterparts, but with more bugs and less production value. That being the case, why seek out indie games? Indie games have yet to achieve the critical mass needed to hold a collective of "indie gamers" attention. This mass is needed on the fronts of quantity, quality, and uniqueness. There aren't enough indie games, they're not high enough of quality (to play), and they're not unique enough in some way to be distinguished from corporate-made games.

Few people seek out indie games, but that can change. Right now, most indies looking for sales are looking for cues from their non-indie counterparts. They compare their indie games to the big ones, they try to clone them or modify one thing or such. They're still framing things totally from the big game company perspective, instead of ditching the frame and creating their own paradigm completely. There are affronts being made to solve this problem of connecting
audiences with indie developers; greatgamesexperiment.com is one such example. With such social networking driven gaming sites, gamers won't NEED to pay attention; the games will come to them, and the cream will rise to the top.

VG Core: Given competition/promotion from Xbox Live and the new Sony Online service for the PS3, do you think this will shine a spotlight on independent developers? Or is it possible smaller mainstream development companies would take advantage of the opportunity to develop smaller games for services that cater toward a large market of casual and hardcore gamers?

Dallman: Let's look at history. Microsoft coddled indies with Xbox Live Arcade because they needed games. As soon as their service gained momentum -- partially thanks to us -- they ditched us. The days of having a chance of getting an Xbox Live slot as an indie are over.

Sony, Nintendo, and whomever, will all do the same thing. Why? Because indies are not part of their culture. We're this fringe on the edge of the industry that they'll be happy to use (and those used will gladly do so), but they have no long-term strategy once the heat is drawn and bigger fish come to play. Indies will always be most at home on open systems (Win, Mac, Linux).
There will be forays onto console space, but our dips into managed portfolios are as tourists, not residents.

VG Core: If offered the opportunity, would you consider porting Shelled over as an indie arcade title for either of the next-gen consoles?

Dallman:It would never happen, but if afforded the opportunity, I'd license it to have someone else do it. I've moved on and I'm doing more interesting things. There will always be interest in consoles, but I think that attention disproportionately takes away from the real opportunity that indies have, and that is simply to make new games that push the medium further. You can do that on the PC with time to spare, or drain your time into a console title that's getting the privilege of being on a console by being something homogenized enough for the general public to digest - not exactly an honor in my book.

VG Core: An Editor from another gaming website mentioned that there is no way to actually branch out to the casual market, you just have to hope your efforts catch on and stick. Is it true that casual gamers, while a vast majority, are extremely hard to market to because of their outside affiliation with gaming in general?

Dallman:There is no demographic that is bigger or that has less in common with each other than casual gamers. Put a bunch of FPS fans in a room and they'll talk. Ditto for experimental games, or niches like hunting or sports. But casual gamers? What do they have in common? Little other than their incidental enjoyment of lowest common denominator gaming.

On the plus side, casual games have become almost a niche onto itself, making the titles that come out easy to recognize as belonging to the genre they do.

VG Core: For those who don’t know, what’s your current position at Garagegames, and what are some of the projects you’re working on, if you’re allowed to say?

Dallman:I'm now a producer at GarageGames -- I review incoming game submissions for our game store, seek out new games to publish, co-produce games with developers, create new games internally, and work with developers to seed games and promote our Torque technologies. It's great fun, and truly original and artistic games come along often enough to make it satisfying and worthwhile. I can't talk about current projects, but there are some hot, hot, hot indie titles debuting on garagegames.com in upcoming weeks that you won't be able to get anywhere else!

VG Core: What advice would you give to an aspiring game designer who has a great idea, but no financial support to break into the industry?

Dallman: It all comes down to what you can bring to the table. Want to break into the industry? A game makes a great calling card! Game companies want people who can make games. Make games and you will be someone who is wanted. Even if your games do not make money, they will open doors. As they say, shoot for the moon and even if you miss you will land among the stars.

VG Core: Thanks Josh for answering the questions. Any final comments for casual and hardcore gamers?

Dallman: People who buy indie records often do so as much to support the artists as to have the album. If you like indie games, support the indies making them!!!

Article By: Cyguration