Twisted Pixel Games, developers of the fantastic 'Splosion Man, agreed to answer our interview questions. Go check out 'Splosion Man on the Xbox Live Arcade! Thanks Twisted Pixel Games! Hit Read More to check out the interview from CEO Michael Wilford.
1) With the recent release of Splosion Man how do you feel about both the critical and the community’s response to the game?
The response has far surpassed what we expected. Honestly, we weren't sure people would get the sense of humor in the game. It's pretty wacky and there are a lot of WTF moments. The fact that everyone seems to be digging it is awesome!
2) What inspired you to come up with such a weird and wacky game?
It was actually a collaboration of everyone at the company. We like to buy lunch for everyone now and then to discuss new game ideas. Splosion Man started as a joke in one of those meetings and we kept tacking on stupider and stranger ideas until it became this unholy beast. When it came time to pitch new concepts to publishers, everyone wanted me to pitch Splosion Man and I was worried publishers would laugh us out of the room. But amazingly, everyone we talked to loved the idea and the next thing we knew we were making Splosion Man!
3) What inspired you to create the Donut Man and the huge amount of Meat in the game?
One of the original ideas that was thrown out in that lunch meeting was that Splosion Man is insane and doesn't know right from wrong so all he wants to do is run up and hug scientists. But because he's made out of splosion, the scientists just blow up. Then someone suggested using scientists as body shields, like Quaid in Total Recall. Donuts came about during development when our sound guy Matt "Chainsaw" Chaney asked if he could make a donut song. It's one of many times someone on the team came up with an awesome idea on the spot just because they were having so much fun working on the project. We quickly learned to let Chainsaw and other team members experiment with stuff.
4) Do you have any word on when the avatar accessory unlock will be available for the game, and how will it be unlocked?
Unfortunately, I don't know when the avatar awardables will become available, but Microsoft is promising it will be soon. Splosion Man will definitely be the first game to support awardables and we're just as eager as you are to see them on our own avatars.
5) Do you plan to support Splosion Man with patches, for example the sync problems when playing coop online?
We are aware of the sync issues that some people are having. It only affects connections that have a high percentage of dropped packets, so playing with a faster connection or with someone geographically closer to you should avoid the issue. We're getting more information on the problem as we speak and will figure out what to do about it. After all the hard work we put into it, we definitely want everyone to have fun with multiplayer.
6) Do you plan to support Splosion Man with DLC, much like with The Maw – will this be Co-op or Single Player Content?
Nothing to announce yet regarding DLC. If we do it, we want it to be something special.
7) How do you feel about the Xbox Live Arcade and where it’s headed?
I love it! As a game developer, it has given us a business! As a fan, I play more XBLA games than I do retail. I think XBLA is only going to get bigger and better as time goes on. Digital distribution didn't exist in the last generation of consoles. Considering how far it's come already, it's fun to think about what it will be like when the next generation of consoles come along.
8) Do you feel the Summer of Arcade promotion has played a role in the game’s initial success?
Definitely. You hear gamers asking for more original IP and less sequels all the time. But it can be very hard to get those same people to pay attention to our original IP concepts because games with established IP are stealing the show. Summer of Arcade has introduced Splosion Man to a lot of people that wouldn't have known about it otherwise. We're very grateful for that, because we just want to keep coming up with new, original, crazy, character-driven games that people haven't heard of before.
9) Do you think you will ever return to either The Maw or Splosion Man in the future for a sequel?
It's definitely a possibility. But we take the Pixar approach to sequels, where we'd only be interested if we felt there was a compelling new story or gameplay idea that we wanted to try. We're not interested in rehashing the same thing to cash in on known IP.
10) What can we expect to see from Twisted Pixel Games in the future?
You can expect more of the same off the wall humor, and hopefully higher production values. We're starting to get a little more time and money to spend on our games, and I'm excited to see what we can do with it. We're working on a new IP now that will definitely trump everything we've done before.
Thanks a lot for this we really do appreciate it
Absolutely, thanks for the great questions!
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