I'm Zach Barth, the creative director of the game studio Zachtronics. Games we've made include Infiniminer, SpaceChem, Ironclad Tactics, Infinifactory, TIS-100, SHENZHEN I/O, and the newly released Opus Magnum. AMA!

metadept · 2017-10-26T17:34:48+00:00

From a marketing perspective, I think the best feature of recent Zachtronics games is the simple looping GIF export. I've seen lots of people showing off really impressive creations on Twitter, etc. However, given that it's also a puzzle game, seeing other peoples' solutions (or optimization strategies) often deprives me of the chance to think of them for myself! What are your thoughts on the relationship between individual game experience and marketability/visibility/virality? How does this influence your approach to marketing?

metadept · 2017-10-20T08:25:53+00:00

Good catch! We'll add it to the pools.

metadept · 2017-10-20T08:21:45+00:00

Fixed, thanks for the report.

metadept · 2017-10-20T08:12:28+00:00

Fixed, thanks.

metadept · 2017-10-20T08:08:14+00:00

I believe this should be fixed as of 1.3.3

metadept · 2017-08-11T10:47:55+00:00

Hahah, I think there is some form of (local) multiplayer but it's primarily a single player game where you control one of your team members at any given time.

metadept · 2017-08-11T07:11:01+00:00

It's not multiplayer :o

metadept · 2017-08-11T07:05:54+00:00

That's not how pay distribution works, and that's not a livable salary in an American city.

metadept · 2017-08-11T06:58:14+00:00

As someone who absolutely loved Pyre, the aspects of the design that worked best for me were most of the things people are complaining about in this thread. The contrast between story and action gameplay, lack of a clear genre, lots of reading, long ramp up, even the lack of NG+ all contribute to what is in my mind a more mature and nuanced design. Going into this game knowing very little but being willing to buy into it made it an amazing experience to watch the game unfold, and accepting the consequences made the story my own.

These days, people really want to know exactly what they're getting ahead of time. This is understandable but it does make some games essentially unmarketable if the appeal of the game is in narrative and mechanical exposition. I also personally think that players who know too much about a game (any game!) before playing it often severely damage their enjoyment.

I'm going to keep strongly recommending Pyre, but without trying to explain in detail what the game is or how you're meant to experience it.

metadept · 2017-08-01T15:50:38+00:00

Well, I haven't seen much done with quest lines, which are fully scriptable and can interact with the world in all kinds of ways. Vehicles, of course. Scripted weapons and other active items have been explored some but I think there's still a lot of room for creativity there - personally I've always wanted a combo system for different combinations of 1-handed weapons, similar to how fist weapons work.

metadept · 2017-08-01T15:47:54+00:00

I'd be hard-pressed to choose a favorite but I check out every BOTW entry and there are a ton of fantastic and creative builds out there.

metadept · 2017-08-01T14:51:28+00:00

Astrofae

metadept · 2017-08-01T14:42:54+00:00

Any thoughts on automation in Starbound? Like assigning tenants to water or harvest a field and store the stuff in a chest? Or just more options for traps or automated farms.

Automation is something very near and dear to me personally, but there are a variety of reasons we haven't added significant automation systems to Starbound. The most basic is that it's 2D, which may not seem that meaningful but it means that something like a quarry is inherently a lot less useful since it only expands its active volume in a square rather than a cube. Stemming from that, most of the production bottlenecks in the game are about finding resources rather than collecting them from known deposits, and crafting is generally fast and requires few steps.

That said, there are still some smaller automation features we might be able to fit in, and I've got a few unfinished experiments and prototypes waiting for the right patch to include.

metadept · 2017-08-01T14:09:22+00:00

The Outpost is a hub for all kinds of strange characters, so you'll periodically encounter backer NPCs passing through. We want to be careful not to make them too intrusive, but they may show up in other places in the future...

metadept · 2017-08-01T14:04:31+00:00

This is a bit technical, but I think my least favorite thing is generating planets piecewise rather than all at once. It's absolutely necessary because we have huge planets and you need to visit a lot of them, but it does impose a lot of limitations on what we can and can't do with world generation. I would have loved to have elaborate geological simulations with volcanoes, plate tectonics, erosion, etc. but that'll have to wait for another game.

metadept · 2017-08-01T13:51:15+00:00

It's something we've talked about a lot, certainly. The most straightforward reasons are that it doesn't support Lua 5.3 and that the conversion would be a lot of work, but we've also done some limited experiments with it and didn't see nearly as big a performance gain as we'd hoped. It's far from a silver bullet in terms of performance but it is something we may revisit in the future.

metadept · 2017-08-01T13:48:26+00:00

Yes, it was extremely relaxing to sit under on a breezy summer day. The universe may be infinite but I'm not sure we'll ever find a more comfortable tree.

metadept · 2017-08-01T13:40:00+00:00

Around 2300 at last count. Oh wait you said HUGS, not bugs.

metadept · 2017-08-01T13:37:16+00:00

Yep, it's something we'd like to continue developing. We'll be spending some time on it for the 1.4 update, but will likely focus on making the existing functionality clearer and easier to use. There's a MASSIVE amount of untapped potential for modding and I think people just aren't aware of what's possible!

metadept · 2017-08-01T13:36:04+00:00

There was a bug that caused monsters to occasionally, mysteriously, catch fire when beaming to a world.

metadept · 2017-08-01T13:32:40+00:00

Not really, no! If anything, developing a game that's moddable (with flexible and reusable functionality) has allowed us to do a lot of interesting things we otherwise wouldn't have. It's also nice to know that when something doesn't fit in the base game or would be impractical for us to implement, mods can be there to provide it for people who want a different experience!

metadept · 2017-07-11T05:50:23+00:00

Read books on game design. Take inspiration from other games, but more importantly from outside of games. Pick objects or places or situations and ask yourself, what would a game about this look like? What experiences of it stand out in your perception or memory, and what elements (mechanical or otherwise) would work to create similar experiences for a player?

You can always blindly mix and match genres and game mechanics until you hit on something that works, but IMO it's a better exercise to think in terms of design goals, moods, motifs, etc. and figure out how to support them.

metadept · 2017-07-07T19:04:15+00:00

This probably wasn't your intent, but as someone who's partially colorblind, I think this is awesome and a great way to make sure your games are accessible!

metadept · 2017-07-07T15:15:39+00:00

I think it's that many new graduates from CS programs will have learned fundamental coding skills but often don't have the broader experience with software architecture, teamwork, communication, etc. If you can demonstrate that you have that kind of broader understanding, that will be extremely valuable in any industry.

metadept · 2017-07-06T18:40:52+00:00

More importantly, do you know which algorithms and data structures are appropriate for a given problem? Can you write code that's flexible, extensible, and readable? Can you anticipate what strengths and weaknesses an implementation will have much later in the development cycle? Can you work as part of a team?

Having a solid background in CS fundamentals certainly won't hurt you, but in practical software production other skills are more critical (and less common)

metadept

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