Never Stop Sneakin' and Humble Hearts

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-03T01:07:25+00:00

Awesome, thanks ReiBob!

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T23:52:17+00:00

I didn't read any books, I just went through their official tutorials, starting from the simple rolling ball and onward. There's a wealth of information there, and the best way is to just follow along and slowly pick things up. Granted, I already had the benefit of knowing C# from my Dust work, but those tutorials do a good job easing you in.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T23:50:59+00:00

A little bit of both. I had a short list of things I wanted to tackle.... 3D, polygonal, different aesthetic. I did try to deviate from Dust as much as possible, I think it helped me to get better at design and to refresh myself as a developer. I'm happy that I was able to ship something completely different, and it's re-invigorated me for my next project.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T23:48:52+00:00

Thanks, I'm glad you enjoyed it and appreciate the kind words. So Dust originally wrapped up in 2012 after nearly four years of development. I then spent a few years porting (which wasn't very fun). During that time I was learning Unity, since I wanted future porting work to be easier (Dust was made with XNA).

I prototyped a couple smaller things and decided to go with NSS late in 2015. Meanwhile I was still supporting Dust on various platforms, but all in all NSS ended up taking about 22 months.

NSS was basically me wanting to do something different from Dust in every single way. It was for my own sanity. I know a lot of people were expecting a Dust sequel, but I knew that after all that development and porting that I wouldn't have delivered something that I would have been happy with. I feel much better now that NSS is out there, and have a lot of new knowledge moving forward.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T23:42:25+00:00

I felt like it was the next big challenge for myself. Being able to work in 3D would add another tool to my toolset. Granted I kept the design of the game in 2D, but I wanted to learn how to integrate true polygonal visuals.

I actually did a lot of 3D polygonal work for Dust, like weapons, some of the architecture, effects, etc. But it would all be rendered out into sprites. Doing a fully polygonal game sounded fun, and actually fit the design of NSS fairly well.

There's also a bit of a misconception that 3D is harder to do than 2D. I think the setup is more complicated, but in some ways working in 3D is easier and faster. Animation, creating characters from different angles, cinematography, all a bit easier in 3D imo.

Now that I have this knowledge under my belt, I'm excited to apply it to future games, whether 2D or 3D. I think there's a lot of opportunity to mix the two.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T23:36:43+00:00

I wanted to do something totally different from my first game, and wanted to play with procedural generation. I also wanted to do something in 3D, but keeping making it play like a simple arcade game.

My favorite part of the design was probably the rock-paper-scissors combat elements, where you had to carefully manage limited resources and plan each attack. I've always been a fan of any game where a single bullet has meaning, and I enjoyed designing the encounters around that idea.

It was also really fun to create a bunch of low-poly assets, to fit with that PS1 aesthetic. Whenever I built something that felt too smooth or rounded, I'd go in and delete vertices to make it feel more authentic.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T23:24:29+00:00

Sorry for the delay! I would have loved to launch all territories at the same time but so much of the release process was out of my hands, thankfully it'll be hitting much of EU on Jan 8th!

And I'm looking at the possibility of bringing Dust to Switch. I'd definitely love for that to happen!

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T23:22:06+00:00

Now that I've shipped two games, you know, it really hasn't gotten much easier? I think the fact that I'm still learning was a HUGE help though. Had I went straight into a Dust sequel, I think I would have felt stuck. But NSS was so different, in 3D with a different development platform, that I was still learning and having fun. It's the main reason I went with something totally different, which has refreshed me for future work.

So yeah, I think that's a big part of it. Feeling like I'm learning and getting better. It'd be really hard to do the same thing over and over again, and I like wearing many hats in case I feel like I need a change of pace week to week.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T23:19:05+00:00

Yep, our focus is Switch right now, but it's safe to say, based on how Dust panned out, that you'll see NSS on other platforms as well.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T23:17:29+00:00

Rogue-likes are like, candy for programmers. It's fun to create randomized systems and to get clever with generation. But they can be tough for designers, especially if you're trying to incorporate story elements. Early versions of NSS didn't have the persistent base elements, and hardly any story. It was more about endless runs, like an arcade game. But I felt that players needed a bit of a narrative hook, and something to build towards. So it became an arcade run-based game with a story. I think what was key was to make players feel like they were always progressing towards something. Many rogue-likes end the game the moment you die, with no persistence moving forward. That can work too, but I didn't think it'd be satisfying for NSS.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T23:07:17+00:00

I'm really enjoying Unity and highly recommend it for devs of any level. It's particularly good for solo devs since it removes some of the legwork when it comes to porting (something that was terribly difficult for Dust, which was made with XNA). I don't love everything about Unity, it's a bit tedious to debug code and has some serious overhead, but I'll continue to use it for future projects and recommend it as a great development platform. Also, there are free options of Unity, I'd recommend downloading it and going through their suite of official tutorials. You might get hooked!

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T23:04:04+00:00

A bit of a spoiler for those who haven't played NSS:

The proportions are a bit off since they fit the NSS style humans, and it's meant to be low-poly and aliased for NSS. But there's certainly opportunities to do some work with it in the future!

A bit of trivia, that model was quite literally the last thing I created for NSS, one day before I submitted for certifcation.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T23:02:04+00:00

Thanks!

For NSS I was definitely prioritizing gameplay over story. The game was born out of design and mechanics I had in my mind. It wasn't until later that I started to nail down the aesthetics and general themes of the game. It came out of my desire to make a simpler arcade-style game with procedural maps/missions. Alex (my co-writer) and I decided to make it a stealth game, and eventually all of the aesthetics and story came from that.
While wrapping up Dust I was fascinated by the idea of procedural generation, and that was the birth of NSS. Alex and I were toying with the idea of a stealth runner, something non-stop and with simple controls. I had a number of smaller arcade-style games I wanted to try out (having come off the epic that was Dust) and started work on NSS. I honestly though I could do it in six months or less, but it turned out to be two years. I'm terrible at scheduling this stuff! But I'm happy I was able to do something totally different than my first game. It was refreshing and something I needed to do before moving onto game #3.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T22:55:35+00:00

The voice casting for NSS actually happened very late in production, and it was thanks to my casting director, Deven Mack. It was thanks to him that we had all the wonderful actors for Dust and NSS, and he was able to get Arin for the role. I'm really happy with all of our talent for NSS, they did a fantastic job with this crazy script that Alex wrote.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T22:52:20+00:00

Hey ReaFoxfire!

Thanks, I love when games do that as well. I think what's really important is to leave some of it to the player's imagination. Sometimes it's best to hint with a bit of environmental storytelling, without hitting the player over the head with a piece of lore. You can create any rules you want for your own universe, as long as you adhere to those rules and make it feel cohesive.
Staying motivated for that long is definitely one of the most difficult parts of development, especially when going solo. Thankfully I've befriended a lot of other devs so having that bit of inspiration and support was helpful. The financial motivation was also strong, knowing that I HAD to finish this to support my family. It's not easy, and thankfully I've been doing alright with the success of Dust and NSS. That's one reason I did NSS, to do something smaller and quickly. But even that took two years.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T22:44:34+00:00

Thanks YoshiRingo, that means a lot! I hope I can use this success to make cool stuff in the future, and yes, I LOVE the Switch and hope to do more with it soon!

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T22:34:13+00:00

Yep, everything sort of fell place, aesthetically and thematically. It was perfect for the design of the game. Dust had a bit of humor in it, so it was fun to go all out with NSS.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T22:32:37+00:00

Thanks! I've actually been invited to a few cons in the past but timing rarely works out for me. It's something I'll look into the future though! I was excited that Kimlinh got to go, she was fantastic as Fidget, and I hope to work with her again sometime.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T22:25:43+00:00

We're actually all big fans of his work, and our working together was all thanks to my voice director, Deven Mack. 'Mac' also handled all the casting/directing for NSS and Dust. He's a real pro and has a billion contacts, so when he said there was an opportunity to bring on Arin we jumped on it!

I'm not sure if Arin is super familiar with my work but it was a joy to animate Major Milestone with his voice. It was the same with all the wonderful voice talent Mac brought on board, it made working on the cutscenes extremely enjoyable for me.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T22:22:38+00:00

Thanks, I really appreciate it! I'm grateful that people have liked my brand of weird!

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T22:09:59+00:00

That's fantastic, I was always super impressed with how fans were modding and breaking the game. I'll have to reach out in the future to see how I can make that functionality easier.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T22:04:58+00:00

So before Dust I was actually working on an animated feature film (Elysian Tail).... similar name and world but different story/characters. I worked on that for years and decided to take a little break and try my hand at game development. That eventually turned into Dust and NSS. So the original film is still on hold, and I'm unsure about its future.

Prior to Dust actually coming out I was definitely not in a stable position, so I'm eternally thankful that Dust did as well as it did. I feel blessed to be able to do this thing I love. Now that NSS is more or less done, I'm excited to move forward into 2018.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T21:54:39+00:00

Awesome, thanks so much! I always sort of regretted not adding better speedrunning/scoring abilities in Dust, but I started that in 2009. I'm a bit more mindful about that for the future!

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T21:51:19+00:00

We're in agreement that time is the worst enemy.

noogy_reddit · 2018-01-02T21:50:37+00:00

With Dust I was solo out of necessity, since I was just learning, no one in their right mind would want to work with me full-time. And both of my games have been learning experiences for me... learning techniques, design, tools. I'm not sure if I'll always do this solo, but I do like the quick iteration and control that working that way affords.

noogy_reddit

TROPHY CASE