Game-Pad©

We got in touch with Joost Peters, the lead designer for Codeglue, who agreed to give us an interview. How many of you guys would be interested in a 4v4 Rugby Riot G-P vs Developer match up (imagine rugby/griffball within Rocket Riot, and yes its a ton of fun)? Hit Read More to check out the interview!

1)      How did the idea for Rocket Riot come about?

The idea for Rocket Riot came from independent game designer Sander van der Vegte. He made a 2D mockup of a game world that was completely built out of blocks. He found his inspiration in a game called BreakQuest which had a level that had these blocks as well. We all thought it would be a cool idea if you could destroy all these blocks in some way. First we wanted to create a mobile game out of it, but with the release of XNA decided that Xbox LIVE Arcade was the better platform for it. That's how the rough idea was born.

2)      Where there any major design changes during development?

I think just about everything was changed at some point during development. Like said, the game started off as a turn based game for mobile phones. But the platform didn't feel right for the gameplay we had in mind. During development the graphics were changed a lot. Especially the characters. They started out at about 16 by 16 pixels and  got scaled up a few times until they were their current size (which is around 72x72). So they now have a lot more detail. We also made major changes to some of the game modes. E.g. we had a game mode where you had to race a track and fly through checkpoints. Which sounds ok at first, but didn't work out at all. So that mode was completely replaced by the Hide and Seek mode, where you have to find a certain character hidden in the blocks. Another design change had to do with the multiplayer modes. Rocket Riot supports join-in-progress and host migration, which weren't in the initial design. But we are glad we decided to implement those features because it keeps the pace of playing online games high (you won't end up in the lobby all the time). Not a lot of XBLA titles have these kind of multiplayer features.

3)      Now that the game has been released are you happy with the critical/community response?

We are very proud of the game we made and enjoy getting all the positive feedback so far. The game already had some great ratings, and we get great reactions on our Rocket Riot Twitter account (@RocketRiotXBLA). Some of the negative critics that we do get, don't really surprise us, because we spotted them ourselves as well. These are things we will definitely address in future releases of the game.

4)      How did you feel about releasing on the same day as two pretty highly anticipated XBLA titles?

That was a bit of surprise. We carefully chose that date to avoid heavy competition, because it's difficult for a new game like Rocket Riot to compete with big names. We were told we were going to be released together with "some card game". Unfortunately that "card game" turned out to be Magic the Gathering. And Sam & Max was a last minute addition by Microsoft, so that was a surprise too. So suddenly we landed in some heavy competition. And last but not least we didn't get mentioned in the Microsoft press release, so how's that for a start? Anyway, the good thing is some game review sites rated Rocket Riot as the best XBLA game for that week! We were very pleased with that. So, hopefully people will give the demo a spin, and experience how satisfying it is to destroy all the blocks and foes!

5)      Will we see continued support for Rocket Riot in the form of DLC/Patches?

If the game does well, we will definitely try to add DLC support. We are thinking of adding new maps as DLC and we still have some cool ideas that didn't make it into the final release of the game.

6)      The art style for Rocket Riot stands out instantly – what gave the idea to make the game look this way?

The initial 2D mockup started it all. It was also clear that this was going to be a tribute to 8-bit games, which all of us love and grew up with. But we also wanted to create a game that was from 'now' and used all the power of the Xbox 360. Those were the two major thoughts we stuck to and tried not to compromise on. The final art style of the levels was reached by giving the lead programmer, Henry Falconer, a lot of freedom to experiment with it visual style. He came up with giving the blocks some depth. Wow, we suddenly had 3D pixels! We think the 3D pixels worked out great, and that the art style looks pretty fresh and unique.

7)      Was the art style decided on from the very beginning or did it take a radical change during development?

I think the most radical change was made by me. I was an intern when I started at Codeglue and wasn't even working on Rocket Riot. Then one day they asked me to design some more characters for the game. First I played around with the 16 by 16 pixel art characters but I felt they were too  small to really give them character. So I started sketching in my sketchbook on the train home. I showed the sketches the next day and everyone really liked them. We made them really angular and these are the characters that are in the menus and the promotional art. Then I turned a lot of  them into the game sprites and later, Stephan Duquesnoy, another game artist, came in and re-did them all in the style that's currently in the game.

8)      Is there anything you wanted to put into the game but due to limited time/resources couldn’t do so?

Oh, so much! We've still got a ton of ideas we want to do. We're holding on to those for a possible sequel. One of the ideas we had was to use the LIVE Vision camera to capture a picture of yourself and use that in the online Destroy the Object matches. But unfortunately XNA 2.0 didn't support the camera at that time and we had to drop the functionality (for now).

9)      With the art style of the game and it’s 2d sidescrolling nature did you ever consider putting in a Level Editor?

We did consider a level editor and a character editor. We decided against it because we were afraid there would be a lot of parts of the male anatomy flying around. Someone would also have to moderate all the characters and levels and we don't have the resources and manpower for it. Any volunteers to do this job for future releases of the game? ;)

10)    We hear rumours of a Rocket Riot Premium Theme hitting the Xbox Live Marketplace – are you able to give a timeframe on this?

I think it's still going through certification. Even those things get tested and go through mandatory certification. Microsoft really has that process down. Nothing escapes them! I assume it will be online as soon as it's been approved.

Thanks alot Joost we really appreciate it! Now buy the game it's one of the most pure fun XBLA games especially in Multiplayer.