This time out, we spoke with Josh Bear, the CCO/Director of Twisted Pixel Games, creators of The Maw and 'Splosion Man.
2Old2Play: Tell us a little bit about your company for people. Also what do you do for Twisted Pixel?
Twisted Pixel was formed a couple of years ago with the intent to make the best digitally distributed games for consoles like the Xbox 360. The first original game to come out of our studio was The Maw, which was released on the 360 this past January. Our second game, Splosion Man, released on July 22nd. Really we are just a small group of dudes who want to make awesome stuff.2Old2Play: What engine do your games run on and how does it work?
We have our own internal engine called Beard, which runs all of our games. Our programmers have a better knowledge of what makes it tick, since they created it. All I know is I tell it to do things and it makes them, and turns out awesome. lol.2Old2Play: You guys had success with The Maw on XBLA. How has this helped you in planning games for the future?
The Maw was definitely a great first game for us, and helped us stream line the process a little bit better for Splosion Man. With every new game we find new ways to make the process better. I think what I love about our company the most is that we don’t adhere to specific design and scheduling philosophies, we just do it as we go and have enough experience to know what he can and can’t do. I think our next game will take advantage of all the things we learned on The Maw and Splosion Man.2Old2Play: Can your fans expect the same big DLC content for low prices for Splosion Man as there was for The Maw?
If we decide to do DLC, then I think we would try to give gamers a great deal on it. Honestly, there is really no DLC planned for Splosion Man right now, and unless there is great demand for it from fans I don’t know if we would have any interest. We tried to make The Maw DLC fun and cheap, and got burned by some players who thought we were ripping them off, which wasn’t the case at all and makes no sense if you think about it. But there will always be those people who like to bitch and complain, no matter what.2Old2Play: Will your company only design games for XBLA, or do you plan on branching out to other platforms?
We love all the platforms. We are interested in working on all of them. Microsoft has shown us great support and really believed in our characters and company direction, so working on the Xbox 360 has been great. All the platforms have different pros and cons, so I think we will just roll with it game by game, and see what makes the most sense.2Old2Play: The first two games have been platformers. Are there other genres you you guys want to tackle? Personally I would love to see your take on an RPG.
Yeah, we have some big RPG fans here. That would be really cool! As long as we can take a genre and do something a little unexpected with it, like we did with Splosion Man, then every genre is game for us. We have a ton of different ideas that fall into different gaming genres that you can look forward to seeing from us in the future.2Old2Play: Noticing that Twisted Pixel has helped others on full game titles, have you ever thought about doing your own full retail game?
Retail games would be great, but that can be a whole other ball game. We are still a small company and we want to focus on making the best games possible for the time and budget we have available to us. Those are really the only things stopping anyone from putting “retail” quality games as downloads…with memory not really being too big of an issue, it isn’t about quality. It just always comes to budget and time, and the availability and awareness of downloadable games to the general public.2Old2Play: What are your thoughts on motion control devices and can we expect any of your games to incorporate these features?
I think the motion control stuff looks awesome, but the only way I would want to use it is if had a true purpose and felt cool, not just a five-minute gimmick. I think Natal and Sony’s motion controllers both look amazing and have a ton of potential, but it will be easier for developers to put out crap then it will be for them to take the time to understand what makes motion control work and make something great. Hopefully developers can make something beyond what you would expect out of motion control (sports and family games). It would be a lot of fun to take a crack at doing that sometime.2Old2Play: Thanks for taking time to do the interview, Josh.
Thanks so much for talking with us! I really hope you and all your readers enjoy Splosion Man! Also be sure to check out the game’s website, www.splosionman.com. We have a ton of free downloads, including the entire soundtrack to the game, as well as some special movies created specifically for the site.
