Mini-serie: klein maar toch fijn: CoderChild

Vaak worden ze in één hoekje gezet, en kijkt men er maar weinig naar om: de kleine uitgeverijen. Kleine uitgeverijen die werknemers en hobbyisten in dienst hebben die hun brood verdienen met het intensief aan de man brengen van hun laatst ontwikelde kleine spelletjes voor diverse eShops. En meestal moeten deze kleine uitgeverij alles boven alles stellen om ook maar hun game onder de aandacht te brengen. Ook deze kleine uitgeverijen, die kwaliteit leveren voor de prijs van een zak snoep, mogen wel eens in het zonnetje worden gezet. Vandaar dat wij enkele uitgeverijen hebben benaderd om een interview af te nemen. De vorige keer was dit Teyon, nu is CoderChild aan de beurt om iets prijs te geven over haar eigen als uitgever van onder andere kleine eShop-titels.

Kan je de lezers vertellen wat voor uitgeverij ChoderCild is?

I will introduce the readers with a bit of the CoderChild’s background: before being able to self publish my games, I released 5 games on the Nintendo hand-held consoles. Now, CoderChild has applied as official content provider for the Nintendo WiiU and 3DS, and released the first self published title, Cubit The Hardcore Platformer Robot.

Currently, CoderChild is one indie game developer and publisher (i.e. me) which means this is a very small company. Despite being so small, I’m currently starting to work with other indie game developers to publish their games on the 3DS. This is feasible thanks to my game engine. The developers easily do the porting tasks on a PC, and finally let me create the final platform specific binaries. I’m confident this year we’ll see at least one of these projects on the 3DS!

2. Wat vind je zelf dat de beste game is die is uitgegeven door jullie uitgeverij?

I love all of them! Seriously every game has it’s own charm, it’s own uniqueness in terms of development.

For instance, Bugs’N’Balls was the first title CoderChild developed, this is where everything began, and marked the way I work right now. It was a small project, but it took some months to be developed and I remember working with the artists side by side like a team. It was very funny and exciting moment.

Then it came 3,2,1…WordsUp! A game that I developed for the PC some years before, but never released until the we did a version targeting the DS…

If I had to choose from the 6 games I released, I’ll probably get both Cubit and Dress To Play: Cute Witches!

Both games were heavily developed on the summer holidays. My family and I were on the mountain and while they were enjoying the nature I was developing both games alone.

Cute Witches was also special because it was developed like a charm. The artist did a wonderful job, and the musician composed two beautiful themes. I thought the game’s main theme was so marvelous, that I decided to contact a friend of mine to include her voice and sing on it. I think the result is one of the most beautiful music themes I’ve heard on a video game.

3. Wat voor een spel is Cubit The hardcore platformer robot is?

Cubit is a game where everything you need to do, can be done with only one button! Although it’s very easy to control, it’s very challenging. The wonderful thing is that it lets the player advance step by step, and the more you play the further you go, until you reach one of the final levels!

It features a non linear progress system. You can start the game and decide which level do you want to be the next one. If you go up you’ll find a new type of platforms and enemies and a specific BGM, but if you go down you’ll find a completely different kind of platforms, enemies and music. The player will decide which path he or she likes most while playing the game. This allows the player to reach the 3 different endings which will unlock 3 new characters to play the game. There are a total of 6 characters to play with and some of them are from other indie games.

I’ve been talking with some of the US players, and although they tell the game it’s hard they are enjoying it because they find it very addictive! I hope European players will enjoy the game as much as them.  Ah! one last note! The game in Europe has improved the controls!

4. Kun je ons vertellen hoe het idee achter Cubit The hardcore platformer robot is ontstaan?

I was developing a game called NipponUnderworld (link) and one day I had an idea: “what if I do a platforming game that can be controlled with only one button, but at the same time it should be more difficult than my previous games, which some players beated easily”. It was so simple that I wanted to make a small prototype around it. In just 2 days I had a complete level with the basic mechanics of the game already built. I realized this prototype had potential to become a complete game, so I put on hold NipponUnderworld. This new game should have to take few months to be developed. And soon I was fully working on it.

The premise was that this game should be very simple in every aspect, graphics. music, design, etc… it should be just a project to be done in a couple of months. I decided then I should do everything because with this time frame it would be the safest bet. I decided to go in a minimalistic aesthetics art direction, similar to the one found onPatapon or Ibb and Obb games. For the music I remastered some music themes I composed in early nineties that were never released to the public. The most important thing was the level design of the game which is built around the music (this is something I was wanting to do long time ago).

Testing the levels was one of the most funny things of the project but at the same time one of the most difficult things because the game was so hard! The process was as simple as: including new platforms, then test them, and if they were easy to play with, change them to make more difficult. The problem was that many times it was too difficult to test the newly created platforms because I died somewhere before I reached them!

I asked several times some friends to test the game, and some of them complained about the difficulty. In fact, I made some changes after the play test sessions.

The thing is that this project finally took way more than 2 months, but the results were worth the time spent on it.

Regarding to the publishing of the game, it took some time as it was the first title to be self published, and I had to fill out many forms and paper work before being able to do this. Then finally I sent the game to Nintendo lotcheck, and it finally came to the eShop.

It was shocking when the game was going to be released and the eShop was not working on the US. Nintendo Online services were not working the same day your first self published game is released! Can you believe it?! Luckily they worked hard to solve the issues soon.

5. Waarom zouden gamers Cubit The hardcore platformer robot moeten downloaden?

It’s quite easy, If they get the game, they’ll have hours of challenging platforming, with a sound track that many of them will fall in love.
I’m pretty sure many people will not be able to quit the game until they unlock all the players and get all the achievements! I know this because I’ve already seen this on many players!

Ah! and it costs only 3 euros! It’s not that much, isn’t it?

Na drie afleveringen is dit dan ook het einde van deze mini-serie.