Developer Spotlight: Andrew Goulding
Developer Brawsome’s Jolly Rover, the 2D point-and-click pirate adventure with a canine twist, was released to a wide assortment of digital distribution outlets recently, and is generating positive buzz from critics. Anyone with a soft-spot for classic adventure games that’s thirsty for some rum-soaked (and flea-bitten) swashbuckling really needs to check it out.
We were fortunate enough to get a hold of Andrew Goulding, Brawsome’s founder and Jolly Rover’s mastermind, and he graciously answered our questions about making and marketing his scurvy-dog adventure. He also provided some insight into the challenges of bringing a new property to market, and the unsure future of 2D adventure games.
IGC: Tell us a little bit about yourself, and why you got into independent game development.
AG: I love games. If there’s one defining thing about my childhood it’s been computer games, I was born in 1980, so started with the C64. Though it wasn’t until I took my first steps in Space Quest 2 on the PC that I became hooked on a particular genre of games – the adventure game. I wanted to make this kind of game for as long as I’ve known they existed, but being in Australia I thought I’d never be able to work at my then favorite companies Sierra and LucasArts, unless I moved to the US, and at the time, that felt like quite a long way away.
It wasn’t until part way through my university course in 2000, that I realized there was a games industry in Australia and I could potentially be a part of that. But it still took me a few years to get into the industry here. I graduated my course with Distinction in 2001, but didn’t have any tech demos I could show to get a game programming position, so I spent a few years in the defense Simulation industry before transitioning to games as a programmer in 2004. Since then, I moved around companies a bit, mainly because I wanted to travel, but also because I wanted to end up in a position where I could design and program original games. I’ve worked at 4 games companies in Australia and the UK.
I suppose my restlessness was borne from the fact that I wasn’t working on the kind of games I wanted to, I felt the light of the games industry wasn’t as bright on the inside. I started formulating a plan to get out and do what I really wanted to do, and that started with Dave Gilbert actually; who had an opportunity for a contract programmer on his 2D point and click adventure game Emerald City Confidential.
My company, Brawsome, is based in my home in Victoria, Australia, about a half an hour drive east of Melbourne. My studio is a small room near the garage that’s lovingly called ‘the dungeon,’ being that it’s dark, cold, and under the house. I mainly provide programming contracting services for casualgames, but dream of writing and designing more – a dream that was recently achieved with my new game – Jolly Rover.
IGC: Jolly Rover has only been available for a little while now, but how’s it selling so far?
AG: Well, it’s not going crazy, but it’s definitely not failing either! Though we’re still a way from paying back the initial investment. For Jolly Rover, I did as much marketing as I could before the game shipped and I’m still doing marketing now, so don’t feel I’ve hit enough of the potential audience for this type of game yet. I feel it’s a great game, and the reviews I’ve received share the same sentiment, so I believe we’re yet to see the best of the sales of the game. Ideally, I would have finished development and marketed the game for at least 3 months before release, but sadly I didn’t have that luxury.
IGC: How were your experiences collaborating with Viskatoons Animation for Jolly Rover’s art and animation, and Lamaic for the music?
AG: Everyone on the team was brilliant! Though we are all located in the same state, I didn’t have much face-to-face contact with either Viskatoons or Lamaic. I work very well remotely, it’s been how I’ve been working for the past two years, and personally, I think I prefer it. I find myself getting much more out of my day than I do working face-to-face, because all communication is very directed and to the point. Working remotely forces you do be a good communicator. Also, it’s nice to turn off my instant messengers and just go to email when I need to really crunch down on something.
Though the remote situation works well when you’re limited for time and resources, like every project I’ve ever worked on. If I had the luxury of time and money, I’d love to get everyone together in the same place and make something awesome. We might lose some efficiency, but we might also make a better product.
IGC: How early on in Jolly Rover’s development did you decide to include full voice-overs for character dialogue, and how was the experience of working with your actors?
AG: To be honest, I would have preferred if I could have gotten away without voice acting. It’s not something I’ve ever particularly enjoyed in adventure games. Also, you have to have a different writing style when things are going to be voiced, not to mention the massive time and money overhead of voice acting.
But I decided early on that if Jolly Rover was going to compete with other games, and be taken seriously, it would have to have voice acting. And the voice acting had to be top notch. We put a comparatively large chunk of the budget aside for this. I can’t stress how important the voice acting was for me. Being something I didn’t particularly like in adventure games, I really wanted to try to make it something that people would like. And this started with the search for the voice of the main character, which, in my mind, would essentially make or break the game.
Luckily, I was overwhelmed with voice talent, and after a week of casting was really excited by the prospect of including voice acting. I could see the immense amount of life that could be breathed into the characters by professional voice acting. Working with the actors on Jolly Rover was one of the most fun and strangely intimate experiences I’ve had in game development. Every single line of dialog in the game had to have some kind of direction, from a single word to phrases and background motivations, and to hear your own dialog read out – well, as I said it’s strangely personal, and also feels like you’re somehow legitimizing what you’ve written.
The actors also brought a lot of their own personality to the roles, and some adlibbing occurred. Iwould have loved to have them all in the same room together recording the dialog, but again, budget constraints meant we had to work as best we could. Each actor recorded their lines from studios in their home, and the voice files were all leveled by Lamaic so they sounded consistent.
IGC: In-game help systems aren’t exactly new, but Jolly Rover’s is much more charming than most, and actually entertaining in its own right. From a design standpoint, can you talk a bit about how Jolly Rover’s hint system was born?
AG: Right from the start, I wanted all the systems in Jolly Rover to work well together and feel totally integrated in the game. From the hint system, to the collectables.
The parrot-cracker-hint system was one of the first systems I had designed for the game. My philosophyfor adventure games is “Why would you ever want players to leave your game if they’re stuck?” As you said, this isn’t new. Gone are the days where you would walk around aimlessly for hours not knowing what to do – it’s just not allowed in games anymore – and people won’t put up with it. Besides, people can look up a walkthrough online in seconds, so why not just include one in the game? I knew we had to have some kind of hint mechanism but I didn’t want it to be something as basic as a in-game hint-book. To me, that just felt like it would pull players too much out of the game experience.
To be honest, I can’t remember where the idea of the hint-parrot came from; it just feels like it’s always been obvious to do it that way. I think it went like: “We need a nice integrated way of doing hints.” “How about we use a parrot?” “You can give him crackers to get hints.” “The crackers can be found in the game, and also unlock bonus content.” Done!
IGC: According to critics of the genre, adventure games are a dying breed. Fans of point-and-clickers (like me) can see a decline, but not necessarily impending doom. What are your thoughts on the future of 2D adventure gaming? Is it becoming more and more niche, or are we due for a renaissance?
AG: Ooh, good question! Part of it is about overcoming perception. Making an 2D point and click adventure game is expensive because it is so resource intensive, but because it’s perceived as the old technology, going 2D makes people perceive it as cheaper than a 3D counterpart, even though it’s likely that the opposite is the case. So, people place a lower value on 2D games than 3D.
Then there’s replayability. A game like Bejeweled is near infinitely replayable, but an adventure game has a finite lifespan, so people again place a lower value on it because of the amount of hours you’ll get from it. Even though you can spend nearly $20 going to the movies for less than 3 hours, people balk at the chance of paying the same price for a game with more than twice the play time. I feel this is partly because, as game developers/publishers, we’re all fighting each-other for users by lowering our prices and increasing users expectations of our products. And if we keep fighting each-other, we’ll all lose, and creativity will suffer.
So, no doubt point and click adventure struggles with player perception, and competition from the market place. But in a way they’re kind of like stop-motion films, and while there are passionate people willing to make them, they’ll always be around. Whether they stay commercially viable, and be delivered with the frequency and level of quality people expect is directly in the hands of consumers.
If people see Jolly Rover on sale for $19.99 and would really like to play it but think it’s too expensive, what they’re saying is that they would prefer to see less of this kind of game. So, if you’re a fan of point and click adventure, and you know people that would like the game, please let them know. And buy the game! =0)
IGC: Having made the transition yourself by forming Brawsome, what sort of advice would you give to someone who’s thinking about entering into indie game development? What do you know now that you wish you knew when making the leap?
AG: For a start, marketing and time before you see your first royalty payment. If I was able to do this again, I would plan for not seeing any royalties for at least 6 months after the game is complete. The first 3 months would be used to do marketing, get reviews, press and submit the game to distributors.
The next 3 months would be essentially waiting for the first royalty payment and probably further marketing. I don’t think it will take 3 months to see royalties from all distributors, but that’s how long it could potentially take. Now, maybe you can reduce this time to 4 months in total, but 6 months makes sense to me – if you really want to do it right.
I think the biggest issue for indie developers is money, not many of us can afford to take 12-18 months off to develop and market a game, or even pay other people as well as yourself for this time. So it’s good if you can get a job that’s flexible enough to let you earn enough to live while doing development on the side. So, a day job between 3-4 days a week, and indie development for the rest of the time. I’m the sole provider for my wife and 2 children, so the pressures on me to earn are high.
Indie development for me is an uphill battle, which is why I had to either get funding from a publisher or investment from somewhere if I could afford to take the time to do it properly. When I approach indie development, I have to determine how it’s going to pay off. Of course I’d like the luxury of making a game I don’t care if it sells or not, but I don’t quite have that yet. But with Jolly Rover I will say, it’s exactly the game I set out to make, and is actually a lot better than I ever believed possible, and I had high expectations!
IGC: Who are some other independent game developers whose work you enjoy? Any specific titles you’d recommend?
AG: I can’t go past Machinarium, that would have to be on the top of my list of indie games. I’ve also wanted to give COGS a go for a while, after seeing it at GDC, but haven’t been able to play many games for the last 12 months. I loved Braid, Castle Crashers and Defense Grid, and have my eye on Puzzle Bots when I get a chance.
IGC: Rumor has it that you’re hard at work on another adventure title funded by PlayFirst? Any details you can share?
AG: Ah well, the details on that are that it was cancelled just before I went to GDC. That’s actually the reason I had to release Jolly Rover a few months earlier than scheduled and find a job shortly after launch. (I currently work part time at a local games uni.) I was really relying on that title to keep me going while Jolly Rover was in development and after release. I took large pay cuts on Jolly Rover and the other title just to develop my own games in the first place, and was on a shoestring budget for both. When the other was cancelled I went into crisis mode and had to drastically reschedule.
I can’t really say much more about it, except that it was a casual adventure. It was pretty awesome, and I’d be happy for any publisher to come in and buy back the rights from PlayFirst so we could continue developing it. I shopped it around at GDC, but got the feeling that many other casual publishers were tightening their belts and taking less risks on externally developed titles. This is part flow on effect of the GDC, and also has to do with the drastic dropping of standard casual game prices from $19.99 to $6.99 over the last 18 months. The feeling is you simply have to make casual games that will hit the top 10 or you shouldn’t bother. The result of which is you’re going to see more clones of games in the top 10 coming out as publishers take less risks on original or innovative content. While game price drops seem good for the consumer in the short term, the long term effect is they will end up with less choice, and I don’t think this is limited to the casual space either.
But to end on a positive note, I’m looking forward to supporting Jolly Rover further, and sincerely hope that I can invest in a sequel, or potentially another series. These are the games I love, and I know there are people that share this love, and I want to make them more games!
IGC: Thanks very much for taking the time to chat with us, Andrew. Best of luck with Jolly Rover!
Those looking to give Jolly Rover shouldn’t hesitate to download the free demo, which is a great representation of the full game. Jolly Rover is available for both Mac and PC for $19.95, and you can grab it (and the playable demo) from Steam, here. Check the official Brawsome website for links to other retailers.
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