Independently-Speaking.com

Released a few days ago, Caster is the 1-man handy work of Mike Smith, senior graphics programmer for Hidden Path Entertainment.

I had a chat with Mike about Caster, working for HPE (developers of the recent Defense Grid: The Awakening) and his take on the piracy and DRM wars.

Mike Smith: Well, from a play perspective, Caster is about feeling powerful.  Blowing stuff up, deforming the terrain, running really fast, jumping really high, healing trees, etc.  

From a story perspective, while most of the story will be revealed in future Chapters, what we know now is that there is an infestation of Flanx (Bug like creatures) that are destroying everything.  You play as a Caster that has been sent to a the Middon region to help deal with the infestation.  I tried putting more story in the first chapter, but I couldn’t see how to do it without slowing things down.  I’m hoping to keep it spread out so that you get less reading and more playing over the course of the Saga.

I guess most of the inspiration for what to do once I decided to make the game came from games like Mega Man II (colors, powers, etc) and the original Metroid (big bugs, freeze ray and such).  Later I saw some other games that were very similar to Caster and I adopted some of what I thought was cool about them (PN03 was a big one).  

Also, a large part of what got me pumped about making the game was the music that Monte Emerson provided.  Caster had been laying dormant since my original partner kind of fizzled out on it (this was back when it was going to be a 2D sprite based game in a 3D world).  I by chance met up with Monte while waiting in a line at a Job fair and he had a demo CD on him.  I went home and listened to it and got super pumped.  It was at that point that I decided I would make this game no matter what it took and that Monte’s music would be featured front and center.

All the good ideas in Caster came from feedback from other people–usually at a local indie night.  Also there is a synergy when working in a small group that dwarfs what individuals can do on their own.  My problem is that I’m not very good at keeping people motivated on my projects.  I’ve found and worked with motivated people on some other side projects and those worked out great, but I don’t like spending time trying to get people to do stuff.  

One benefit to working alone is you get to call all the shots without argument.  When someone gives me a suggestion for Caster, I alone decide if it makes sense, would be cool, is worth the time, or not.  I don’t need to argue with anyone but myself on it and no one’s feelings get hurt by not having their pet feature added in.

I did have some outside help for things that I don’t enjoy or that I’m not good at.  I had a mental block when it came to designing some more monsters for the game, so I called on a great artist Jake Parker (agent44.com) and he was like “Cool, I’d love to do some monster designs”.  Also I’m not very good at logo design so I had a friend Derek Drake (Zanfall on steam) do some logo designs.  And obviously I had Monte (Trance) Emerson do the music.

Not much response yet.  Heh, I guess another thing I’m not very good at is marketing.  Defense Grid is one of the best games I have ever played.  I play lots and lots of games, and few are able to pull me in like Defense Grid did… much less a tower of defense game.  Defense Grid has gotten lots of reviews and everyone agrees that the game is great, it’s polished in almost every aspect…  No one can really argue that.  Caster on the other hand… well it has it’s issues… mostly in level design.  Hopefully Chapter 2 will help make up for some of the failings of Chapter 1.

I don’t like my side projects to affect my work or my home life so it can be kind of tricky, but it’s doable.  For example I usually take the bus to work.  It’s about an hour each way.  I have a laptop so that’s two hours a day that I can work on Caster.  However, lately I’ve made some awesome friends on the bus so I end up chatting with them a lot too.  So I’ve been getting up a little earlier in the mornings to get some dev time in before I catch the bus.  

So I don’t make tons of progress in each sitting, but I also have a lot of time to think about what I do before I do it.  It’s also part of the reason it took me so long to complete the game.  Had I been working on it full time, I imagine I could have gotten the same amount of work done (minus some polish that only time can provide) in about a year and a half.

Well there’s a couple of things.  First, we have laws about what is legal and what isn’t.  Those laws should be honored irrespective of how you personally feel about it.  If you don’t like the law, breaking it is not the way to change it.  

On the other hand, I don’t like paying lots of money for my games and don’t generally like to spend a lot of time playing them either.  I play tons and tons of free demos and very rarely purchase a full game.  But when I do, I try to do it in a way that will support that company the most.  It’s my way of helping promote good games, the kinds of games I would like to see more of.

The way things are now, I feel like pirates will download a cracked game and legitimate gamers will pay for them.  So for me, I don’t want any kind of anti piracy stuff to limit or hurt the experience of my already paying customer. DRM doesn’t hurt the pirates because they already got a cracked copy.  It only ends up hurting the poeple who are already willing to pay for it.

So if it’s up to me, I would make sure whatever I think I’m doing to prevent piracy doesn’t hurt the paying customers.  If your DRM is cool like that, then I think it’s fine.  But once you start hurting your paying customers, it’s pointless!

So no DRM for me at the moment.  I love my paying customers!  They supported me in making my game!  I want to give them the very best!

Hmm, well whatever Konjak has cooking up.  Noitu Love 2 was one of those games that I was happy to pay way too much for when it first came out.  I payed the full $20, but you can now get it for $10–A real steal!.  I loved paying him that much though because that’s the cool kind of stuff I want to support.  I’m also curious to see how Overgrowth turns out.  Although I don’t think they’re going to hit their release date.  They’re just trying to cram too many features into too short of a time frame.  Even if they get them all in, there won’t be enough time to polish it properly.  

Also I thought I would be more excited about Xbox Live Communities games, but for some reason it doesn’t do anything for me.  Perhaps it’s because for me, indie games are already more accessible on PC than on Xbox.  Plus the 4 minute demo is a slap in the face.  I refuse to impulse buy a game because of that.
 

Fast Action, Terrain Deforming, Bug Destroying, Pulse Pounding, Tree Healing, Power Tripping… FREE DEMO!
 

Thank you!

What a nice chap. I wish him well for the future of Caster and urge you to check it at at the official site.