Declarations of Independents focuses on the most independent of game developers: Small teams or individuals whose games have little or no marketing, advertising, or outreach, yet which have extremely loyal and dedicated followings. These games are the hidden treasures of the game industry, and it is our pleasure to bring you the thoughts and experiences of their creators on what it means to be an independent developer.
On today's feature, we bring you Deadly Rooms of Death. DROD, as it's known to fans, is a turn-based puzzler originally developed by Erik Hermansen, and later re-developed by Hermansen's new outfit, Caravel Games. Since its re-release, it has seen the creation of two sequels: Journey to Rooted Hold, and The City Beneath. The gameplay works much like Daleks (or Robots, if you prefer) -- you control a character on a massive grid, surrounded by enemies. You can move in the eight cardinal and ordinal directions, and immediately following your turn, the enemies will take theirs all at once, and should an enemy reach you, you are slain in a bloody mess. Beethro Budkin (the games' protagonist), though, has an advantage that Dr. Who did not: A sword which takes up its own space, and can in turn produce its own swaths of liquefied baddies. At its heart, DROD is easy to pick up and play -- for about the first ten minutes. From there, the game starts getting downright diabolical. New features arrive level by level. Enemies arrive which don't follow the patterns you've come to expect. The story (yes, there's a story, complete with its own mythos) puts you up against intelligent NPCs and perils. Soon, what began as a simple exercise in "swing your sword until everything else is dead" has become "fight an army of sword-dodging NPCs while managing a sokoban puzzle on floor spaces that disappear before the entire room explodes." It is at once simplistic and incredibly complex, and its charming graphics, voice acting, and puzzle design is managed by community -- many of the development tasks are farmed out to DROD's invaluable freelancers and volunteers. The dedicated members of the DROD forums are constantly trying their own hand at design, submitting all-new puzzles and adventures, named "holds," available for free download.
We spoke with Mike Rimer, Producer and Lead Programmer of DROD, about Rooms, Death, and the Deadliness therein.
GameCyte: When did you first decide you wanted to develop an independent game?
Mike Rimer: I've dreamed about developing my own games since I could type on a computer. I was probably five years old. I realized animated cartoons (CGI movies today) had more potential for visually expressing an author's imagination than live video recording. I would draw flip-book animations, like every kid, and illustrated choose-your-own-adventure type animated games in book form. As I learned how to program, I applied this to the digital canvas. I made several simple ASCII adventure games as a teenager. I figured out how to give them level editors so my friends could make their own levels in the game. I learned of Erik Hermansen's remake of the original DROD game when I was in grad school. I decided I wanted to realize my dream by working with him and learning some new tools of the trade, such as other technical aspects of game design, by studying his open source project and providing my own contributions. I did it for the love of creation and to provide creative game-making tools to others. Erik and I became business partners and we have continued to work on DROD and other games since that point.
GC: Tell us about your latest release, The City Beneath. What inspired the project? How did the development process treat you?
MR: TCB is the third full release in the DROD franchise and embodies the third or fourth iteration of the DROD game engine, which we've built from the ground up. Erik has an epic story in his mind about the events that take place on the Eighth (the DROD game world). He is able to share a new part of that story and his vision with each game we release. Along with the creative story, we seek to develop original puzzle-game elements and features that aren't found in any other game to give players a fresh, original gaming experience that comes from our hearts.
Most or all of the people working on the TCB development team had participated in work on "DROD: Journey to Rooted Hold" (JtRH), the second game in the series. Thanks to this, everyone had an established function -- an important aspect of open source volunteerism. Everyone knew the other members of the team and each brought a good deal of experience with them to this project. Development went smoothly and I'd say Caravel hit its stride working on TCB.
GC: Have you worked as part of a larger development team before? If so, how has it compared to directing your own project independently?
MR: Caravel has provided my first experiences with directing teams of developers and testers. Since DROD is essentially open source, almost all of our contributors have been volunteers. Everyone who contributes does so for the love of the game and the player community. We want them to work with us while they're having fun, with no further obligation, so we try to give them freedom to have fun on the project however they want. It is impossible to name all those who have contributed to our games, but I appreciate each and every contribution.
GC: How have you managed to sustain the project? Do you make money from sponsorships or pre-orders? What is your "Day Job?"
MR: So far, we have developed our games on a shoestring budget. At the beginning, Erik and I created most of the game assets ourselves. For work we contracted, the cost came out of our own pockets. Fortunately, sales for JtRH have done well enough that we used that money to better fund contract work for TCB and our upcoming titles. We haven't taken pre-orders, but when we released TCB, it was first advertised only to our established player base. The game was essentially at an "open beta" stage, and our fans have helped us to iron out the bugs and provide further polish before we released TCB in proper public fashion.
I've been in grad school for the last several years working on my Computer Science Ph.D. I've contributed to work on DROD while also working on my thesis on artificial neural networks. I graduated last year and am now working for a small company developing general speech recognition software. I enjoy this challenging work, but game design is also challenging in that it always requires creative solutions to keep making new and better things.
GC: How has word spread about your game? Has it all been word-of-mouth?
MR: DROD has a cult following and many of our community of players have indeed arrived through word-of-mouth. We've received several kind and enthusiastic mentions here and there with each game release, and each has brought new players. It's hard to predict. Erik and I have worked hard to keep our fans through an active community forum. Matt Schikore is the developer who designs and maintains several sophisticated features that integrate the game play experience with the community web site, such as high-score tables, a hints-and-solutions board, in-game download of expansion packs and player-made level sets, and in-game chat. These allow the game to continue to grow apart from merely releasing new titles.
At this time, we have nearly 5,000 registered accounts on the Caravel Forum. This number has been steadily growing each year since its inception.
GC: What has it been like to have such a dedicated fan base? Has it helped or hindered the development process; how receptive are you to suggestions or demands from your community?
MR: Many players are contributing in countless ways to enrich and serve the player community. First of all, the Caravel Forum appears to have some of the nicest people on the Internet. Everyone seeks to make new players feel welcome. They lend a helping hand to those needing hints or troubleshooting for the game. I do most of the game programming, and taking the time to listen to feedback from the players has been very productive. They send me detailed, helpful bug reports and post feature requests for improving the game capabilities and interface in future versions. I take their suggestions to heart. Although everyone's time is limited, I try to choose things to work on that would be most meaningful for our fan base. It is a labor of love.
GC: What's the best part of being an independent developer?
MR: For me, it's being able to work on my own ideas, from my own heart, on something I love. I'd guess this is the same for everyone on our team. I love to create and share parts of myself that are uniquely me through my work. Working our own hours and following our own schedule (for the most part) is liberating, with the caveat that I tend to push myself as hard on this work as I do at my day job.
GC: What's the worst?
MR: Having limited funds and being forced to work with limited game assets. On the one hand, having volunteers contribute in unique and special ways to our world is something I personally treasure. At the same time, I hope I'm not looking a gift horse in the mouth when I say this often still doesn't provide the raw man-hours necessary to complete certain tasks that having people employed in full-time positions might provide. Still, that forces us to focus on gameplay and the intrinsic play experience, which is something fans appreciate, so even that cloud has a silver lining.
GC: If you could share one valuable experience or piece of advice with ambitious game designers, what would it be?
MR: Working on your own on something you love can be a satisfying experience. There are more and more tools being made available to game designers, indie or commercial, all the time that make game design easier and better. At the same time, it's a lot of hard work, and you will need to have that work ethic to keep going until it's done. You'll have to be prepared to get your hands dirty doing the menial labor as well as taking on the glamorous role of creator. If having to spend a lot of time, for a long time, on something you love, doesn't scare you... and if making games is something you think about whenever you don't have anything else to think about, then this is the place for you.
GC: What can we expect to see from you next?
Caravel is working concurrently on two upcoming games: "Frogs and Mice" and "DROD RPG" (working title). These games are similar to, but have a distinctly different flavor, than our previous DROD offerings. They are built to appeal to a broader player base while still being satisfying to our hard-core fans. One or both of these should be coming out sometime this year.
We would like to thank Mike and Caravel Games for speaking with us. You can download demos of the DROD series, and purchase the full versions, here.
Mike Rimer: I've dreamed about developing my own games since I could type on a computer. I was probably five years old. I realized animated cartoons (CGI movies today) had more potential for visually expressing an author's imagination than live video recording. I would draw flip-book animations, like every kid, and illustrated choose-your-own-adventure type animated games in book form. As I learned how to program, I applied this to the digital canvas. I made several simple ASCII adventure games as a teenager. I figured out how to give them level editors so my friends could make their own levels in the game. I learned of Erik Hermansen's remake of the original DROD game when I was in grad school. I decided I wanted to realize my dream by working with him and learning some new tools of the trade, such as other technical aspects of game design, by studying his open source project and providing my own contributions. I did it for the love of creation and to provide creative game-making tools to others. Erik and I became business partners and we have continued to work on DROD and other games since that point.
MR: So far, we have developed our games on a shoestring budget. At the beginning, Erik and I created most of the game assets ourselves. For work we contracted, the cost came out of our own pockets. Fortunately, sales for JtRH have done well enough that we used that money to better fund contract work for TCB and our upcoming titles. We haven't taken pre-orders, but when we released TCB, it was first advertised only to our established player base. The game was essentially at an "open beta" stage, and our fans have helped us to iron out the bugs and provide further polish before we released TCB in proper public fashion.
MR: Many players are contributing in countless ways to enrich and serve the player community. First of all, the Caravel Forum appears to have some of the nicest people on the Internet. Everyone seeks to make new players feel welcome. They lend a helping hand to those needing hints or troubleshooting for the game. I do most of the game programming, and taking the time to listen to feedback from the players has been very productive. They send me detailed, helpful bug reports and post feature requests for improving the game capabilities and interface in future versions. I take their suggestions to heart. Although everyone's time is limited, I try to choose things to work on that would be most meaningful for our fan base. It is a labor of love.
MR: Working on your own on something you love can be a satisfying experience. There are more and more tools being made available to game designers, indie or commercial, all the time that make game design easier and better. At the same time, it's a lot of hard work, and you will need to have that work ethic to keep going until it's done. You'll have to be prepared to get your hands dirty doing the menial labor as well as taking on the glamorous role of creator. If having to spend a lot of time, for a long time, on something you love, doesn't scare you... and if making games is something you think about whenever you don't have anything else to think about, then this is the place for you.
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