Pixelsocks: So, tell me about your game.

Justin Whitney

Will: Igneous is a 3D platformer set in a volcano. You play as a tiki totem that has been awakened, and now you’re trying to get out of the volcano: that’s the story. Each level is getting from point A to point B, and for each level something is chasing you. In one level lava is behind you, in another a bridge is crumbling beneath you, and in another a big guy is shooting lasers behind you. You want to get to the end without getting your ass kicked.

Pixelsocks: This game feels like a racing game, where instead of racing against opponents, you’re racing against the course. Would you say that’s a fair characterization?

Will: Yes; there are a lot of similarities to racing games. You can actually play like a racing game: pull the trigger and you’ll go forward.

Pixelsocks: One thing notable about the game is that you can jump off any surface you can touch. Why did you put that in there?

Will: I put in the feature originally because we needed to jump at all, and we didn’t have normals at that point. We left it in because it was such a good crutch for getting out of sticky situations. Without it, you’d be so much more screwed.

Pixelsocks: Something I found is that you can jump off the underside of bridges. Was that part of the plan?

Will: It wasn’t part of the plan, but we left it in. It’s cool, because you’re so ready for death, but you can still squeak out alive. It makes no sense, but whatever.

Pixelsocks: You’re a tiki totem rolling around on your own; sense doesn’t enter into it. Actually, why did you pick a tiki totem?

Will: At the beginning of the project, we decided that we wanted to do something with physics that hadn’t really been done, which was soft bodies, though you don’t even see in the game except at the very beginning. However, we decided to make it in a volcano because lava is soft body-like. Tiki totems are kind of associated with volcanoes, so we went to that; we also wanted something we could draw easily, as we didn’t have any artists at the time.

Pixelsocks: Have you given any thought to expanding the game, or is it pretty much done at this point?

Will: This version is done. We’d love to make a fully-fledged XBLA titles, but it depends on what kind of offers and funding we can get. We’re students: we’re in debt. But we’d absolutely love to make tons more levels.

Pixelsocks: What would you like to implement if you got the chance to expand the game?

Will: Multiplayer would be awesome. Maybe a co-op mode and time trials. Our original game was not like this at all. It was a combat game, where you shot rocks and stuff. If you’ve ever played Cameo, there’s a level in it called “Rumble.” It was basically like that, but a tumbler full of rocks and you shot lava at your enemies. So that game sucked, and we scrapped that. We turned it into a punching game, with the same enemies and stuff, and we didn’t think that was good enough. So we thought, what if you’re on a bridge, and it’s exploding. So that was the design for this iteration: if we had started with this design, we’d have a lot more features.

Pixelsocks: So, you’re telling me you iterated through genres?

Will: Yes. We iterated through everything we could. We put the bridge level in first, and then every level after that we tried to be as epic as that level. We had to throw out maybe six or seven levels because they weren’t as good. We had a lava river ride that wasn’t fun: we had a lot of ideas that we didn’t have the resources to make good enough to go in the game.

Pixelsocks: I know for Igneous you built your own engine. Can you tell me about it?

Will: Sure. We had one guy that did our graphics, and all he did was make graphics and our object editor. Then Cameron Jacobson did our whole physics engine. So those two guys are very proud of their engines–that they did everything from scratch. That’s the question we’ve gotten the most: what engine did you use. We built it from scratch. It’s called the Immolation engine.

Pixelsocks: So, can you tell me something about your game or the development process that no one else knows?

Will: Our SVN log is full of the most raunchy . . . it’s bad. I’ll just say that, I won’t go into it. And you can’t look at it. If you had watched us develop, you’d think we had the worst team dynamic ever, as it was constant insults, but it’s loving insults.

Pixelsocks: So you’ve taken that multiplayer gamer culture and moved it into the development space.

Will: Exactly.

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Tags:   GDC · gdc 2010 · IGF · igf2010 · igneous · Student Showcase · Will Taylor GrahamNo Comments

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