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- WonderCon 2011: High Flyer Death Defyer Nick Parker Interview
WonderCon 2011: High Flyer Death Defyer Nick Parker Interview
- By Douglas Shepard (Editor in Chief, RarityGuide.com)
- Published 04/12/2011
- WonderCon 2011
- Unrated
WonderCon 2011: High Flyer Death Defyer Nick Parker Interview
RarityGuide: So tell us about your game …
High Flyer Death Defyer: Our goal right now is just basically to bridge the gap between you know, like, what we’ve done in the past for core gamers. But we want to bridge the gap, we want this game to be accessible for everyone. That is why we build this game from the ground up for tilt control and we want to appeal gamers by themselves, the core market. It’s going to be somewhere in the middle. So hopefully anyone can come in and pick it up and it will have the aspects you’d expect from a core game as well. So you can see right now just by me tilting it the game is totally controllable and we haven’t even tuned the movement on the ground at all but you can see that it works pretty easily in any direction. What you do is go here and jump off. Once you jump off your in the flight area. Where you tilt forward, collecting treasures. Basically our hero character starts off as a Hal Solo type of character where it is all out the treasures but as he goes along he finds there is a higher calling and becomes more of a hero in our game.
NP: If you hold the screen you go into a dive. You can actually tilt it and control the dive with more fidelity. If you release your finger immediately it will pop you out quicker rather than just nice and easy as I did. Maybe your not exactly pinpoint you can hit the treasure, it will magnetize to you, like Ratchet and Clank-style. The first portion is learning so there’re no death traps you’re just learning the movements. You can see there’s a platform and my jetpack’s ready, I can launch my jetpack out and land right there. If you’re a little far, like I just did, you can retract it and get a little bit closer then hit it again and come in for a smooth landing. When I hit the ground I get a bonus, I just discovered a place. This is level 1-1 and that’s the checkpoint and save. So if you’re on the bus you can turn it off and come back to the game right here and you just got your first goal.
RG: Nice
NP: Then right here you can jump and these platforms you will discover, you can discover more on them later on. Then you can just jump again. And right here I’ve got a line [of treasures] because they’re all lined up like that, I can stack them. It’s not in yet but when you get a rhythm like you can get a times two at the end ‘because you stacked them like that. The second platform is more for precision so it’s a lot smaller. So you’ll still be able to … So the game is linear if you just follow the main path but there are all these other paths you can follow as well. So you can get ten levels in and you can still revisit the first level and have challenges on it. So we are really trying to build in a lot of re-playability to it. This is Chios, again, we haven’t built in the higher points for the landing. So I get my treasure, my score, jump off again. Now you’re going to see some death traps. So for the first time ever I’m actually in danger if I don’t navigate precisely. Just ahead you will see our first mobile platform which is a big treasure chest. This one rotates like a log in the water. If you’re not careful it will throw you off and you have to start flying again.
You have to get all the balls of treasure?
You have to get all the treasure to stop all the movement, access the check point and get rewarded. Now I’ve saved again, that’s 1-3, and now I jump again. That’s pretty much the game, I mean the first part of it. I didn’t show you barrel-roll though. When you’re leaning the game, you hit one of the arrows and barrel-roll.
RG: How many hours of gameplay do you think?
NP: I’m thinking right now each level is about seven minutes and we’re going to have about thirty levels and that’s just going straight through. It also depends because each level has its own goal. So you can try to get fastest time, most treasure and without dying to get the Death Defyer icon. That gives it a lot of re-playability.
RG: Tell us about the company
NP: We’ve been in business for about two years now. We’ve been working on bigger games, console games, but now we’re moving into our first original IP. We’re excited about it to show off our creativity and innovation. That’s what excited us about this game. When we did our first prototype and we’re flying down, we’re like “How come this hasn’t been done?” It seems like such a good idea, that’s our goal right now, bring in innovation. A lot of US studios don’t get the opportunity to do that as much as some of the European or Japanese studios, so it’s a big thing for us.
RG: What’s the budget for the game?
NP: It’s a good budget compared to most games in this category. You can see by the visuals and the quality of the style that we’re making sure this is one of the best titles you can get. We’re pushing it to the limit.
RG: How long have you been working on this game?
NP: I’d say we’ve been working on it around two months now.
RG: Not bad, a lot of progress in what seems a short period of time, especially for games.
NP: It is. Lucky we worked with NG mobile on a few of their titles. So it’s a really different process when you start building a game like this. With a bigger game you would expect it to take a lot longer, but we’re on weekly to individual day deadlines instead of month deadlines. So you’re production really changes in this kind of market.
NP: Having your own original IP has been real motivating. You have to really turn it around quickly.
RG: When it will be released?
NP: November on IOS, Android, iPhone, iPad …
RG: How much will it cost?
NP: It will be competitively priced. So it will definitely be something where people are “wow, this is a great price for what you’re getting”.
RG: What are the challenges making a mobile game instead of a console game?
NP: I think the challenge is exactly what we were just talking about; the turn around time. Instead of getting a month to build one level you got a week. It’s like “Oh my god!” It’s one thing to be building a game like “Angry Birds” but it’s another thing to be building a game where you can honestly say “I can see that on Xbox Live" or "I can see that on Arcade, I can see that on PSN”. So with our production values it is definitely a challenge.
RG: Do you think this game will also be ported to consoles?
NP: I don’t know yet but right now we’re focused on just making the best game that we can.
RG: It definitely has the potential to but first get it out on portables then worry about getting it out on Kinect, Move … it looks like a good decision to put it out on a portable as it appeals to a very broad demographic of gamers.
NP: Exactly, that’s our goal. Myself as a gamer, I haven’t played many games like that. That’s been another driven motivation, like can we pull it off. It kind of proves that you can be five years old and you could be sixty and you could still tilt it and you can play it.
RG: Well, thank you very much for your time.
NP: You’re welcome.
RarityGuide: So tell us about your game …
High Flyer Death Defyer: Our goal right now is just basically to bridge the gap between you know, like, what we’ve done in the past for core gamers. But we want to bridge the gap, we want this game to be accessible for everyone. That is why we build this game from the ground up for tilt control and we want to appeal gamers by themselves, the core market. It’s going to be somewhere in the middle. So hopefully anyone can come in and pick it up and it will have the aspects you’d expect from a core game as well. So you can see right now just by me tilting it the game is totally controllable and we haven’t even tuned the movement on the ground at all but you can see that it works pretty easily in any direction. What you do is go here and jump off. Once you jump off your in the flight area. Where you tilt forward, collecting treasures. Basically our hero character starts off as a Hal Solo type of character where it is all out the treasures but as he goes along he finds there is a higher calling and becomes more of a hero in our game.
NP: If you hold the screen you go into a dive. You can actually tilt it and control the dive with more fidelity. If you release your finger immediately it will pop you out quicker rather than just nice and easy as I did. Maybe your not exactly pinpoint you can hit the treasure, it will magnetize to you, like Ratchet and Clank-style. The first portion is learning so there’re no death traps you’re just learning the movements. You can see there’s a platform and my jetpack’s ready, I can launch my jetpack out and land right there. If you’re a little far, like I just did, you can retract it and get a little bit closer then hit it again and come in for a smooth landing. When I hit the ground I get a bonus, I just discovered a place. This is level 1-1 and that’s the checkpoint and save. So if you’re on the bus you can turn it off and come back to the game right here and you just got your first goal.
RG: Nice
NP: Then right here you can jump and these platforms you will discover, you can discover more on them later on. Then you can just jump again. And right here I’ve got a line [of treasures] because they’re all lined up like that, I can stack them. It’s not in yet but when you get a rhythm like you can get a times two at the end ‘because you stacked them like that. The second platform is more for precision so it’s a lot smaller. So you’ll still be able to … So the game is linear if you just follow the main path but there are all these other paths you can follow as well. So you can get ten levels in and you can still revisit the first level and have challenges on it. So we are really trying to build in a lot of re-playability to it. This is Chios, again, we haven’t built in the higher points for the landing. So I get my treasure, my score, jump off again. Now you’re going to see some death traps. So for the first time ever I’m actually in danger if I don’t navigate precisely. Just ahead you will see our first mobile platform which is a big treasure chest. This one rotates like a log in the water. If you’re not careful it will throw you off and you have to start flying again.
You have to get all the balls of treasure?
You have to get all the treasure to stop all the movement, access the check point and get rewarded. Now I’ve saved again, that’s 1-3, and now I jump again. That’s pretty much the game, I mean the first part of it. I didn’t show you barrel-roll though. When you’re leaning the game, you hit one of the arrows and barrel-roll.
RG: How many hours of gameplay do you think?
NP: I’m thinking right now each level is about seven minutes and we’re going to have about thirty levels and that’s just going straight through. It also depends because each level has its own goal. So you can try to get fastest time, most treasure and without dying to get the Death Defyer icon. That gives it a lot of re-playability.
RG: Tell us about the company
NP: We’ve been in business for about two years now. We’ve been working on bigger games, console games, but now we’re moving into our first original IP. We’re excited about it to show off our creativity and innovation. That’s what excited us about this game. When we did our first prototype and we’re flying down, we’re like “How come this hasn’t been done?” It seems like such a good idea, that’s our goal right now, bring in innovation. A lot of US studios don’t get the opportunity to do that as much as some of the European or Japanese studios, so it’s a big thing for us.
RG: What’s the budget for the game?
NP: It’s a good budget compared to most games in this category. You can see by the visuals and the quality of the style that we’re making sure this is one of the best titles you can get. We’re pushing it to the limit.
RG: How long have you been working on this game?
NP: I’d say we’ve been working on it around two months now.
RG: Not bad, a lot of progress in what seems a short period of time, especially for games.
NP: It is. Lucky we worked with NG mobile on a few of their titles. So it’s a really different process when you start building a game like this. With a bigger game you would expect it to take a lot longer, but we’re on weekly to individual day deadlines instead of month deadlines. So you’re production really changes in this kind of market.
NP: Having your own original IP has been real motivating. You have to really turn it around quickly.
RG: When it will be released?
NP: November on IOS, Android, iPhone, iPad …
RG: How much will it cost?
NP: It will be competitively priced. So it will definitely be something where people are “wow, this is a great price for what you’re getting”.
RG: What are the challenges making a mobile game instead of a console game?
NP: I think the challenge is exactly what we were just talking about; the turn around time. Instead of getting a month to build one level you got a week. It’s like “Oh my god!” It’s one thing to be building a game like “Angry Birds” but it’s another thing to be building a game where you can honestly say “I can see that on Xbox Live" or "I can see that on Arcade, I can see that on PSN”. So with our production values it is definitely a challenge.
RG: Do you think this game will also be ported to consoles?
NP: I don’t know yet but right now we’re focused on just making the best game that we can.
RG: It definitely has the potential to but first get it out on portables then worry about getting it out on Kinect, Move … it looks like a good decision to put it out on a portable as it appeals to a very broad demographic of gamers.
NP: Exactly, that’s our goal. Myself as a gamer, I haven’t played many games like that. That’s been another driven motivation, like can we pull it off. It kind of proves that you can be five years old and you could be sixty and you could still tilt it and you can play it.
RG: Well, thank you very much for your time.
NP: You’re welcome.
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