This is an interview with the creator of the recently funded Sealark, clairvoire!
Now that the game’s funded, who’s the full team working on it?
The team is myself, my good friend Flashygoodness who’s doing all the sounds and music, and my girlfriend Garagoose is also gonna help me with the manual’s illustrations occasionally here and there. That’s pretty much the crew!
What made you decide to make this game?
I always wanted to make games, but I have a terrible habit of planning out stories that are far too long to be able to do in any reasonable amount of time. Sealark was an attempt to do something small and contained. The attempt failed though; before the Kickstarter even began, it managed to become pretty involved in it’s own right, aha. This is not a bad thing though; thanks to everyone backing me, I have more than enough time to properly flesh it out as big as I want. I’d have it no other way, really.
When you decided to make it, what did you want to accomplish and who was the intended audience?
The simple premise of fishing is a pretty good foundation for writing characters, jokes, and gameplay mechanics on a whim The goal is simply to make something fun to play, that’s witty enough to hopefully make an impression in some folks. If it succeeds in that regard, we’ll see!
As for intended audience, I can’t say I had one in mind! I aim to make it the kind of game I’d enjoy playing, is all. The smallest demographic of all! But that said, I think individual tastes will matter more than, say, gender or age or anything like that. Anyone who enjoys dry situational humour, or collecting things, I think will like it!
What kinds of mechanics are important to Sealark’s design?
There’s a few staple mechanics at play, like fishing, sailing, fighting, etc. But I think the most important feature is that I can implement whatever mechanics whenever I want. I’ve structured the game’s code to allow this with as little hassle as possible. This let’s me do one-off scenarios where the game’s rules change just for a certain area or encounter, and do some neat special effect tricks. Of course, this is all rooted in the idea of collecting fish. Hopefully, this should keep things varied and interesting for folks.
What encounters does the game need to be a success?
Encounters, like boss encounters? I suppose all of them! At least, that’s the only way I’d consider it a success! There’s some major ones I have planned, and ones that haven’t been entirely planned out just yet. But I want to keep them a surprise until the moment they’re put to daylight.
How challenging do you want Sealark to be?
Fairly hard to complete fully, certainly! Just like in real fishing, there won’t be harsh penalties for failure, beyond lost opportunity. Losing a rare fish can mean a long time until another chance presents itself, and could also mean rare bait was wasted. But while there’ll be easy moments, I do want areas and situations in the game that are unforgivably difficult to complete. Catching all 150 fish won’t be a small task.
What do you think is most important when designing a game?
I’d like to think the most important thing, is to treat the game as a whole, and not a collection of various other mediums. It is it’s own medium, and should be written, coded, drawn, and composed for as such. Most large studios though understandably don’t treat games this way because so much money is involved. Artists are specialized into very small scoped niches, programmers make scripts for an engine they licensed, music is scored on commission, and the entire game’s plot is written by someone with little knowledge outside of script writing. I don’t begrudge the process, it really is the only way games with such high production values are possible! But being able to tie everything together is the only way to fully take advantage of gaming as a medium.
What games does Sealark draw inspiration from? Or art/films/literature/music?
There’s a lot of influences! I suppose were I to pick the most important, it’d be Mother 3, Cave Story, and Harvest Moon. Outside of games, there’s also Ponyo, and pretty much everything else from Studio Ghibli. Also, the webcomic Homestuck is a pretty big influence; I enjoy it’s brand of humour, how it’s delivered and paced, etc.
Where do you draw inspiration from?
All the inspirations for Sealark are my own inspirations too! I also have a lot of artist and programmer friends, all of whom are skilled and ambitious in their own right. Talking to them always inspires me to work my hardest every day.
Finally, what will make this game a success to you?
If at the end, I step back to look at it, and feel it was time worth spent. I’ll consider that a success in my eyes!