I know there's still some people out there who are hesitant to check out Xbox Live's Indie Game line. For those people, I have but three words -- Veks and Silence. The innovative platformer, created by Australia's Edible Entertainment has pretty much everything you could look for in a game -- an incredible sense of style, responsive controls and zombies. Oh -- and did I mention that the game's main boss has tanks for feet and shoots motor vehicles at people? You might want to let that sink in for a while.
Set in a world in despair, Veks and Silence starts off with two of the world's largest companies merging and what happens -- a zombie outbreak. Former hero Silence is tasked with finding his missing partner and of course -- save humanity. What follows is an experience that is part platformer, part shooter -- and all frustratingly difficult indie gaming bliss.
We sat down with James Anderson, Edible Entertainment's lead designer to pick his brain on Veks, game design and comics.
Hit the jump for the full interview
XBFF: Tell us about your background. Was game development something you've always wanted to do?
JA: Video games have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. I got an Atari 2600 when I was about seven years old and I have been playing games ever since. I remember one day at school when the teachers were asking the kids what they wanted to be when they grew up and I said. "I want to make Video Games", so that's what I have been working towards ever since.
XBFF: Is Veks and Silence your first game?
JA: I have worked on a few projects at a couple of other video game companies here in Sydney. That's how I met my friends Chris and Jan who helped me start Edible Entertainment. Chris does all the programming for our games and Jan brings our characters to life through his animations. Veks and Silence is really the first game that we can call our own.
XBFF: What was the hardest part of creating Veks and Silence? The most rewarding?
JA: The hardest part of making Veks and Silence was keeping the project at a manageable size for a small team. It's really easy to over design especially when you are doing something for the first time so deciding what to cut and coming up with an efficient way to manage the content was an interesting challenge. Even the smallest feature can increase development time significantly so we had to be careful. In the end we wanted to make sure that what we were making stayed firmly in the realm of what a team of three people could finish to a high standard of quality.
I can't speak for the whole team, but the most rewarding aspect for me was seeing characters that I designed come to life within a video game. I remember when I designed the final boss in the game, "TheZombotix Mastermind". I sent my partner Jan a drawing of this crazy robot that could shoot cars and school buses at people. He was so excited about the design that he produced the 3D model in a couple of days and when I saw it moving around the feelings that invoked were just awesome. It gave me goosebumps! I was like, wow! We are really doing this!
The style of Veks and Silence was inspired by the team's love for graphic novels
XBFF: What was the inspiration behind the title?
JA: I took a lot inspiration from an old arcade game that I really loved back in the day called Splatterhouse. I really wanted to combine that insane over the top violence with the zany shootinggameplay of games like Metal Slug, Contra and Alien Hominid.
XBFF: Certain parts of the game are pretty unforgiving, especially the survival levels. Did you set out to create a challenging experience or is it something that just came up about through development?
JA: The Survival Mode was something that I wanted to add to the game to give players something to do after they finished the main story. I purposely made them borderline impossible because I really wanted to push the difficulty envelope to see what would happen. I have a thing about game difficulty and I personally play every game on its hardest difficulty setting from the moment I start playing it.
We are planning to release a series of Survival Mode Packs, the first of which we hope to have available before Halloween. They will be available for only 80 MS points. These new Survival Packs will have a more balanced difficulty making them more accessible, so folks can just jump in and have some fun smashing some zombie brains.
A look at the concept art that inspired Veks and Silence
XBFF: Anytime we show off Veks and Silence, the first thing anyone notices is the hand drawn scenes? Who drew these?
JA: I drew and painted all of the loading screen cut scenes in the game. That was one of the aspects of creating Veks and Silence that I really enjoyed. SoI'll take that as a compliment! We have a Deviant Art page where you can download some of the art from the game. Check it out here. http://veksandsilence.deviantart.com/gallery/
And if anyone wants to indulge my shameless self promotion, they can see more of my artwork here http://ienderi.deviantart.com/gallery/
XBFF: Speaking of those hand drawn visuals, any chance we'll ever see a Veks and Silence comic?
JA: Everyone on the Edible Team loves comics and Graphic Novels, so bringing a comic book feel to the world of Veks and Silence was part of our goal from thebeginning . That's why we decided to put some work into the nice comic book style cut scenes in the game. There is something special that we are working on at the moment that comic book fans can look forward to in the future.
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