In an effort to continue bringing fresh news and articles to XBox America, we have been contacting developers to get information the moment it is released and to see if we can interview any developers. I recently had a chance to conduct an e-mail interview with Michael Wilford, the CEO of Twisted Pixel and creators of the XBLA title The Maw.
Mini: Can you give me a brief synopsis of Maw for those who haven't played?
MW: The Maw is a 3D action-adventure game with puzzle-solving and light platforming elements. We set out to make the most ambitious 10 dollar game we could, and it has more in common with retail titles than with typical downloadable games. You play as Frank, a friendly alien that was captured by the Galactic Bounty Hunters. But their ship crash lands on a vibrant planet, and you seize the opportunity to escape. The other ship wreck survivor is a small, cute, one-eyed purple blob named Maw. You find a plasma leash that you can connect to Maw's collar, and with it you can lead him around. And by feeding Maw everything in sight, he continues to grow to limitless size, and will take on some of the special abilities of the creatures he eats. You have to use his powers to solve puzzles and get Frank to freedom.
Mini: I thought it was very cool that I was able to unlock gamer pics and a theme by playing the game, what was your motivation to do so, and was it difficult to get MS to allow you to give something away for free?
MW: Our motivation was that we wanted to give players the most for their 10 bucks. When you're making a game and have tons of concept art lying around, it doesn't take much effort to put together a cool premium theme or gamer pictures for fans. And we told Microsoft from the beginning that we wanted to do that. They never objected. Maybe other developers have just been assuming they weren't allowed to do that. But we asked about it because we're always trying to think of ways to reward fans for free.
Mini: Maw has received a lot of praise and awards, including the PAX 10 Audience Choice Award, and being a finalist for the 2009 Independent Game Festival in the Technical Excellence category, did you expect the game to receive this amount of praise?
MW: Heck no! We made the game in a dark basement in a tiny town in Indiana. We had no contact with our peers or anyone that thought what we were doing was cool. We kept our heads down and kept cranking without knowing whether people would dig it or not. It's easy to doubt yourself when you're in a position like that. We would have been happy just knowing that people thought the game wasn't a complete turd. So when Penny Arcade told us that we were one of the PAX 10 finalists, it was the proof we needed that we were actually going in the right direction. We all really needed that, and amazingly, the audience at PAX voted us the Audience Choice Award winner, which we never expected. But it's awesome to see the team's crazy hard work get rewarded like that.
Mini: Being a "smaller" developer, do you feel that this has given you any advantages/disadvantages over the "bigger" devs in terms of quality and time constraints?
MW: Being "bigger" generally means you have a lot more money. And money buys you things like longer dev cycles and bigger teams. If we had more time and people, we could do so much more, but we're constantly paring the scope of our designs down to fit with what we have to work with. But one great thing we have going for us is the ability to create our own games based on our own concepts that we come up with, not some publisher that owns us or writes our checks. When you're working on original IP, especially a concept that the whole team helped come up with and believes in, it really lights a fire under you to make it extra special.
Mini: At Xbox America we allow people to keep track of their gamerscore and compare it to others in North America and others in their state. As a developer what is your opinion on gamerscore and achievements, are they just a gimmick or do they help add value to the games?
MW: I don't think Microsoft knew what kind of monster they were creating when they popularized achievements. But now that the beast has been set loose, I think it's great. Anything that gets people to play more games is good in my book. Honestly, I look at achievements like rumble - it's become a standard feature that every game needs to have these days. Rumble sure seemed like a gimmick at first, but look at all the flak Sony caught for not launching the PS3 with support for it.
Mini: Did your team have fun naming and describing some of the achievements? My personal favorite was "Tastes like Snot" and the description of "Six Meals a Day." When is Dunch by the way? I'm also going to take the time to throw out my recommendation for a DLC achievement: "Purple People Eater". Maw could eat a soldier while having Puff-tor power and eat one while having Beetull power, thereby making him a one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater... I just realized how big of a geek I am.
MW: Man, that's a great idea for an achievement! That's one of those "wish I thought of it" moments! The six meal times are:
1. 7:30a - 8:30a
2. 9:30a - 10:30a
3. 11:30a - 12:30p
4. 2:30p - 4:30p
5. 5:30p - 6:30p
6. 11:30p - 12:30a
Mini: What what your most memorable moment while making this game?
MW: Definitely when we got word from Penny Arcade that The Maw was a PAX 10 finalist. After that, I'd say when we first got Frank's slo-mo dodging working. When a turret shoots at Frank you can press A to trigger a "bullet time" dodge that is so over the top that it kind of spoofs the whole bullet time concept that is becoming increasingly over-used in games today. We all laughed hysterically and knew it had to be in the game.
Mini: Both of the DLCs have been listed as "Deleted Scenes." Was there anything in particular that caused these scenes to be taken out of the original storyline?
MW: Actually, they weren't taken out of the original storyline. We didn't design the DLC levels until the main game was in the can, so to speak. We're calling them "deleted scenes" only because the new levels fit in between the main game's levels, chronologically speaking.
Mini: Is there an estimated time frame for the third DLC to arrive or will we just have to wait for an official announcement?
MW: We haven't received a release date from Microsoft yet, so I can't say for sure. But I'd imagine that the wait will be similar to what the first two levels had.
Mini: Do you have anything else you want to say about Maw, a shameless plug perhaps?
MW: It just came out on Steam, Greenhouse, and Direct2Drive. You can try the free demo version before you buy, so if you haven't tried it yet, there's no excuse! Go see what all the fuss is about. The Maw is packed with cinemas and funny moments that are sure to make even the most hardened Locust murderer chuckle.
MW: Thanks for a great interview, it was fun!
Mini: Thank you for taking the time to do this! We look forward to see what Twisted Pixel's next offering will be!
Mini: Can you give me a brief synopsis of Maw for those who haven't played?
MW: The Maw is a 3D action-adventure game with puzzle-solving and light platforming elements. We set out to make the most ambitious 10 dollar game we could, and it has more in common with retail titles than with typical downloadable games. You play as Frank, a friendly alien that was captured by the Galactic Bounty Hunters. But their ship crash lands on a vibrant planet, and you seize the opportunity to escape. The other ship wreck survivor is a small, cute, one-eyed purple blob named Maw. You find a plasma leash that you can connect to Maw's collar, and with it you can lead him around. And by feeding Maw everything in sight, he continues to grow to limitless size, and will take on some of the special abilities of the creatures he eats. You have to use his powers to solve puzzles and get Frank to freedom.
Mini: I thought it was very cool that I was able to unlock gamer pics and a theme by playing the game, what was your motivation to do so, and was it difficult to get MS to allow you to give something away for free?
MW: Our motivation was that we wanted to give players the most for their 10 bucks. When you're making a game and have tons of concept art lying around, it doesn't take much effort to put together a cool premium theme or gamer pictures for fans. And we told Microsoft from the beginning that we wanted to do that. They never objected. Maybe other developers have just been assuming they weren't allowed to do that. But we asked about it because we're always trying to think of ways to reward fans for free.
Mini: Maw has received a lot of praise and awards, including the PAX 10 Audience Choice Award, and being a finalist for the 2009 Independent Game Festival in the Technical Excellence category, did you expect the game to receive this amount of praise?
MW: Heck no! We made the game in a dark basement in a tiny town in Indiana. We had no contact with our peers or anyone that thought what we were doing was cool. We kept our heads down and kept cranking without knowing whether people would dig it or not. It's easy to doubt yourself when you're in a position like that. We would have been happy just knowing that people thought the game wasn't a complete turd. So when Penny Arcade told us that we were one of the PAX 10 finalists, it was the proof we needed that we were actually going in the right direction. We all really needed that, and amazingly, the audience at PAX voted us the Audience Choice Award winner, which we never expected. But it's awesome to see the team's crazy hard work get rewarded like that.
Mini: Being a "smaller" developer, do you feel that this has given you any advantages/disadvantages over the "bigger" devs in terms of quality and time constraints?
MW: Being "bigger" generally means you have a lot more money. And money buys you things like longer dev cycles and bigger teams. If we had more time and people, we could do so much more, but we're constantly paring the scope of our designs down to fit with what we have to work with. But one great thing we have going for us is the ability to create our own games based on our own concepts that we come up with, not some publisher that owns us or writes our checks. When you're working on original IP, especially a concept that the whole team helped come up with and believes in, it really lights a fire under you to make it extra special.
Mini: At Xbox America we allow people to keep track of their gamerscore and compare it to others in North America and others in their state. As a developer what is your opinion on gamerscore and achievements, are they just a gimmick or do they help add value to the games?
MW: I don't think Microsoft knew what kind of monster they were creating when they popularized achievements. But now that the beast has been set loose, I think it's great. Anything that gets people to play more games is good in my book. Honestly, I look at achievements like rumble - it's become a standard feature that every game needs to have these days. Rumble sure seemed like a gimmick at first, but look at all the flak Sony caught for not launching the PS3 with support for it.
Mini: Did your team have fun naming and describing some of the achievements? My personal favorite was "Tastes like Snot" and the description of "Six Meals a Day." When is Dunch by the way? I'm also going to take the time to throw out my recommendation for a DLC achievement: "Purple People Eater". Maw could eat a soldier while having Puff-tor power and eat one while having Beetull power, thereby making him a one-eyed, one-horned flying purple people eater... I just realized how big of a geek I am.
MW: Man, that's a great idea for an achievement! That's one of those "wish I thought of it" moments! The six meal times are:
1. 7:30a - 8:30a
2. 9:30a - 10:30a
3. 11:30a - 12:30p
4. 2:30p - 4:30p
5. 5:30p - 6:30p
6. 11:30p - 12:30a
Mini: What what your most memorable moment while making this game?
MW: Definitely when we got word from Penny Arcade that The Maw was a PAX 10 finalist. After that, I'd say when we first got Frank's slo-mo dodging working. When a turret shoots at Frank you can press A to trigger a "bullet time" dodge that is so over the top that it kind of spoofs the whole bullet time concept that is becoming increasingly over-used in games today. We all laughed hysterically and knew it had to be in the game.
Mini: Both of the DLCs have been listed as "Deleted Scenes." Was there anything in particular that caused these scenes to be taken out of the original storyline?
MW: Actually, they weren't taken out of the original storyline. We didn't design the DLC levels until the main game was in the can, so to speak. We're calling them "deleted scenes" only because the new levels fit in between the main game's levels, chronologically speaking.
Mini: Is there an estimated time frame for the third DLC to arrive or will we just have to wait for an official announcement?
MW: We haven't received a release date from Microsoft yet, so I can't say for sure. But I'd imagine that the wait will be similar to what the first two levels had.
Mini: Do you have anything else you want to say about Maw, a shameless plug perhaps?
MW: It just came out on Steam, Greenhouse, and Direct2Drive. You can try the free demo version before you buy, so if you haven't tried it yet, there's no excuse! Go see what all the fuss is about. The Maw is packed with cinemas and funny moments that are sure to make even the most hardened Locust murderer chuckle.
MW: Thanks for a great interview, it was fun!
Mini: Thank you for taking the time to do this! We look forward to see what Twisted Pixel's next offering will be!
