Straight from the Source – Alex Rose Games (Rude Bear Series)

“A 9/10 Gamespot Rated Game”

Your game was developed for 3 Years. Where did you have difficulties in the development process? What was easy for you?

So the easy thing is, making a game (laughs). People annoy me because they download asset backs and I hate that. Every line of code in Rude Bear is mine except for two. The first is the input manager because the one I bought handles 500 controllers and there is no way I am doing that myself (although it is a nightmare to work with). The second one is the Audio Engine F-Mod which my audio guy told me we had to use. Lo-and-behold whenever anything goes wrong it is always one of those two. Or Unity updates breaking stuff. All my code either works or is easy to fix.

Porting was easy. I had heard it was hard but it only took me 3 days. Game development isn’t difficult, it is just time-consuming. The stuff I find difficult is like, drawing a picture but luckily I have artists who do that for me. The hardest thing to code was the 3rd boss. He himself was easy but he destroys the floor and it was a nightmare to code because Unity is stupid.

Honestly, the hardest thing was the cost. A Pegi rating cost me 2 grand [£2000] which was also how much the font cost to use. When you make a trailer for Sony, for example, you have to use the ‘For Playstation’ jingle at the beginning or end and you have to do it all yourself so I had to buy a video creation software and pay for that.

Being an Indie dev is like wearing every hat on the earth all at once. You have to code, market, beta test, know colour theory, make SFX, make trailers, etc. You have to do everyone’s job. But if you believe you can then you can. It requires a certain level of arrogance (laughs).

SRBR got a 9/10 on Gamespot and seem to be hitting high scores all across the board. Did this come as a shock to you?

The first Destructoid review had me dancing around being super-giddy. I think I even screamed a little haha. By the time the Gamespot review rolled around I had gotten so many 9/10s and 5/5s I was like ‘yeah, whatever’. Although, because it was Gamespot, I was kind of gloating around at my launch party, going around and being like ‘oh, so, did you see my 9/10 Gamespot review?’ and generally just being a dick about it (laughs).

It’s been three years, I think you can have a day to boast about it (laughs).

Yeah (laughs). A lot of these people as well, for the last 3 years, have been asking me “oh when are you gonna ship your game out? /s” And I’m like “I work 110 hours a week but ok.” See, what they want is to ship some shit out in 6 months and not have to deal with ‘crunch time’ but if you’re not willing to do the ‘crunch time’ then you won’t be able to make a good game.

Publishers are like that as well. They don’t care if the game is good as long as it looks good graphically. My game wasn’t signed on originally because of the graphics but the thing is, I needed the money to improve the graphics. When I finally got it and did improve the visuals suddenly everyone wanted it. It was the same game just with a different skin, but they don’t care.

I get that. It’s easier to market a game that looks visually appealing to people because most won’t get to play it until they buy it. Then the publisher doesn’t care.

Yeah, the vast majority of successful indies can churn stuff out in a year because they only focus on the visuals with little gameplay or substance. I actually want to make a G A M E that people will P L A Y. I don’t mind if they make those games honestly, it’s just when those people question me why my game isn’t out yet I’m like “sorry, I’m just making a 9/10 Gamespot rated game over here!” (laughs).

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Joshua 'NantenJex' Goldie

A historian and avid gamer, NantenJex is the Editor-in-Chief for Source Gaming, overseeing videos and reviews for the site. He has a passion for obscure gaming so any article you see on uncommon titles like Nazo no Murusame Jo, Yuyuki and Marvelous, to name a few, are most likely from him. He also likes game design leading to the creation of Dream Smashers, a series on potential newcomers for Super Smash Bros. He wants you all to know that Yoshi is objectively the best Nintendo character.

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