With Cloudbuilt‘s release, MonsterVine had an opportunity to speak with Martin Löwgren, Programmer and Creative Director of Coilworks (follow him on Twitter: @Gafgar_D) about the studio, art design, development, and overall community reception.
What is the story behind the development team at Coilworks and why decide to start as an indie developer and not AAA?
There are probably a couple million little green reasons why we decided became an indie developer and not AAA. No but to be serious, I think most of us on the team like the idea of working on a small team, having a lot of input into what games we make and that we saw potential in what this team could create.
When we first officially formed Coilworks in 2011 there were six of us. We had a bunch of concepts, a rough prototype of our platforming mechanics and the shared idea that we all wanted to make challenging games with deep mechanics. For about three years now we have been living on money we had saved and doing side gigs, as well as help from friends that pitched in when they could to make this game that we all believed in. We’ve also been fortunate enough to be able to take part in the Game Incubator program, here in Skövde that provided office space, equipment and coaching that all really helped us out to get started. The team constellation has changed a bit since we started, and so has the game. It has been a long time in the making, but we are all really happy to see that it will finally be released on Steam on March 20.
What are some of the influences behind Cloudbuilt and its comic book aesthetic (or its stylized art design)?
The stylized cross-hatch look stems partly from discussions within the team about how to create games played in a 3D-perspective that doesn’t necessarily look like a realistic 3D rendering, whether that’s through use of colors or shading techniques.
We toyed around with a couple different concepts but quickly gravitated towards mixing a hand painted look, with cross hatched shading. The inspiration comes from looking at how hand painted pictures create different effects and how you would paint cross hatching, and combining that with what we thought worked better and worse in titles with non-realistic rendering such as Zelda: Wind Waker and Valkyria Chronicles.
You recently announced a partnership with publisher Rising Star Games, how did that come about?
Actually it started out in 2012 when we ran into a representative from Bergsala, Swedish distributor of Nintendo products, at a game convention here in Sweden. He took a look at our game and pointed us in the direction of Rising Star Games, informing us that Cloudbuilt might be something they would be interested in. So when we later decided to take Cloudbuilt to a publisher, Rising Star Games was high up in the premier spot on our list.
How long has Coilworks been developing Cloudbuilt? What challenges have you encountered in its development and staying true to the overall vision of the game?
We started working on the game engine and a game prototype in 2011 but it was in mid-2012 when we sat down and defined the details for what became Cloudbuilt.
One thing we have been iterating a lot and tuning on to stay true to our vision of a fast-paced game is creating platforming scenarios that are varied and challenging while still maintaining a sense of flow through the level. At the start of development when we were blocking out the levels we tried building challenges were you had to climb along and jumping between ledges to avoid enemies shooting at you. Although it could be an interesting platforming challenge we quickly found that those types of challenges didn’t work with the flow we wanted to create.
Building flow has been a continuous process for us, where our level designer would go back from time to time and see what can be added to give more options for players to create a flow.
In addition to a publishing deal, the Steam community “greenlit” Cloudbuilt for release on its platform, what are your thoughts on the community feedback thus far? Are you considering any changes based on their response?
I think we’ve had a great response from the community, and it seems like everyone is really excited to try the game. There’s not anything in particular that I think we have changed based on the comments, but there are a lot of really great suggestions.
Most of the actual changes have come from playtests and getting fan and press feedback based off their experience with Cloudbuilt. I think it’s hard to suggest actual changes based on just video material and text, but it has been very valuable for us to become better at communicating what they game is about by reading peoples responses to it.
Cloudbuilt is now available on Steam for PC.
