Interview : John Dennis, Design Manager at Team 17 (English version)
1/ To begin, could you please introduce yourself as well as Team 17 for our readers ?
Hi, my name’s John Dennis and I’m Design Manager at Team 17. Team 17 are a small independent developer who’ve been around for about 20 years. That’s a long time in the video-game industry! We’re best known for the “Worms™” games, but we’ve done other things too including “Lemmings” recently for Sony and now “Alien Breed”.
2/ Team 17 is well known for the world famous Worms series which seems to be a sure hit on all platforms. What opportunities did this success bring to you, and what may have been the counterparts of this success over the years ?
“Worms™” has been really good to us. People continue to enjoy it, and it’s move to digital platforms such as XBLA, PSN and iPhone has proved to be a tremendous success. I think we’re always surprised at how much people love the game, and don’t know any other developers who own the rights to a game as universally popular as “Worms™”, so we’re in a very, very lucky position. It’s continued success is probably the biggest factor in Team 17 still being around as an independent developer some 14 or so years after the release of the original game, so we have all the people who’ve played the game in that time to thank for that.
There’s not too much of a down-side to being the developers of “Worms™”, although being known for one game does tend to get us typecast slightly, despite the fact that we have and continue to develop titles in other genres. I’m not really complaining though. It’s a great game, and if you had to be known for just one game, there’s not many better.
3/ The first episode of Alien Breed Evolution has just been released on Xbox Live Arcade, and is planned for PC and PlayStation Network in the coming month. Why did you choose the Alien Breed franchise over others for this new game, and how has it been received ?
Well, after “Worms™”, “Alien Breed” is easily the game we’ve had the most mail about over the last few years. We actually spent the best part of ten years trying to get a publisher interested in the game but never succeeded. With the advent of digital game distribution channels like XBLA, PSN and Steam, we finally had an opportunity to bring the game back without the backing of a publisher, so that’s what we’ve done.
Episode One’s been received pretty well, and we’re looking forward to what people make of the next two: they get better as they go on! Episode Two’s got new aliens, environments, bosses and set-pieces, but we’ve also listened to what people have been asking for in Episode One, so there’s some extra play modes, and a couple of extra features that I can’t mention right now, but they really add something to the game. We really hope people enjoyed the first one, and they keep an eye out for the second.
4/ Evolution is set to be an episodic game. How many episodes do you plan to release ?
We’ve released one on XBLA so far and plan to release another two. The game’s a trilogy, so if you want to know how the story ends, there’s a couple more to play through. And hey who knows, if it’s wildly successful, maybe we’ll get to make some more one day.
5/ Will the upcoming episodes bring changes in the gameplay and new game modes or will it only be new maps and territories to discover ?
Well, as you might expect, there *are* new maps and new places to discover in the upcoming episodes, but there’s a bunch of other features too. Each episode has it’s own unique weapons which bring new, ever-more destructive ways to combat the breed. They’ve also got their own bosses and aliens types to face, so for the upcoming Episode Two, players will have to develop new strategies to overcome the new alien types they’ll be facing.
The benefit of releasing the game episodically has meant that we’ve also been able to listen to what people wanted to see in the next episode, and we’ve done our best to meet their suggestions. As a consequence, we’ve got new (multiplayer) play modes for Episodes Two and Three, and a bunch of all-new features that unfortunately I can’t talk about just yet (I know… sorry!), but we think they improve on what is already a great package.
6/ Alien Breed Evolution is a top-view shooter close to the original episodes of the series. Why did you choose to keep this gameplay ? Did you ever think of making it an first or third person shooter ?
We wanted to bring an experience to XBLA, PSN and Steam that was quick to learn, could be played co-op multiplayer and was true to the heritage of the original “Alien Breed” games. There are many great first person games on all those platforms, so we didn’t really feel that there was any great need to make “Alien Breed” first person. Besides, the game works really well from the top-down perspective. It’s shamelessly retro, but it’s great fun!
7/ What are your plans regarding the resurrection of the Alien Breed franchise ? Should we expect iterations to appear on various platforms such as iPhone, DS or PSP in addition to the PC and home consoles ?
Well, if the game’s a success on the platforms we’re releasing it on, who knows? We hope it is, and that we get a chance to roll it out onto other platforms too.
8/ Team 17 is a known defender of independent game development. How do you see the current state of indie game development ?
It’s always difficult being independent, but it’s particularly difficult at the moment. There are many variables that are making it difficult for publishers to be profitable with the titles they publish. Factors such as the polarity of the retail market in which a small number of games make a lot of money while many more fail to recoup the investment made in them and the increasing costs associated with game development have meant that it’s becoming increasingly more risky to publish AAA video-games. This has made publishers increasingly risk-averse, and when that happens, the work for independent 3rd party development studios starts to dry up as publishers look to commission less games from independents and stick with their bigger titles, which are usually developed in-house.
Fortunately for Team 17, we’re not reliant on 3rd party development work, but many other very good and very talented independent developers have either disappeared or are finding things difficult at the moment, and that’s a great shame. It’s a particular shame when you see the market for games continue to grow but the talented people who make the games themselves struggle.
9/ With the success of Worms and the recent release of Alien Breed, can we expect new IP's to appear any time soon, or the revival of other old IP's ?
We have a couple of things in development right now that are completely original and that I think would surprise people if they knew about them. We’ll have to see how we get on with them: obviously it’s more of a commercial risk launching something completely original, but if things go well, I hope they get a release. With regard some of our other old IPs, we don’t have any immediate plans to bring back “Superfrog” or “Project X”, but that may be something we consider in the future. Watch this space!
10/ That was our last question. Do you have anything to add for our readers ?
Grab yourself a copy of “Alien Breed” Episode One! It’s an absolute steal for 800 points. That was a bit of a shameless plug wasn’t it? Sorry… I couldn’t resist it :)
Thanks a lot for your answers.
You’re more than welcome.
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