Bertil talks about his start in the game industry and eShop development.
http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/interview/34356
Gunman Clive creator Bertil Hörberg recently announced his next game, and has said very little about it other than that it will be heavily inspired by classic Zelda games. We reached out to him to learn a little more about working with Nintendo as an indie developer, and to learn about his new forthcoming game.
We gave a glowing review to his previous game, Gunman Clive, and we are very excited to see what he has in store for this next title.
NWR: How did you get started in the industry?
Bertil Hörberg: I've been wanting to make games pretty much all my life, and started programming in QBasic when I was around 12. I was pretty active in the Gameboy & GBA homebrew community in my teens, then I went to University and studied game development. My first job was at a small studio making kids games, after a short project there I got a job at Grin. This was right after they had started development on the Bionic Commando reboot, a while after that they started up Bionic Commando Rearmed, and as a massive fan of the original and of retro platformers in general I made sure to get on that team as soon as I could. That project really taught me a lot and helped me realize what I wanted to do, and since then I've been moving towards smaller and smaller teams until finally going at it all alone a couple of years ago.
NWR: What advice would you give to someone looking to break into game development themselves?
BH: The environment today is very different from when I started learning programming. There are tons of tools available that let's you do very impressive stuff with very little experience, but I would still like to promote doing it from the ground up and learning the basics rather than jumping directly into something like Unity.
NWR: Gunman Clive has been out for a while now, in retrospect what were the biggest challenges you faced in releasing the game on so many platforms?
BH: I don't think releasing on many platforms was really a problem. It might have been if I would have aimed for a simultaneous release on everything, but I took quite a lot of time between the different versions for the most part. Keeping all versions up to date and supporting them with bug fixes can be difficult though and something I'm not doing very well.
NWR: Compared to other services like the Android marketplace and Xbox Live Arcade, how is working with Nintendo as an indie developer?
BH: I think the eShop hits a pretty good middle ground between the complete freedom and chaos of the smartphone markets and the more strict and controlled services like XBLA. There are a bit more requirements and a higher entry barrier than the smartphones so the service doesn't get overcrowded, but they still let you self-publish without any weird screening systems like Steam Greenlight and don't dictate what features you can and can't have in your games.
NWR: What do you think Nintendo can do to attract more indie developers, such as yourself, to the Wii U and 3DS?
BH: I guess what's left is to prove that there is a market. If people have been paying attention they should know by now that it's not very hard to release a game for their platforms, but there hasn't been a lot of well publicized success stories. I'm very happy about my sales on the eShop but I'm not super rich yet, and I don't know how that compared to other games on the eShop. I think there may be an uncertainty about how big projects it can really sustain financially right now.
NWR: What games most influenced how you approach game development?
BH: I look a lot at NES, Gameboy games and early SNES games, not only in terms of game design but also in determining how much content I need and how to make it feel like a complete experience, even if the game is short.
NWR: Crowdfunding has become a boon for many smaller developers, have you ever considered using it to fund future projects?
BH: Kickstarter conflicts with a lot of my core values and principles, but these days there are so many talented developers using it that it's hard to really criticize it. Thankfully I'm not in need of any extra funding right now, and I'm planning to keep my projects small so the costs will be low anyway.
NWR: We're very excited to hear about your new game! Will you be targeting an eShop release for it?
BH: Yes.
NWR: Is there anything else you can tell us about it?
BH: I've probably already said too much considering the stage it is at now and how slow the development has been going lately. I don't have much finished game design, and it's little more than a tech demo at this point
NWR: Lastly, if you could take over any one classic gaming franchise to mold to your vision, which one would you choose and why?
BH: I don't think I'd really want to take over a classic franchise, and with my current situation it would be too much work, but if I had a bigger team I'd love to do a Zelda 2 remake or a Megaman game
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