There is a bit of a divide in games that are coming out right now.
On the one hand you have hardcore titles that require a large amount of player investment – normally found on PC and console. On the other, you have games that don't require gamers to play for a long time, usually found on mobile.
But with Vostok Inc, developer Nosebleed Interactive has attempted to appeal to both of these audiences with a game that combines hardcore and casual elements.
“It comes from a bit of a frustration actually,” Nosebleed director Andreas Firnigl says.
“I love arcade-y twin stick shooters, and I played stuff like Super Stardust and Geometry Wars a lot, but only ever for five-minute sessions. They mostly lacked a reason to go back other than obviously being really fun second to second and getting a higher score. I'd also been playing some idle games. I'm not even sure if I actually like idle games but I was hooked.
“We started prototyping an idea that combines the long term hook and progression of idle games and the intense action of twin stick shooters and 2 days later we had a prototype up and running that's scarily similar to the final game, except without 2 and a half years of polish.
“One of the goals was to constantly provide short term and mid-term goals as well as an overarching sense of progression. I'd like to think we've hopefully achieved some of that. The other thing was we wanted to make a game you could sort of play while you were distracted, like if you're working on something and you decide to have a quick go you can play for 3 minutes of action, land on a planet and then minimise to go back to a spreadsheet or document or whatever. This really was a focus for the game and it's how I tend to play it.”
In Nosebleed’s marketing materials, the developer even goes as far as to describe the project as a ’casual game for a hardcore audience and a hardcore game for a casual audience’.
“[That’s] my attempt at marketing buzzwords,” Firnigl laughs.
“Basically we've tried to balance the game so it feels like it's a really hardcore bullet hell shooter, but there's loads of stuff under the hood that adjusts difficulty for players who might not be used to that sort of game.
“With our first game [The Hungry Horde], it looked quite casual, but was balanced to be quite hard. We had a load of player who really liked it because of that, but in actual fact the stuff they really engaged with were all the elements we nicked form casual mobile games. With Vostok we've tried to use some of the stuff we learned to get people hooked in with the casual clicker mechanics but give, hopefully, everyone an experience that makes them feel like they're a hardcore badass (because the game is adjusting to their skill).”
SHOOTING SKILLZ
Maybe thanks to the popularity of Housemarque’s roster of twin-stick shooters – such as Super Star Dust, Resogun and Nex Machina, the genre has made something of a resurgence in the last few years.
“I'd like to think popularity sort of comes in waves, but I'm not really sure,” Firnigl says.
“It might be that it's a relatively straightforward thing to set up – as I said our prototype took 2 days and had all the core stuff the full game has – so you can get core mechanics up in a short amount of time and spend a lot of time polishing and adding depth.
“It's possibly also come about with how low the barrier to entry is these days to create something decent with something like Unity or Unreal or Gamemaker or whatever engine, and then publishing to mobile, PC or even console. When I started out in the industry it would have been virtually impossible for a small team of three like ours to do a simultaneous (or almost simultaneous) launch worldwide on four platforms.”
In addition to making its own titles, Nosebleed is also a work-for-hire studio that has teamed up with the likes of Newcastle University, Sony and Dockleaf Developments.
"[We do this] as and when it comes in really," Firnigl explains. "That could be a number of months full time, or a couple of days on a project, it really depends. We try and do as wide a variety of stuff as we can, so as well as a lot of VR gaming stuff, we've done educational apps, work for industry and even a healthcare thing that was really interesting."
But what learnings has Nosebleed taken from working for hire?
"If you have a choice, only pick stuff that you're interested in and can get enthusiastic about, otherwise the output will suck," Firnigl says.
"It doesn't matter if it's for gas and oil or the next Minecraft, you've got to enjoy doing it. Also go with your gut. If you're not sure if you fully trust a client, then avoid them. We learned this the hard way, and I still regret not listening to my instincts.
"Definitely get a good lawyer and solid contracts. We're lucky enough to have a lawyer who used to work for Rockstar and Sony, so he knows his stuff, but he's also an indie dev himself now and does lawyer-y stuff on the side".
