QJ interviews: Last Alarm [XNA Project]

February 13, 2007

They say with the right tools, dreams really can take flight. The Wright brothers needed their bike shop in Dayton, a strip of sand in North Carolina, and a little time, and today we have A380s and F-35s zipping across the sky. Who is to say that Microsoft‘s XNA Games Studio Express can’t spark the dreams of the homebound game coder in a similar way? At the least, homebrew coders can indulge in their hobby, create some great-looking and playing stuff to showcase their talents; when we get lovely games coded TLC by “one of us” – it’s quite the fair trade.

QJ took the opportunity to talk to Josh Butterworth and Maher Al-Samkari, two of the guys behind Triology Productions, creators of the XNA project (for the PC, but as it’s XNA, the 360’s just a stone’s throw away, in a manner of speaking) “Last Alarm: The A.R.G.U.S. Complex”. We get to talking about the game, and about working with XNA.

Along the lines of a traditional vert scroller, Last Alarm evokes many of the classic arcade scrolling shooters the mature gamers of today have grown up with, polished with a high-quality sheen and hand-crafted from the comfort of home… or at least by hobbyists and homebrewers who do this for the love of the game. Ah, and as we’re rolling on to Valentines Day soon enough, it is the perfect time to talk about love. Let’s take it away, then:

More amazing images and game details right after the jump!

Along the lines of a traditional vert-scroller, Last Alarm evokes many of the classic arcade scrolling shooters the mature gamers of today have grown up with, polished with a high-quality sheen and hand-crafted from the comfort of home… or at least by hobbyists and homebrewers who do this for the love of the game. Ah, and as we’re rolling on to Valentines Day soon enough, it is the perfect time to talk about love. Let’s take it away, then:

How friendly is XNA? Let’s cut that into a few parts:

Was using and navigating the XNA framework easy/intuitive/no big deal?
The documentation and instruction manuals – same deal? Are they easy to understand, do they walk the user through all that XNA has to offer?
Let’s say a n00b like me wants in on the action. Would it be easy for me to get a grip on XNA? What kinds of skills would I need if I wanted to brew my own game for the 360?

Josh: That’s a hell of an opening question, lets see…I think your perception of XNA will come down to want you know and what you want to get out of it. The framework itself is a huge time saver for anyone looking to start from nothing, it can handle all your timing and rendering storage in an intelligent way. So for those people XNA will save them from boring repetitive tasks and maybe help them construct a better framework for their game because it’s based on these standard fundamentals. The documentation is standard but the MSDN forums are great for general XNA support and requests.

But for me that alone doesn’t make XNA a great opportunity, there’s many other similar frameworks, in more powerful languages that don’t force you to only use managed code. The fact you can compile and run your game on 360 doesn’t make it a great opportunity either, you could compile and run code on PS2 with a Linux kit after all and I’m sure everyone reading this knows a thing or two about homebrew development on other systems.

What makes XNA a great opportunity for me is community that is forming around the framework because of the backing Microsoft are giving it, the technology partners they’ve taken on, and the opportunities they are promising to the best developers. There are already hundreds of user-made add-ons for XNA, everything from screendump components to fully blown 3D engines. By legitimizing homebrew like they have, MS are creating a really well supported development community. And it’s that community that’s made my job as a coder easier and made me really want to make this game.

So to actually answer the question of how much easier it is; that’s totally up to you. You can start from scratch with a blank class file and the XNA reference library or you can download a good engine like TorqueX from GarageGames and be shooting the crap out of stuff in a couple of days.

How much of this is an “after-school project”? I mean, do you find getting a team together and working on Last Alarm demanding on time and resources? Speaking of which: how many team members are there, and what are your roles?

Josh: I have a full time job (as a systems developer) so this is just a hobby for me right now. The kind of hobby I don’t tell my boss about because I don’t want him to know the reason I’m shattered at work all day is because I’m up till 2am working on projectile velocities 😉 . I’m project lead for last alarm and I’ve handled all the coding up till now but we’ve just taken on another 5 volunteers for coding roles, they are all just getting to grips with the code at the moment but I’m sure they’ll be giving their opinions on XNA at some point in the future.

The functioning team is about 8 at the moment, plus a couple industry veterans who helped us out in the design stage and hopefully will have time to chip in again when we start needing opinions on what we’ve done.

Maher: For me, this is entirely an “after school project”. Serves well as a means for wasting my already minuscule free time :-). My role in Last Alarm is Co-creator/lead artist/graphic designer/Story writer, with some hand in sound/music design as well.

Would you like to get the game on the Xbox 360? If so, what do you think of the $99 fee to get onto the Creator’s Club?

Josh: Obviously we’d love to get it on 360 at some point, but our first priority is making a game people will enjoy, anything that comes after that is a bonus.

The $99 fee hasn’t been justified yet, for sure, no one should pay that much (annually) just to run code on a box they already own, although I have done. It might become better value when the extra starter kits, samples, documentation and free assets become available (that’s what they are currently promising). But essentially I think it’ll come down to weighing up your curiosity against your bank balance.

One thing I would say for MS in this case is that they are distributing a fair number of free codes to projects that look promising, through competitions and various communities. So if you have a good idea, get the word out on sites like http://xbox360homebrew.com/ and you might get the help you need.

::Work In Progress Renders of Enemy Ships::

How good do you want to make the game look? The graphics for your proposed enemies and player craft look especially well-done and highly detailed. Do you think graphically it’ll match up to, say, some of the better-looking XBLA titles out there?

Maher: Here’s hoping! I’m putting a great deal of effort into creating some highly-detailed models that will scale well into the format we’ve chosen. I want the game to look as good as possible, of course.

We smell a faint smell of Gradius here. What other games were you inspired by when creating Last Alarm? And we don’t mean just scrolling-shooters 😉

Maher: Well, let’s see: Silpheed, Darius Gaiden, R-type, Thunderforce III, Thunderforce IV, and even a bit of Star Fox (as far as the idea of story presentation within a shooter is concerned, at least).

Can you sell us on the game concept and design?

Maher: Sell you on it you? Hmm. You’re a lone ship, trying to escape a mechanized horde hell-bent on your destruction. Your egress from the Solar system will take you to key locations and through varied environments, where you will face countless foes and nigh-impossible boss battles. Sounds like fun to me. 🙂

The Arrow looks good enough to fly in, even if it’s not the final model. Permit me to ask: in the vein of Gradius, will you be able to upgrade and even change weapon systems via powerups, or on the fly? (I must admit, I’m looking forward to a spread-shot weapon)

Maher: We do have an upgrade-system in place, though the implementation of that is up to Josh. And nature of the Arrow’s dual-turret design means that, in essence, almost any weapon can be a spread shot 😉

Josh: We’re still playing with the actual implementation for upgrades, there’s a few different approaches and it’s a matter of finding the one that best suits the game, did I mention I’m a huge Tyrian fan?

Escape capsule? (Light Bulb!) We noticed in one of your prototype GUI graphics that you’re using the traditional “Life/Ships” counter. Any plans to get creative in the Player Chances/Life department, similar to Prey‘s “Death Walk” segment? (Editor’s note: we were referring to the design for the player’s Arrow ship, where the cockpit’s also marked as an “escape capsule” in the schematic. Hey, we can imagine!)

Maher: Let’s just say, we’ve got some ideas, so we’ve been sure to leave plenty of hooks in there to implement them as time permits.

Last Alarm does look like – at least in the proposal graphics – a traditional, if good looking vert-scroll shooter. What sort of creative ideas are you tossing around to make this different from other scroll shooters out there? How will you leverage the Xbox 360’s/PC’s capabilities, or the controller/keyboard and mouse, in making the gameplay fresh and innovative?

Maher: Right now, the singular goal is to make Last Alarm a fun experience, along with a solid graphical presentation. I think the implementation of the 360 degree-fire mechanic, shield mechanic, weapon upgradeability, and story/presentation will help the game stand out.

Josh: We have to be a bit careful about how far out we go with ideas, as with any community game you should never plan further than you can see. So you’ll notice that our ideas are simple but still manage to change things up considerably.

Some music questions I’d like to toss in. Do you guys plan to have a soundtrack to the game? What kind of sound are you looking for – orchestral, rock, pop, techno, in-house created, user-created via MP3s on the HDD?

Maher: At the moment, the music is geared more towards traditional electronica/techno, with an epic and orchestral slant. Myself and a couple of other artists are hard at work at creating said soundtrack.

Can you tell us a bit about the story? Let’s start with what A.R.G.U.S. stand for! And how long are you shooting for as far as play time? (Or will it loop to increasing difficulty?)

Maher: Don’t want to give away anything, but here’s a quick pocket-synopsis. The year is 2235. the SOL system has been the site of a vast inter-planetary conflict over dwindling natural resources, and the human race is at the brink of extinction. In this time (known as the Great Drought), a pan-dimensional computer life-support system known as A.R.G.U.S. has been created, and tasked with preserving the human race through gathering the resources necessary for his continued survival, in environs normally too dangerous for human beings to tread. The setting of the game is several years after this crisis, and A.R.G.U.S. has grown well beyond its initial programming, subjugating the human race. As a refugee pilot of an experimental warship, your goal is simple – escape the SOL system and A.R.G.U.S.’s sphere of influence, and take your chances in the great void of space beyond.

As far as what the name “A.R.G.U.S.” stands for… well, we have to have some secrets.

Sorry about this, but I must ask: Any plans for C.A.T.S. to make a cameo in the story? Will taking off all the Arrows lead to great justice? And who set up us the bomb in the first place? 😛

Maher: What you say!?

How far along is the game? Any ETAs on takeoff on a PC or 360?

Josh: When it’s done it’s done, but we won’t be going dark. Community feedback is a big part of this project so we hope everyone will get to play through a couple of levels at least before the full release. You can keep up to date with our development at www.grassrootsgames.co.uk/Last Alarm/