Upon realising that their games appealed only to a certain type of gamer, their next title, Ironclad Tactics, was designed to be more approachable, a game that everybody could play. In terms of trying to define their games and who plays them he calls them 'games for engineers', however, the player demographic is not restricted to those who have a computer science or engineering background, but rather those who have a technical mindset and enjoy solving abstract puzzles. The games he and his team make revolve around a theme he calls 'open-ended problem solving' which he says many puzzle games lack. Niche is perhaps the wrong word though, it somehow implies a small audience, but the audience for Zachtronics' games is potentially broad, but it's just well-defined. After the game came out they received feedback saying that it didn't look like a game, or that it was very hard, it was then they realised how niche their games were. Up to that point no one had discovered their games, so there was no feedback, this meant that when it came to SpaceChem, Zach simply thought that he'd make another game in the same style he always had, it wasn't a reaction to any particular trend in the market. This exposure had another upside, they started receiving feedback on their game. "SpaceChem made more money than any of our games ever will again" Zach states, "this is not because it's a great game, but because of the timing." Released at the start of 2011, SpaceChem arrived along with an indie boom, the number of indie games on Steam started increasing and the Humble Bundle was drawing people's attention to indie titles. When it came to making their first commercial game, SpaceChem, they still had 'real' jobs which offered them the freedom to make the game they wanted and not worry about hitting financial goals, "We weren't worried about anything, we were hoping to make $10,000 and that would be hitting it big as we'd make back our costs."Īs luck would have it, timing was on their side. Before being a full-time game developer, Zach was working as a programmer for Microsoft and making games as a hobby in the evenings when he came home from work. The game in question is TIS-100 and was created by Zach Barth of Zachtronics. This appears to be the very opposite of games which are made 'for everyone', and I interview its creator to try to understand how, and why, you make a game for such a specific audience. The fact that someone has created a game around this abstract language instills disbelief, but also interest among a certain audience. For those who know about computer programming languages, assembly language is only one step removed from a CPU's native machine code, so it's difficult to learn as it requires an understanding of not only the language itself, but also of computer architecture. "It's the assembly language programming game you never asked for!" This logline is crafted to appeal and cause intrigue for a particular type of gamer.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |