This is an interview with ektomarch, developer of upcoming stealth action side scroller Aerannis. He is busy coding the game solo as we speak, but he did take some time to talk to us about his work. We do refer to his other games, which you can play if you go to his site. You can read our prior coverage of the game here and still fund the Kickstarter here.
1. First off, please introduce yourself to our readers. What is your role in making Aerannis and what can you tell us about what you did before this? What prior experience do you have making games or otherwise working in the industry, if any?
Well, before starting Aerannis, I was in college and didn't have much time to work on games. My main project before this was Subbania, which was rather large for a first project. I think it was about 20000 lines of code and a few hundred sprites, so that was a good amount of work for a first game. I had to set it aside at times in order to focus on school work and other things, but I stuck with it and got it done. I guess the majority of my experience comes from working on that alone.
My contribution to Aerannis is the art, programming, and co-writing.
2. Why did you want to make Aerannis? Why does the game have the main character, theme, and storyline that it does?
I can't think of many 2D stealth games and I know of even fewer that offer fairly open worlds, so I thought it'd be cool to make one.
As for the story, we wanted to depict a future in which radicalism is the norm. It's a trend I see growing from all sides of the political spectrum.
I wanted to create a universe in which most citizens would see it as absolutely perfect, yet some group of people would still suffer. Their pleas for improvement or assistance would be ignored because they wouldn't be seen as proper citizens. I thought that an interesting group to use would be TERFs–trans-exclusionary radical feminists–and the player would be a trans woman. The most extreme ones associated with TERFs believe women need to break off from the rest of society and they'd live in peace and harmony forever without male influence. Some of them on tumblr and twitter found out about my game and they think it's the most vile thing imaginable. They went out of their way to attack it and claim that trans women are just men in disguise and oppressors of women. I was afraid we were at risk of sounding a little far-fetched with the plot, but it seems we were spot on. The whole plot of the game is about people within the society thinking men in disguise are the reason for society's flaws, and seeing people come out and respond that way to our game was honestly kind of funny.
3. Is Ceyda a good person? She seems to have been placed under unusually severe circumstances, but the story description also implies she lacks the moral code even conventional antihero protagonists have. Does she, in fact, have a moral code, and if so, how does she justify using human shields to herself?
Hmm, this is a tough one. I guess the best way to describe it is that she starts out fairly detached from the world. Relatively hopeless and her only concern is getting a job done. As she becomes more aware of the happenings within the world, she starts to see that there is a way to change things and she becomes hopeful, and I suppose "good." Using human shields is a way of minimizing deaths. None of her missions target random civilians (and you can't kill civilians). They're all about taking down organizations that've knowingly been doing something very wrong in some way. Human shields let Ceyda pass through a crowded area without anyone attacking. The other option is getting shot at and shooting back.
4. How does it feel to have the game get full funding, and be designated a Kickstarter Staff Pick?
It’s pretty neat.
5. I noticed that your Kickstarter pitch does not mention the words DRM. Would you consider releasing the game DRM-free?
I'd never use DRM of any sort. DRM with any degree of effectiveness is invasive and would only discourage people from even considering a small indie game.
6. I was very impressed with your prior body of work after checking it out from your website. You have dabbled in different development tools and genres with each game you made. Was this a conscious choice on your end, or just a consequence of random experimentation? What would you like to share to other developers about your experiences?
It's mostly a consequence of never really finding a tool I liked. Javascript was nice because it's technically cross platform, but making a game that runs exactly the same in all browsers is rather annoying and compatibility is broken eventually. Lua is the first thing I've truly enjoyed working with, but Löve does have some limitations, namely that it has no built-in support for 3D and I'm essentially bound to desktop apps. Things like Unity are in no way comfortable for me since they force the whole visual editor thing onto you. Working in code all day is my preference.
My advice is to find a language, framework, or engine that you like. Experiment with everything out there until you find something comfortable for you. If you don't, you'll spend most of your development time wrestling with your tools instead of making a game.
7. MacroDepression in particular stands out for using the same themes as Depression Quest and Actual Sunlight. You also make mundane games like Panic Circle, but what draws you to make ambitious projects that use challenging themes?
MacroDepressionis kind of based on a good 15 months of my life. I wanted to show what depression is like for those who have it at its worst. Games like Depression Quest show what a depression is like for those who are capable of going about daily business, albeit somewhat detached from it; MacroDepression is what it's like for people who've completely withdrawn from the world and don't even know where to begin with trying to change, if it's even possible. I couldn't at all relate to Depression Quest and I know many others felt the same way, so I wanted to make a short game that they could relate to.
Sometimes I just make small games to experiment with a tool and see how comfortable I am with it. Panic Circle is one of those games. It took about a day of work and I realized one thing: it may be fast to work with, but I hate Unity.
I guess a reason why I am working on more ambitious projects is because I'm mostly just making the games I want to play. Quite a few people just play and criticize games. I sit down and think, "How could I make this better?" and set out to actually make something that improves upon what I'm playing.
8. Finally, share one last message to fans and readers. What would you like fans to look forward to the most in Aerannis?
Fun. 🙂 The story may sound a little heavy-handed to some, but it's a story of conspiracy and monsters first and foremost.
