“Hi, I’m Bob! And who are you?”
— Hi! I’m Nick Cornex, a game designer at Box3 Studio for about a year now. And I didn’t have any relevant experience working in game development studios before this.
“So… this doesn’t seem like the right interview. I had to communicate with the game designer who made the Omega game…”
— *laughs* No, that’s right. I’m that guy! The thing is, that I’ve always been interested in game development, and even before I started at DQStudio (now Box3 Studio), I made a few small non-commercial indie games on Unity, so I had experience developing different mechanics, and that’s why they hired me here.
“Can you tell us about your first games?”
— My main game was called Raccoon’s secret. I made it for a game jam in 2 days, and it had some interesting mechanics. The idea of the game was that you played as a raccoon who stole garbage from people and carried it to his burrow.
I wanted to focus on the absurdity of a raccoon stealing garbage from people, and yet they still chased him and tried to stop him. And in the end, when you collect all the garbage, there was a video where the raccoon builds a rocket out of the garbage and flies away from Earth.
“Awesome game! “
— Thanks!
“Can you tell us about your work on the Omega? How did it go, what were the tasks, and what was your role in the project?”
— My main role was game designer. I was responsible for creating and setting up mechanics, game design and balance, and worked on creatures and enemies that the hero encounters on his journey, and everything in that vein.
The main idea in the Omega was to create a hostile environment the hero finds himself in. So when working on the enemies, we really wanted them to be unusual and truly threatening to the hero. So Alice (level designer and voxel artist) and I spent a lot of time working on the enemies. It was a new but very cool experience for all of us. We had regular brainstorming sessions with the team, coming up with new, unique mechanics, and despite the fact that the Game Maker engine, like any other, has certain limitations, most of what we came up with still made it into the game. We’re really proud of what we did.
“So, the Omega came out perfect?”
— *laughs* Nothing is perfect. When we started working on the Omega, it was our second big game that we worked on (the first is currently being reworked). We literally opened new horizons, tested ourselves and tried to make something cool and unique. Of course, now, with all the experience we have gained, looking back, I understand that some things can be improved. We worked on this project for a long time, for a number of reasons. During this time, new versions of the Game Maker were released and the things we came up with using certain engine features in specific Game Maker versions, with new versions, with all the complex logic that was tied to them — ended up working differently.
“So, were there times when some of the mechanics you came up with just stopped working with the release of a new version?”
— They didn’t stop working, but sometimes they started working differently than intended. For example, we have a flight mechanic in the game. When we first started development, we spent a ton of time searching for information on how to implement flight and found nothing. As a result, watching absolutely different implementations of flight in different games, I came up with an idea of how to implement this mechanic on my own. We tuned everything and you won’t believe it, but the flight turned out to be perfect! Smooth, soft, very native and predictable. But with the release of new versions, this very complex mechanic started to work differently than intended and now flight in the game is also a certain challenge. Although, given what you’re flying on and the main character’s lack of experience in handling such thing, we prefer to think that this is still a feature.
“Interesting. Have you tried to improve this mechanics with new versions?”
— Yes. Definitely. But in the end, we had to leave it as it is. On the other hand, if you’ve never stood on a surfboard, the first wave will knock you down, right? Same here. Flying is not an easy thing, especially if you’re a beginner! ;)
“I see. Once, I lost a battle to a skateboard, so I know what you mean. But tell me, how did you guys come up with the idea for the Omega in general?”
— The idea was born during a brainstorm. We really wanted to make an original, unusual sci-fi game. And as soon as such an idea was voiced, we immediately began to throw spaceships references at each other. *laughs * At that time a cool game was already released in the sandbox, where the character collected himself from different parts. I really liked this idea and we even have a reference to it. Everything else is completely our thoughts and ideas.
“I thought that it is impossible to come up with something new nowadays.”
— Of course, everything has been invented before us, and while working on concepts, your subconscious mind somehow gives you some monsters or mechanics that you do not copy but are inspired by.
“In the NFT collection, it was already revealed that there are mimics in your game. I can say for sure that you did not come up with them on your own.”
—Of course not. But we liked our implementation. I won’t spoil it, but they turned out to be cool. Here, of course, we really like the very cool implementation of mimics from the awesome game Pray. But we were inspired by the idea of rock crabs from one of the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. We really liked the idea of a perfect constructor, when the arthropod is visually ideally assembled into a stone.
“Did you take anything from already existing games/movies/projects?”
— Yes. There were a couple of monsters that we added as a respectful reference to pop culture, but then we were told that even such a reference requires usage rights, so we decided to remove these references after all.
“I guess it’s right. There is a monster in your game (which is also presented as an NFT) with a very cool and unique attack that helped me completely clear the location without hitting anyone. How did you come up with this?”
— Pure inspiration. We were playing with the Sandbox mechanics and thinking about what kind of the most unusual weapon we could arm another monster with. The area attack that can damage any creature upon impact seemed to us very fun and versatile in application. That’s how *spoiler* appeared.
“I am honestly in love with it. What do you like the most about what you have created?”
— I prefer to look at the game through the eyes of a player. I like challenges and trials in games. I am quite a hardcore gamer, which is why during development, the rest of the team often stopped me and said something like “This is too much! Not all people like to suffer while playing games!” so not all of my ideas made it into the release version. *laughs*
But I really like the final battle. We tried to make it as challenging but interesting as possible. Despite the quite obvious sequence of actions, implementing everything that happens around was a special challenge. I don’t want to spoil it, but the final battle is the quintessence of the entire game. All the experience and skills that you gain during the game are genuinely used there. We really liked the idea of some Aikido, where you use the enemy’s strength against them.”
“Final battle is fire! And what is the Omega anyway? Can you tell us without spoilers?”
— Without spoilers, I can’t. The whole game is essentially a way to answer that question. The main character overcomes all the difficulties, not even knowing at first that such a question exists. The plot is such that at first, you only accumulate questions, which intrigues and makes you go further. But, a small spoiler, for some questions we offer the player to answer for themselves. We only hint, but we do not give a direct answer to the reasons.
“A purely Tarantino trick. And tell me, what are you working on at this particular moment?”
— Well, we’re polishing the Omega before release. As you know, it’s an almost endless process. But mostly, I’m working on one of our next games, Chicago Noir. I fully supervise this project and can already say that it will be a very cool game made on the new game maker 0.8 engine.
“Is this a commercial development?”
— We are making this game with the support of the Sandbox Game Maker Fund, just like the Omega. We like working with them because they give us a chance to release games that we are interested in, and that we are truly passionate about developing.
“I agree. It’s very cool when such companies help small studios, release what they want, without limiting.”
— Exactly. And we really needed timely and adequate feedback, which we greatly lacked when we were working on our first game and game jams. Back then, we walked blindly, relying only on intuition, and here the guys are really helping us evaluate our concepts and work.
And I would like to highlight the valuable support from the Game Maker Fund. I was particularly pleased to work with the testers who gave clear and detailed instructions about the problems they encountered during the game, providing video and text descriptions of how a particular bug occurred. So, largely thanks to them, the game was released (hopefully) with almost no bugs.
And of course, many thanks to our account manager, Thomas, who was ready to answer all our questions at any time of the day or night! A huge thank you, Thomas Lorthiois! We did it together!
“Thank you very much for your time, Nick! It was nice to talk. See you soon!”
— Thank you. Bye!
