Gibbage Developer Chat by Game Tunnel

Q [William Usher] - I have to ask, first and foremost, how did you came up with the theme song for Gibbage? The reason I ask this, is because it was one of the most original, and groovy sounding theme songs I�€™ve heard in a video game.

A [Dan Marshall] - The theme music went through a few iterations before I was completely happy. My excellent composer Mike Watts had worked on the Rock in-game music, and there were .mp3 files flying between the two of us for many months. Originally, I wanted something similar for the theme music, but hard rock stuff just didn�€™t fit right. Then he sent over something with this trumpet fanfare in the background and it clicked in my head that what Gibbage needed was an over-the-top brash 1960s spy theme.

I�€™m not musical in any way, shape or form, so my emails to Mike tended to be vague �€œThink 1960s spy TV series meets Magnum p.i meets the theme from Kill Bill�€?.

One day this file plopped into my Inbox. I booted it up and was instantly grinning. He�€™d somehow understood what I was after and it only took a few tweaks here and there before I was sitting in front of Gibbage�€™s title screen with the biggest smile on my face.

For those who don�€™t know, how long have you been developing games and what got you started?

I love games, and I�€™ve always wanted to write my own. The first incarnation of Gibbage was actually way back in the mid-nineties on Klik n Play. A few years later, I decided I wanted to do an up-to-date sequel, free from the confines of someone else�€™s software, so decided it was high time I learned to code.

Gibbage is my first proper release, however; it�€™s the game I wrote while I learned how to program.

That�€™s interesting, and now I�€™m curious how Gibbage ran on software like Klick n Play. But what was the first programming language you learned, and what was the transition like bringing Gibbage from the point and click Maxis software, to independent software code?

It was extraordinarily hard work. I learned C++ from scratch specifically for the purpose of coding Gibbage. Eventually, the whole thing wound up being coded in C with the Allegro game programming library as a sort of �€˜helping hand�€™.

The Klik n Play versions were very basic, and extremely crude. There are no special moves, and only a handful of weapons and power ups. But the power-balancing aspect shines through, and it was very clear to me that the series deserved a larger audience.

So I took the core elements of what made the original incarnations fun and set about recreating them in grown-up code. One of the most important aspects to get across was the wide variety in the arenas, to make sure the gameplay never got stagnant. I think I pulled that off rather well, actually!

Speaking of arenas...the arenas did come off well, and they were as fun as they were diverse. How did you even come up with so many different stage designs, and gimmicks within each stage? I especially liked the nightclub with all the little people there waiting to be gibbed.

Originally, the majority of the maps were going to be 'vanilla', so as to not get in the way of the core gameplay mechanic. The further into development I got, the more clear it became that the maps with a 'hook' (be it Zombies, underwater sections, ice or chunks of hot lava raining down from the sky) were considerably more fun, and that the focus of level design needed to shift towards as much variety as possible.

Coming up with ideas for Gibbage is dead easy: I'd take a pencil and piece of paper and Ben Ward down to the local pub and we'd sit and bounce ideas around. After a few pints, the ideas tend to come a rolling, and I'd awake bleary eyed the next morning to find a scrumpled up damp piece of paper stuck to my face. Amid all the incomprehensible scribbles and rude drawings would often be a gem that simply says something like "Zombies!". I'd be up and coding withing minutes. Works every time.

The nightclub level came about following a conversation about how clubs in games are always terrible, and embarrassingly sparsely populated. We considered the idea of doing a satire and only having twelve people dancing, but given that Gibbage is in 2D, we decided it'd be good to do something completely different and have the map completely packed with people to get in the firing line. There's something quite unsettling about that level. It's less to do with all the innocent people you're gunning down and more to do with the fact that none of them try to leave. It freaks me out.

What was your inspiration for making a game like Gibbage, where did the idea come from?

I don�€™t know, really. I liked the idea of doing a 2D deathmatch game, but the mechanics just didn�€™t work with only two people. I kept adding elements and tinkering about until I hit on this push-and-pull �€˜Balance of Power�€™ dynamic between the two teams.

I think that�€™s what makes Gibbage stand apart from other Deathmatch titles. It�€™s a unique mechanic that works really well. Originally, did every weapon concept you come up with make it into the final product of Gibbage? Was there any weapons that didn�€™t make the cut, or were altered before the final version?

I think the weapons pretty much all made it in, although there was an awful lot of fine-tuning to make sure they were properly balanced. There were also plenty of other things that did get dropped, such as RocketPacks and loads of arena themes. Quite often things sound fun on paper, but when you actually come to code them it turns out they suck fairly hard. No matter how much you tweak and fiddle with some game elements, they�€™re never going to work so you have to know when to drop them.

I had a map based in a farmyard that I regret not doing called �€œUdderly Offal�€?. Crazed chickens running about with feathers flying everywhere are always funny.

In the game, players can either go head-to-head against a computer opponent or another human player. What prompted you to head in the direction of deathmatch-style bouts, and was that originally what you had planned for Gibbage?

My plan was to do a revamp of the original incarnation of Gibbage, which was always a bit hit among my friends and I. As such, it was a formula that I knew was great fun to play, and I was working on familiar ground from day one which really helped the design process. It also meant I had a relatively clear vision of what I wanted to achieve with the game.

Players can do some pretty cool stuff in Gibbage, most notably sliding on the ground while shooting. Was that always part of the design plan, to have gamers perform platform stunts, or was it something that was added after testing and playing the game?

Bits of both, really. It was always part of the design to have moves like wall-grabbing and double jumping, which are there to add a second-tier of interaction for expert players. Gibbage is easy enough to just pick up and run about shooting wildly, but if you want to become a true Gibbage Legend, you�€™ll have to learn to pull off these Ninja-esque special moves in order to totally dominate the arena.

That said, some special moves such as sliding and ladder-jumping are there as an anti-camping device. It was possible to pin a player down by standing at the top of a ladder and shooting so much that they�€™d be unable to get up without dying. It took about half a playtest before I got well and truly pissed off with dying that way and decided to implement a neat little special move that would tip the scales back in your favour.

Also, sliding into the safety of your base amid a barrage of gunfire is possibly the coolest gaming moment of the decade.

The art-style seems reminiscent to something we might see on a Saturday morning cartoon. The violence, though, sort of works as a dichotomy to the cartoon presentation. What did you initially want people to think of the game when you first released it?

The cartoon graphics are most certainly there to offset the extreme violence; I always quite liked the juxtaposition of the two and I think the end result worked quite well. A large part of what makes Gibbage funny is seeing your opponent�€™s innards flying about the place.

When I released it, I wanted people to be put in mind of how games were back in the 90s; huddled around a monitor in front of Worms, hot-seating about the place laughing and jostling with each other. Back when games were fun and there was a degree of social interaction behind it all.

It�€™s funny you mention that, because it brings back thoughts of games like the original Duke Nukem or one of my personal favourites, Bio Menace. The gib factor back then was more about entertainment than shock value; gamers seemed to be more interested in the gameplay than the ratings. Was that one of your goals, to forego the likes of people like Jack Thompson and just intertwine fun-loving violence in a fast paced setting?

I didn�€™t write Gibbage with the intention of getting up anybody�€™s nose; when I started writing it, I didn�€™t really expect to wind up selling it, to be honest...

I just wanted to make a game that I�€™d want to play. Funny, fast, utterly disposable and endlessly replayable. It�€™s not designed for the clicky click-click casual market, it�€™s designed for the PC gamers who have finished the latest FPS and want something a little bit kooky and different to do with their time.

Speaking of Jack Thompson, has anyone ever approached or contacted you about the violence in Gibbage, given all the heat video games have been receiving lately?

One man put on a forum once that he didn�€™t like all the �€˜tomato sauce�€™ and that he felt the game would be much better without it. I think he�€™d missed the point somewhat. Other than that, I�€™ve had no complaints about the violence in Gibbage whatsoever; it�€™s extraordinarily timid by today�€™s standards. Had I released it in the mid-nineties it�€™d probably have kicked up quite a storm, and I�€™d be a very rich man. These days you can string up a ragdoll by his nostrils and set fire to his trousers. How could I compete with that?!

Good point.

Is it possible we could be seeing a Gibbage 2 sometime in the future?

I�€™m itching to work on a Gibbage sequel, although it�€™ll be quite a different beast that�€™ll require me to pick up some new coding techniques before I get cracking. Visually it�€™ll be a lot more stylised and in terms of mechanics I�€™m planning something much more grandiose. Don�€™t get your hopes up, though. It�€™s some way off yet...!

Thanks Dan, for answering the questions, any final comments for your fans?

I have fans now?

Yeah, that group of guys huddled around the computer at 2 am trying to one-up each other in a casual game of Gibbage. Heck, I�€™m one of them.

By: William Usher
Posted: Friday July 21, 2006