Interview with the Alien Hominid development team

Interview with Alien Hominid developers John Baez, Tom Fulp, and Dan Paladin

The Indie mentality taken to its logical conclusion
By Russell D. Carroll [March 1, 2005]

Game Tunnel: For everyone reading out there, who are you and what was your involvement with Alien Hominid?

John Baez: I am the producer on our debut title "Alien Hominid" and one of the Behemoth co-founders. I was the guy who convinced everyone to quit their day jobs, risk everything and bring Alien Hominid to the consoles.

Tom Fulp: I am the lead game design programmer for Alien Hominid. Dan and I created the original web version in Flash.

Dan Paladin: I am the art director and lead animator for Alien Hominid.

GT: Let's head for the question on everyone's mind. With the budget that AH had, 1.3 Million dollars, many people I meet don't consider this to be an 'indie' game. How do you respond to that statement?

JB- LOL...yeah, we get that a lot too, but it is pretty simple actually. When we were filling out the IGF entry, we decided it was best to put a number which accurately reflected the amount due to all the people who worked on the game as well as the out of pocket expenses. It didn't make sense to us to put up just the out of pocket numbers because that doesn't reflect what the game really cost to make. None of the founders of the Behemoth will see any money until we start seeing royalties. I think what some of the IGF teams will find when they start looking for publishers is that if their stated IGF budget is very low, they will be in a very difficult negotiating situation. On a side note, no intern labor was used in the making of the game.

As for our definition of "indie", that's simple too...indie means no one else had faith in your product so you went out and made the product anyway. An indie product is platform independent. It could be a game, music, film, movie, book, toy, you name it. It means you own and control the IP and no one paid for the development. As far as Alien Hominid is concerned, we paid for 110% of the development of the game ourselves, including non-development things like marketing, trade shows, PR and getting reviewers to review the game. We didn't use any outside money from our distributor O~3 Entertainment, venture capitalists or outside investors, we did it all internally by mortgaging or selling our homes, liquidating savings and the like. Some of the guys even worked side jobs or freelance. In the end the real kudos for this game goes to our wives, girlfriends and kids who bit the bullet with us, stood by us and supported us 100%. For more info about how we made Alien Hominid, check out [the FAQ on the website.]

Tom Fulp: It really irks me when people bring up that IGF number, because none of the founders were paid any salaries for making Alien Hominid and our additional team members are paid back heavily in royalties. I can say without a doubt that we are about as indie as you can get. We worked our butts off for 18 months and gave away our money instead of getting paid.

DP: If putting MORE out of your own pockets on the line somehow makes you LESS indie, then someone needs to explain to me how that works.

GT: So Alien Hominid is an Indie game...but it's on a console. Whenever I bring that up I get funny looks, what lead this game from being a PC game to being a console game?

JB- Yes, we are slowly getting used to our situation...it is as if we were a three-eyed prom queen. Sure she's pretty, but boy, is she different looking! I guess it's the price you pay for being the first Flash web game to full console title.

The Flash prototype of Alien Hominid was first publicly released on Newgrounds in early August of 2002 (although Tom and Dan had been previewing to people months earlier). Someone sent me a link to the game once it went up and I loved it....it seemed so fresh and new but I hated having to play it on the keyboard since it just felt like a console game to me. I started playing it at work a lot. At the time I was an artist at Gratuitous Games building levels for the Xbox port of Soldier of Fortune II. (Gratuitous was known for console ports.) Dan Paladin (aka Synj) was working at Presto Studios when the prototype was released. A couple of weeks later, Presto Studios closed its doors and GGames hired some of their artists, including Dan. One day Dan heard me playing his game and he introduced himself and we started talking. As Soldier of Fortune was wrapping up, our boss decided to close down the company because of consolidation in the industry. I had always wanted to run a game development company, so it was a no brainer really...we had the programmers to do PS2, GameCube and Xbox games and Dan to do the art. So we started a company to bring Alien Hominid to life.

Hopefully, what we have accomplished will encourage other down in the trenches workers at big development studios to leave their steady pay checks and benefits and go make indie games for the consoles. Now that the PS3, Xbox2 and Revolution have been announced, there might be more possibilities for experienced console teams that are considering going indie to make games for the current range of consoles. The game industry can certainly use fresh ideas.

Tom: I was somewhat bitter about the initial independent gaming scene's reception of Alien Hominid. I spent years making Flash games for the web, only to be told "those aren't REAL games." Dan and I submitted the web version of AH to the IGF but were rejected because they didn't consider Flash web games for nominations (they started to the following year). Now we have a console game and people still questioned it. You're damned if you do, damned if you don't. I feel very lucky that I had the opportunity to work with experienced console developers. In the end, though, it wouldn't have happened without a lot of long, grueling, painful hours of work from everyone.

DP: What they said!

GT: What do you think makes Independent games distinctive?

JB: Risk and Vision I'd say. Indies do it because it is in their spirit to make their creation at all costs, no mater what obstacles get in their way. There are no focus groups with indies, no suits to get in the way. This helps the industry by bringing new, risky ideas that would otherwise never see the light of day.

Tom: Independent developers don't need to make games to please investors or superiors, they make games to please their own sensibilities. A lot of the content in Alien Hominid was spur of the moment. We would get a good idea one morning and have it implemented by that night. That sort of thing just doesn't happen much in a more hierarchical organization. You can't get drunk and decide to throw something in for the heck of it, because it won't meet the "plan" and you will have to remove it the next day. There is room for a lot more imagination and innovation with independent game development.

DP: Nobody can muddle your junk. It's all your own vision. Bake your own cake.

GT: What is the most innovative feature of Alien Hominid and how is it innovative in your mind?

JB: Well to me, the most innovative feature you can't even see in the game, it's our business model. When we started AH, we realized that since no one would fund the game, we'd have to come up with as many income streams as possible to keep us alive. So we decided to invest in merchandise and an online store since we thought if no one wanted to publish the game we could always sell the figurines, t shirts and skateboard decks to pay the bills. We also license the game on a per territory basis, so O~3 is our distributor in the USA, Zoo Digital Publishing is our publisher in Europe and Australia and we are currently looking to hook up with a Japanese publisher. By using multiple income streams, indies can survive...we are living proof of this.

Tom: Biting off the heads of your enemies is pretty innovative, I suppose. I think our most innovative move was bringing a Flash web game to the consoles, something which I don't believe has happened before. There are a lot of great web characters out there and I believe this is the first step in recognizing new potential for them.

DP: I'd have to go with head biting as well. I can't recall any other game where you can jump on an enemy and humiliate him for as long as you'd like before finishing him off in such a way.

GT: What was the single most difficult part of Alien Hominid to program?

Tom: I would say the two player aspect of Alien Hominid is what caused me the most unforeseen problems and headaches. I had dabbled in simple two player games before, but never one with this much potential interaction. There are a million things that can go wrong when you don't account for what the other player is doing. Every interaction in the game has to assume that player two is doing something completely different and counter to player one. I feel like the game would have been 100x easier to program if not for that pesky second player.

GT: Other than your own game did any one of the IGF finalists or Student Showcase games stand out to you? Why?

JB: I met Victor Palmer, creator of "Stars and Stripes" at Slamdance and was very impressed, both with the game and his ideas about game theory. "N", by Raigan Burns and Mare Sheppard also looks very cool and is fun to play. Iain McNeil of Slitherine Strategies gives back to the community a lot with his posts on IGDA biz forums and his business model has a few similarities to ours, so we are glad to see him make it to the finals. The guys at Chronic Logic have always been pros at making games I really like.

Tom: I've been on-line buddies with Edmund McMillen (creator of Gish) for years now and am excited to finally meet him in person. He actually started developing Gish with Chronic Logic as we were working on AH, so we had a lot in common during the development process. Gish is a totally awesome game with a lot of diehard fans!

DP: I too am on-line friends with Edmund. Go Gish, go!!!

GT: How do you think Independent Games will evolve in the future?

JB: Tom and I were at the Slamdance Independent Games Competition at Park City a few weeks back and it was a great experience for both of us. Slamdance is a film festival that runs concurrently with Sundance Film Festival so we were surrounded by indie film makers and were able to talk to them about their processes. There are many similarities, but on the whole, the indie film scene is much more evolved than the indie gaming scene simply because they have been at it much, much longer. For example, the film makers are very proactive about marketing their films to anyone walking around town because that's how they get people to see their film and hopefully start enough buzz to get it picked up for distribution. So you'd see guys dressed up as characters in their films passing out postcards, buttons, demo trailers, t shirts, anything to get noticed. I think once indie game developers have more venues to promote their games, they will be more active in getting people to play their games and ultimately purchase them. So when you are at the IGF, be sure to stop by our pod at IGF and pick up some very cool buttons and postcards.

Tom: I would like to see a lot more growth in the independent console game market as well as a lot more support from console manufacturers. The content approval process in the US does make if very hard to get a game made; we had to cross our fingers and develop Alien Hominid with a lot of uncertainty about whether the final version would actually be approved.

The mainstream console gaming market is becoming increasingly narrow in its focus on formulaic big budget games. I want to walk into a store and buy something completely crazy and totally fun, but I want to have no idea that it was going to be on the shelves until I walked in. Katamari Damacy is a good example of a game that made my week. I don't get that feeling enough anymore

GT: What is the biggest challenge facing Independent games?

JB: Money. Always was and always will be the biggest challenge for any indie, no matter what industry. This is because the people who have money don't generally want to risk their money unless they are certain there will be a big payoff. At the end of the day, ideas are a dime a dozen, but it takes a huge leap of faith, a lot of cash and more work than you'd ever believe possible to turn an idea into a game that makes it to retail.

DP: Respect comes into play too. Even if you find the change lying under the couch cushion it can be hard to get people to believe in your dream if you don't have an established company. It's hard to get the public to believe it too sometimes, as you know, judging by your earlier questions. The only thing one can do is keep on going through knowing there's something slick that people can enjoy on the way.

GT: As one of the leaders of Independent Games, what is next for you?

JB: We've been lucky enough to find our niche in the gaming world - fun, collectible console games that depart from all the mainstream products out there, so we'll keep making them as long as fans keep buying them! On the immediate horizon, the PAL version of Alien Hominid will be out in May in Europe and we are now focusing on getting signed in Japan. Hopefully by Comic Con 2005 we be announcing our next game with a playable demo!

Tom: I would really like to integrate the on-line community more with future projects, so hardcore fans can leave their mark on the games we make. We are doing a lot of brainstorming and prototyping at the moment. Dan and I are also working on a Flash web game called "Dad 'n Me", a game where you beat up kids on a playground. It's a lot of fun and will premier on Newgrounds.com in the near future. Maybe we'll enter it in the IGF next year.

DP: I'm not sure, but I will try to make it cool whatever it is. I promise!