Stew Hogarth talks about his "massively single player rogue-like", influences and indie development

uh my name's uh stu i'm here promoting dungeon run which is i'm making in collaboration with proper games it's a massively single player road-like rpg okay um loads of those on the market so what what does that make every single player one ah it's not just one person running down the dungeons there's lots of people uh piling in uh you know they're you're not supposed to get too attached to any of them because they die fairly similarly and very quickly um so it's more like lemming which means dungeons and dragons i guess is another way of looking at it okay so um some classic genres and uh properties being referenced there do you know do the games of of your past particularly influence the games that you want to make in the future or is it is it just a sort of coincidence and the next project you do will be you know a halo or something along those

lines i mean everyone wants to make a variation of games but without a shadow or doubt the games you played when you were younger their dna will be in you it will be in the games you make you know you'll be you can't not be influenced by um you know no one who not i'm gonna go out and live and say no one making games isn't a games fan like the they're all been fans of the games when they were younger and all played their so how are you finding being an independent developer what's the scene like at the moment um everyone's very poor mostly uh i i try and do a bit of work for hire as well as making my own stuff um we've got a good uh you know you kind of have to make money to live and wait in your spare time you can you can do whatever you want and that's what's great here is there's lots of people here you know they're living on the bread line but

they're just surviving and they're making the games they want to make right so is it is there a do you feel like the independent scene is slightly more interested in well i guess slightly less interested in in commercial constraints or something like that or do you feel like the games in this sector are more uh looking to to have a message or be an artistic statement i think um to a lot of indie developers the thought of changing your game in order to make a bit of extra money is pretty abhorrent which is maybe a bit of a strong word um which is in contrast to what the the games industry like mainstream would say because they make money that's that's the thing that they want to do again these typically come from a hobbyist background maybe they've done a bit of work in the main mainstream games industry and decided that they want to make the games they want to make so they're sick of being told what to make yeah and how to make it so

yeah one of the things that i've noticed uh in my time at dare to be digital so far is that there seems to be quite a divide between people who are um veterans of the industry like yourself and people who are you know very fresh-faced uh just coming out of university still in university there seems to be a a real divide between the types of games that people want to make the inspirations even things like i've noticed that a lot of the younger guys and girls want to make premium games like and they you know they don't mind the in-app purchase stuff at all um where do you think that where do you think that divide comes from or is it indeed is it you know is there a divided i think there is a divide um free to play is very uh is very attractive because it means

probably more people will be playing your game and but if you're aiming to make money uh then you've got to you know you need to actually add these you know purchases and things that there's a right way to do it in a wrong way to do it and the wrong way will make you more money typically there is there is stories of people doing it the right way and making this money as well i think ultimately they they want people to play their game and they want the value to come from the game not from you know churning people squeezing money out of people okay um and finally i've heard on the grapevine that you are working on a retro inspired uh some might say sort of jet set willing-esque uh game uh you're allowed to talk about that at all it works it's my game that's being done in my spare time okay i'm not expecting to make any money out of it so i guess i could say it's a it's just a self-indulgent kind of thing

it's nothing so what what kind of game is that obviously uh android release that kind of thing yes everyone will probably go on web portals as well congregate something like that okay um yeah what kind of uh game is that like straight platformer it's a platform game mixed with a pinball game so it's like a pinball platform game and uh it's retro theme it looks like jessica willy monty mole chubby gristle chip factory for the real for the real nerds out there what is it that's so attractive about making a spectrum uh spectrum looking game like it's such a it's such a a used visual and it's such a classic kind of art style like who is it that goes for that kind of game and like why do you want to make a game about that when you could make this incredibly lush almost like uncharted kind of visuals sort of thing why go back to the manic miners

very simply when i look at it it makes me go gooey and i'm hoping because i do other people will as well okay that's basically it i should probably say something other than go second because it makes me you know it's appealing to me so i'm assuming it would be appealing is there an appeal to nostalgia then yeah i guess there's no one yes definitely but no doubt