Shay Casey calls them like he sees them.
Shay Casey is the man developing Circuit Strike.One, a frenetic shooter that promises to blend Asteroids with Rez and elements of Geometry Wars among others. To get a better idea of the game check out this exclusive trailer.
We caught up with Shay (Twitter) to discuss everything from his views on the industry to what it's like working with publisher Chillingo and came away thinking "this guy is a legend"...
On the H.Grenade website you state that your games exist to reclaim casual games for the hardcore action gamer. What set you on this path?
Casual games have taken over our once Utopian virtual world of calculated violence, trash talk and huge explosions with stuff that's really pretty lame in comparison like shopping, talking, walking puppies, popping bubbles, baking cup cakes, matching shapes, stacking blocks and worse. Most of us hardcore types, not unlike real people, have real lives now. We don't always have time for a marathon game session and we need games that don't suck for the moments between interesting and required activities throughout each day. Boredom is our true enemy. As much as I hate down time I would rather stare at a wall than play Super Sparkle Rainbow Power Pillowfight or the next bad match three clone. Is this the best the industry can do? I still want to frag some noobs and wreck shit, I just only have 15 minutes available to do it right now!
Honestly, most casual games suck. Not necessarily in quality, but definitely in content, theme, style, substance, gameplay and utter lack of innovation. They are not made for real gamers. They don't have an incentive for putting in the time to learn the rules. To find the combo or best moves. You don't need to improve your dexterity through practice. You just waste away hours on end. No risk. No reward.
Don't even get me started on f*****g avatars, does Microsoft think we are all 12 year old girls that want to play dress up? You really have to ask yourself... what the f**K? I would love to own the guy that made this up - in the arena. How much cute can we take? I am personally over the limit.
It all make perfect sense if you really think about it because they are mostly copycat, me too software made for the mainstream. They are just about capitalizing on the mass market appeal. And why not? Money is attractive and big companies love it! They put this stuff out in droves because people flock to buy it. Its like printing WiiMoney™ Notice I said people and not gamers. I guess Mickey D kids need something to put there greasy, chubby little fingers on when they are not ingesting their 3rd Happy Meal of the day and track suit soccer moms get bored when there Grand Caravan is being detailed. Enter the casual game onslaught. Now everyone can have fun and the "Game Industry" can say it makes more money than Hollywood! Britney sells a metric ass ton of CDs but that doesn't make her a musician.
Hard core gamers are the only reason that video games exist at all. Let’s join together and do what we can to make some smaller games that would make Carmack proud!
Wow, I like your candour. So how do you define “casual”? Circuit Strike.One appears to blend Asteroids with Geometry Wars and then adds some Rez style audio interaction for good measure. This doesn’t necessarily sound like a recipe for a casual game to us.
Haha, good point. It simply "casual" in the sense that you can pick it up, throw down a quick game and put it away. It doesn't have some long involved story mode, ship ugrades, long term collecting or a micro economy. It was made to be played in short satisfying bursts. More like a good cup of coffee that a hit of LSD. Unfortunately, you can double tap the game over screen and restart the action instantly so it's pretty tempting to keep trying to beat your best score and/or get a better raking on the global leaderboards. That really doesn't help at all when you want to put it down.
Why should core gamers pay attention to Circuit Strike.One? What sets it apart from its peers?
It was designed from the ground up to be consumed in small doses but it includes everything that a gamer would want in a hard core game - game stats tracking, career stats tracking, online global leaderboards, achievements, an experience points system, career rankings and unlockable skill levels. You start cs.one with easy mode and have to work your way up. You have to earn the right to play on Elite mode. Some of the achievements are only available through higher skill levels and your scores and ranking will climb as you progress.
Second and more relevant maybe, it is an original title. It was clearly inspired by other games but every game mechanic was balanced and tweaked to make for the best touch screen game experience possible and to try and hold true to the preproduction concept. The look, sound, and feel of CS.One is unique on the iPhone right now and we hope that it would be considered an original on any system.
The thing that really sets it apart is the audio/visual synchronized combat system. The game reacts to your actions in real time. Teleport through the wall and watch the arena change when you try to evade enemies or kick in bullet time and listen to the sound warp in sync with the game speed. The type and number of enemies killed triggers different explosion sound effects, audio samples and/or breaks and fills in the beat depending on what level of intensity the game is running at. A few samples are random to provide some variation.
It is also a very dynamic game. It constantly tries to gauge what you are doing and counteract that. Sit and camp and the enemies will spawn closer and closer to your ship. Don't kill enemies and just fly around, they will chase faster and faster the longer that they are alive. Shoot them quickly and the System Admin will spawn new stuff to come after you.
Yes, some variation of this may have been done before and it may look a like something else you have played before but when you sit back and play the game with headphones on you can just get lost in the experience. In the sound and visuals, in the game play, developing your skills or in the quest for leaderboard supremacy, the choice is yours.
Now that the game is almost complete, what would you add if you had a bigger team or a bigger budget?
New content would be the top priority as most of the development time was spent on just making it work well with the tools and hardware available. Now that the game engine is complete, all future work can go into more tracks, samples, enemies, bosses, etc. The kind of stuff that would extend the game after you have played it 1000 times already like I have .
When developing for the iPhone how did you approach the lack of buttons on the device? This seems to be the one thing that is keeping the iPhone out of a lot of gamers hands.
I think it was one of the hardest phases of development and definitely the one part that you have to get right. On one side you have hardcore gamers that want a game that requires dexterity and offers a more rewarding experience as you learn the system. The other side is pickup and play. Gamers that just want to go. They don't want to read any instructions or set up their configurations. They just want to play now and they want the game to unfold in an easy and entertaining way.
This dual requirement presented a lot of problems and every idea that I planned out on paper just plain sucked in the game. It was amazing how bad they were! Touch screen, static, analogue, dynamic, accelerometer and every combination of inputs was tested during the process. It ended up requiring a complete shift in approach that came as a result of listening to the beta testers. We realized that some people play "heavy." They want to stay connected to the device and keep constant pressure on it. Others were more "tactical" in that they preferred to just tap lightly or drag and release in shorter calculated movements.
Ultimately we decided to ship a "Basic" and an "Advanced" controller using feedback from our core group of testers to help nail them down. The Basic controller is pretty much point and shoot but less customizable and maybe leads to less fluid manoeuvres of the ship - not effecting game play, just style. The Advanced controller allows gamers to set ship physics like speed, rotation and aim dampening for a true customized feel. Hopefully CS.One will satisfy most gamer’s styles with the final two control schemes but only because of our epic failures in the process and trying to learn from the mistakes.
We want the controls to allow you to play the game not just interact with it.
So do you think the iPhone can compete as a “true” gaming device? Do you think Sony and Nintendo should be concerned?
With 37 million devices in the world, on some level they have to be concerned. They would be stupid not to be. Right now though, the "killer apps" just aren't there yet. Not in volume. Software ultimately makes or breaks a platform. Apple already has the digital distribution market locked down and they have succeeded in making it a platform that represents a huge opportunity. If they can get the rest of the top development studios like id, Epic, Blizzard, Square and Ubisoft to come onboard then it will draw the hardcore gamers. That’s what Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft should be afraid of. I personally think Apple will dominate the handheld gaming market 5 years from now.
You’ve teamed up with Chillingo, how did this partnership come about?
They sent me loads of cash, wine, women, the whole nine yards! Haha. Chris saw my game video originally on TouchArcade.com, read my info on h.grenade.com and liked what I was trying to do with the game. I was also approached by another publisher at the same time, who will go on record as the publisher-who-shall-not-be-named. I felt myself getting sucked into an investment capital funded Death Star of anonymity. I would have a hit for sure, but at what cost to my obviously fragile creative ego. I wasn't interested in selling out so they moved on. Really it came down to personality and partnership. Chris is a great guy - smart, fun, easy going and we got along really well immediately. The rest is history as they say.
That’s funny, they send us cash, wine and women with every game to review. So thoughtful. Chillingo seem to have so many fingers in so many pies, how exactly does the relationship work there? What kind of services and resources do they provide you as a developer?
They don't do f**k all! They just sit back, harass me from time to time and hope to capitalize on my future hard earned success! Haha. Seriously, they offer a solid understanding of the mobile game business, a proven track record of success, advertising, marketing, technical support and a ton more. They also have connections that I don't and they can expand the lifespan of the title through additional channels. More importantly, they have been a great sounding board for my ideas and have always approached it with excitement and enthusiasm even early on when the builds weren't very good. I think they have had more faith in my abilities, at some points, then I have.
What are your favourite iPhone games to date and what about them do you like?
Diner Dash, Cooking Mama, Sallie's Spa and Wheel of Fortune are my personal favorites. Wut? Haha, no. See what I did there? I lied.
Touchgrind, Zen Bound, Edge, iDracula and SlotZ have all been in heavy rotation on my iPhone. They all have very high production values, they play like they actually used and listened to
beta testers and the are controls were optimized for the iPhone experience. Mostly they just don't look like 10 miles of bad road.
Space Deadbeef, Fastlane, iFighter Lite, HeavyMach, SentryAlpha, VectorBall, Aqua Moto, Zombieville USA and of course Wolf3D have all gotten some of my spare time. I have a Mac Book Pro, XBox360, XBox, PS2, PSP and a gaming PC pretty close by so something has to be pretty damn good on the iPhone for me to actually play it more than once.
Will we be seeing a Circuit Strike.Two in the future?
CircuitStrike.Zero is up next then CS.MinusOne which will be a version that you play backwards in a mirror because all of the controls are reversed. How fun does that sound? Epic, I know.
We will definitely concentrate on making this game the best it can be first. If cs.one can build a solid community of regular players and does well commercially then we can add more content to the existing game. I would love to do multiplayer - head-to-head against other gamers in a challenge for XP that will ultimately drive the global leaderboard, 4 player death match, 2 vs. capture the flag, co-op, whatever but as an indie dev its hard to commit to until you know if it is financially viable.
The first things I would like to have are "upgrade" DLC packs available. They would include a new interactive audio set (music tracks), sound effects, visual effects, samples, voice over’s, enemies and arenas. I would love to be able to offer upgrade packs from NIN, The Chemical Brothers, Prodigy, DJ Keoki, Fluke, Orbital, Crystal Method, Underworld, Daft Punk, Rammstein, Photek, Atari Teenage Riot, and tons more in the near future.
I have some definite ideas for CS.Two that involve a deeper story and a few new gameplay mechanics that I think will fit well within the CS universe, but we will just have to wait and see what happens when cs.one hits the App Store.
Brilliant. Thanks for your time Shay.
Circuit Strike.One will be arriving in the App Store soon. Stay tuned for our definitive review.
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