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Over
the next few weeks, Gamasutra will be presenting a regular 'Road To The
IGF' feature, profiling and interviewing each of the finalists in the 2006 Independent Games Festival
main competition. Today's interview is with Thomas Bahon of French
developer Ankama, the developers of the stylish PC and Mac strategy-MMO
Dofus, which is nominated
for both the Innovation In Visual Arts award and the Seumas McNally
Grand Prize at the 2006 IGF. The developers' description of this
notably alternative title explains:
"Dofus
is a 2D Tactical MMORPG with turn-based fights. Players evolve in a
Heroic Fantasy universe, featuring cartoon like design and full of
humor. They are looking to find out the 6 Dofus - Magic dragon eggs -
which deliver absolute power to their owner. Dofus also has hundred of
features and a large variety of quests, items and original spells."
We
chatted to Bahon about the genesis of this unique-looking strategy MMO,
as well as some of the developer's favorite other IGF entries:
Q:
Tell us a bit about your background in the game industry, when your
developer was founded, your location, your previously developed games?
Ankama
was created in May 2001 by Anthony Roux, Emmanuel Darras and Camille
Chafer. At the beginning, it was a communication agency, making
websites… However, our objective was to gather money in order to
develop video games. Everything has been thought out and developed in
our studio in Northern France (Lille).
Dofus
is our first game at all, so development and tests have taken time as
we were developing and learning at the same time. Indeed, none of us
had real professional experience in the game industry.
Q: Tell us a little about your game - genre, how long it took to make, what it was inspired by, why you wanted to make it?
The development of Dofus
started less than 4 yeas ago and lasted about 3 years (including 1 year
of beta tests). The international version (English language) was
released five months ago. But development for Dofus has no end,
indeed, improvement, new contents and features are regularly through
updates (major updates every 3 months and a lot more minor ones)
With Dofus, we wanted to make something that would set the game apart from other MMO games. The atmosphere and graphic style of Dofus is much inspired by Japanese animation, manga, cartoons and comics (both Japanese and European) and also by arcade games.
We
have developed a style in line with the atmosphere we wanted to create,
that is to say fresh, lively, humoristic and breezy. Indeed, Dofus, although it is a role-playing game, does not take itself seriously and is full of off-beat humor.
Q:
What was the smartest thing you did to speed development of your title,
and the dumbest thing you (collectively!) did which hindered
development?
The
best thing we have done, in my mind, is the map editor. It has helped
us to standardize map creation and add all the features (landscape,
combat features, path finding, collision detection…) using a very quick
and simple interface. It allows 2D artists to spend more time on the
graphical aspects of the game rather than on technical ones.
In
contrary, the dumbest thing was that we did not forecast such success.
Indeed, at the beginning we did not have any advanced customer support
tool and felt quickly overwhelmed. The worst was the size of the world:
it has become crowded rapidly and we have had to create a lot of new
maps, quests, features, etc. to face the “gamers' invasion” of the
Amakna's territories.
Q: What do you think of the state of independent development? Improving? Changing for the worse or the better?
The
development of the Internet has allowed independent developers to
display more easily what they have to offer and more and more
independent games will be able reach a continuously bigger audience.
The risk, however, is that a game is easily lost in the bulk of video
games developed.
Q:
What do you think of the concept of indie games on consoles such as the
Xbox 360 (for digital download) or on digital distribution services
like Steam? Is that a better distribution method than physical CDs or
downloads via a website/portal?
Sometimes
ago, we looked for information on how to develop a game for consoles,
and it put us off a bit. For Nintendo or Sony, it is completely
impossible. Regarding the Xbox, it does not seem to be completely
impossible but very hard.
Regarding
the distribution, portals like Steam are a real chance for small
developing teams that would not have any chance to grow alone.
Although
it was not our objective, developing a game independently has proved to
be interesting and we are quite happy to sell it ourselves. We are not
against distribution partnership, but for the moment we are 100%
independent and I must admit we enjoy it.
As we also edit an artbook and mangas now, I can say working with distributors is often harder than working with editors.
Q: Have you checked out any of the other IGF games? Which ones are you particularly impressed with, and why?
We like:
-The humor of Dad 'N Me
-The great job done by Dodge that Anvil's team with regards to the constraints of working with Shockwave
-That Darwinia reminds us of the movie Tron.
Q: What recent indie games do you admire, and what recent mainstream console/PC games do you admire, and why?
We really like Savage; it is incredible what this indie has achieved in terms of graphics compared to blockbusters. Regarding mainstream games, we are fans of MMORPGs, so we would say the World of Warcraft, Guild Wars and City of Heroes (opinions are diverse among the team)
Q: Do you have any messages for your fellow contestants or fans of the IGF?
We
hope that every competitor will be rewarded, if not with one of the IGF
prizes, then at least by the recognition of video game players.
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