Interviews// Geon: Emotions XBLA - Developer Interview

I had the pleasure of catching up with Joe Lewis and Dan Marchant from Strawdog Studios this week (pictured right here, Joe on the left, Dan on the right) – the developers of the ultra-addictive retro ‘collect-em-up’ for Xbox Live Arcade, Geon: Emotions.

It’s fairly difficult to describe exactly how instantly playable and addictive Geon actually turns out to be. In mere words, at least. I could throw out a bunch of random describing words and phrases such as ‘retro’, ‘true arcade feel’, ‘classic gaming mechanics’, ‘fast-paced psychedelic madness’ yadda yadda yadda... but we're not going to.

It’s probably better if we let the developers of this little gem speak for themselves and tell us more about what could well prove to be a real surprise hit on XBLA this coming autumn and winter.

[b]
SPOnG[/b]: Hi guys, so tell us a bit about Strawdog Studios.

Dan Marchant: Hi. Well, Strawdog Studios is based in Derby, in the Midlands.


SPOnG: And Geon is your first game yes?

Dan Marchant: It is indeed! The company was set up around three years ago, but we’ve been doing mainly outsourced work for other developers while also making prototypes of Geon – as well as pitching to publishers, negotiating contracts and so on, which takes a considerable amount of time!

Geon started around two years ago, as a first prototype… but the actual development ‘proper’ started around a year ago.

Joe Lewis: Yeah, we started to develop the game for PSP originally, back when the PSP was a more attractive proposition! We first made a video of what we wanted the game to be and showed it to our programmers, who said “sure, we can do that.”

Dan Marchant: We also did a PC demo first and then went out and bought the PSP dev kit. So we were pitching the PSP version to publishers at Game Connect at the Game Developers Conference last year.

Eidos came in and said they liked it, but that they wanted it for LIVE Arcade. So when we had agreed the deal, we jumped off the PSP and jumped over to XBLA.


SPOnG: So have you now jettisoned the plans for handheld versions of Geon? Or is that still on the backburner?
[b]
Dan Marchant:[/b] Well, the PSP market is fairly ropey, so unless it rises phoenix-like from the flames, that version is probably dead. We do have the PSP version which is 60 to 70 per cent complete.


SPOnG: What about the new slim PSP? Might that resurrect the PSP market?

Dan Marchant: Well, we’ll wait and see. It’s the publishers choice at the end of the day as to what formats they like. But for Geon right now, we’re coming out on Xbox LIVE Arcade, PC download and then we’re looking at PlayStation Network (PSN), Wii and DS.

Joe Lewis: Yeah, DS and Wii are both clearly very interesting to a lot of publishers right now.


SPOnG: Talking about Geon’s origins on PSP – the look of it at first reminded me a little bit of Mercury Meltdown.
[b]
Joe Lewis:[/b] Yeh, I know what you mean. Though Geon is a little bit different, in that it looks a bit puzzle-like, but it’s actually a fairly fast-paced arcade game. It’s a ‘collect-em-up’ which we like to describe as ‘Pac-Man on speed’ or ‘Pac-Man on acid’.

The basic concept is that you select a cube which is themed around an emotion and, depending on which emotion you select you get access to different power-ups. The main objective is to collect the pellets and once you have collected enough - shown by your collecting bar at the top of the screen - you then flip over and go to the other side of the grid – your opponent’s side – and deposit your pellets in his goal.