MB: That's what I love about stealth! Stealth games are really, on a basic level, puzzle games disguised as action games. Metal Gear is PacMan and Volume even has gems in it that look like pills in the demo here. That's not the final asset as we're going to be working a lot on what the objective items will look like. So because you have the player has that freedom of movement as does the AI, you have all of these different situations that emerge and different solutions.
One of my biggest frustrations with Thomas was that it was a game where most levels can only be solved in one way. There were some places where alter things slightly, but generally it was a game where you had to work out what I had thought. Volume doesn't suffer from that and it's great to see the variety of solutions. I didn't design multiple paths through a level as there is a path I had decided on. But people find many, many others and that's really exciting.
MB: Yes, but part of the fun of games like Thief and Hitman is breaking them, is working out how to bend the rules. It's a balancing act and I'm not going to use it as an excuse for a badly programmed game. But I kind of like the idea people gaming Volume as that's all stealth games are as you're playing with AIs, essentially.
SPOnG: Looking at how points are scored in Volume, is it going to be a granular system as it's based on speed or how often the player gets spotted?
MB: I think those metrics are a lot of fun and they are pretty easy to bring into the game. So yes totally. At the moment Volume is just measuring the player's speed but yes, I want to do a lot more on that side of things. I'm playing with the idea of keying badges into different franchises, so giving the player an Eagle, Fish or Snake badge. With a snake referring to Metal Gear Solid for example. I thought it would be fun to do to play with these things and I see the value in showing this data to the player as they explain how they are doing in terms of performance.
Volume's progression will be about completing levels with time and hitting certain objectives on top of that.
SPOnG: You're releasing the game on PSVita and PS4 initially and then the PC, Mac and Linux later?
MB: It's being developed on a Mac and yes we're launching the game on the PSVita and PS4 as an exclusive title for one month. So that month exclusive, which is nice for Sony obviously, but also very nice for me as it means I don't have to release five versions of the game at the same time!
SPOnG: Are we correct to assume Volume has been developed using Unity? How have you found working on that platform?
SPOnG: It's become an ubiquitous tool for game development.
MB: It seems to be, especially amongst indies. It's fairly priced and there are a wealth of tutorials online on how to use it. It's just a fantastic tool for small teams.
SPOnG: It's certainly become an enabler for developers who lack programming skills.
MB: Yes definitely. I wasn't skilled in programming when I started using it and I've had to learn very fast. But yes absolutely, I mean Thomas was made using the free version of Unity, that's amazing. A game that did as well as it did was made with software that I got for free. It's fantastic, so I'm a big fan!
SPOnG: Tell us about the team behind Volume and how you assembled it?
MB: It's a lot like The Avengers, and I'm Nick Fury. No seriously it's been about bringing the right people together to get specific jobs done. I'm the only full time person, but we have an army of freelancers, most of whom are people I have worked with before.
We've got Daz [Watford] whose the concept artist, we've got Nick [Tringali] and Wayne [Peters] who do the environment art, Kris [Hammes] who does character art and Dave [Housden] who does the music, who also worked on Thomas Was Alone.
SPOnG: Thank you for your time.