Dylan Cuthbert talks to 666ps3

I recently sent an E-mail to Q-games to find out if i could get a few questions answered. Along the lines of future projects and the success of Pixeljunk Monsters.

I had one back from the President, Dylan Cuthbert, of Q-games and he was more than happy to answer a few questions. But first heres a bit about the man behind the addictive Pixeljunk.

Dylan Cuthbert is currently President of Q-Games Ltd., a company he founded in 2001 based in Kyoto, Japan.

He first started in the industry in 1988 at Argonaut Software in London and worked on location for several years at Nintendo in Kyoto, Japan developing X, Starfox and Starfox II (unreleased).

In 1996 he joined Sony Computer Entertainment America and developed Blasto for the original Playstation.

From 1998 he transferred to Sony Computer Entertainment Inc., in Tokyo and worked there for three years developing technology and also a game called Piposaru 2001 (Ape Escape 2001) for the Playstation 2.

Since forming Q-Games, he has developed a no. of titles, such as Digidrive (GBA), Starfox Command (DS), PixelJunk Racers (PS3), PixelJunk Monsters (PS3) and PixelJunk Eden (PS3).

Games Credited

Digidrive (2006), Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Star Fox Command (2006), Nintendo Co., Ltd.
World of Outlaws: Sprint Car Racing 2002 (2002), Infogrames
Blasto (1998), SCEE
Gran Turismo (1997), SCEI
Vortex (1994), Electro-Brain
King Arthur’s World (1993), Jaleco USA, Inc.
Star Fox (1993), Nintendo Co., Ltd.
Days of Thunder (1992), Mindscape, Inc.
Loopz (1991), Mindscape, Inc.
Metroid II: Return of Samus (1991), Nintendo of America Inc.

Ø I found Pixeljunk racers was more an introduction game rather than the more polished Monsters game. Was this your intention?

As we make each game, the engine and the methods of production get more and more polished.  Racers had all the cool new ideas that make up a PixelJunk game but it was the first title so misses out on some of the effects and touches we have managed to include in Monsters, and then even more so in Eden.

Ø One thing that struck me in most forums were that most people whom played the game loved the simplistic nature of both games. Simple back to basics. One more go type of game. But they also found them absolutly frustrating. Do you find this a more of an hook to entice the player to keep on playing.

Gamers need to be enticed back to games that require a bit more effort to play – the PixelJunk games aren’t casual in that sense, they are casual in the sense that you can just pick up and play them.  A game without any difficulty is like making a cake without sugar, it ultimately ends up tasteless.

Ø Monsters has 2 player offline coop. To the people whom have no friends can we expect an online coop mode in the future?

If we make a sequel we will definitely consider it, but I do like to make games that require people to be a bit more social – Eden allows 3 people, and Racers up to 7, and they are a blast if you get a few people around.

Ø Monsters is heavily based on Tower defence. Were you an avid fan of this game?

Not really – I played it a bit and enjoyed it but it lacked a certain “something”, which is what I tried to put into Monsters.  If anything I’d say Command&Conquer Generals: Zero Hour was the biggest influence.

Ø Your next game due out Eden could you say a few words about this cutesy looking game? It’s using the sixaxis as the main controller i read.

The controls are normal analog stick and face button but there is one sixaxis move you can do which is a “spike”…  ie. you can jerk the controller downwards to dunk your player into enemies etc.

I’m not keen on games which are solely sixaxis but I think the system has potential for these one-off kind of moves.

 

As for the game itself, if you thought Monsters was fun, Eden is even better and it is far more approachable because it plays like a kind of Mario but in an organic dynamically changing world.  I want everyone to see for themselves what we’ve done so I ok’d just this one game to have a pre-release demo version!  Hopefully everyone will pick it up and experience it for themselves.

Ø Whats the future for Pixeljunk do we expect to have a long future with the brand on psn? And if you have something on the horizon after Eden could to say a few things about it.

Well, we plan to keep making new and innovative games as long as people keep buying them.  We can’t say anything about what we’re working on yet unfortunately but there are several projects beginning.

A few intersting things in there. Nice to see that They deemed Monsters enough of a success to grant an ‘if’ for a sequel.

Personally i can’t wait. I love these games being on the store.

Thanks dylan.