#developer interviews

Q. What makes Bramblelash special in the party game genre?  

BrambleLash is a game about connection, co-operation and betrayal. The entire game revolves around players' ability to form a tether between each other, and coordinate to use it to destroy their enemies. What makes BrambleLash special is that success entirely hinges on the player's ability to work together with a partner. It also features a dynamic team swapping system that allows players to trade partners and work against each other when playing with more than two people.

Q. What are your goals when designing Bramblelash’s play experience?

We wished to create a game that forged connections and encouraged communication between players both in-game and out. We had seen very few games in the multiplayer space that actually required co-operation for success; most times players work toward the same goal, but one can contribute far more than the others.

Our goal is to create an experience that fosters bonds between players, while allowing them to be broken apart by betrayal, creating those kinds of "Oh Snap!" moments that we love in multiplayer gaming.  

Q. Why make it multiplayer only?

There will in fact be options for playing single player in Adventure mode in the final release; we're busy working on them at the moment!

That said, yes, the game is designed as a multiplayer experience at its core. This relates back to our reason for creating it in the first place; to create connections and encourage communication and social interaction. As such, it is very suited to local, party based play.

We also wanted to create a game that can be played between more hardcore gamers and their less gaming focused friends or family, allowing people of a range of different levels of skill to help each other out and feel like they are all always contributing.

Q. Any features in the game that make it easy for Let’s Players, bloggers or streamers to showcase the game?

The final version of BrambleLash will be able to be played online, which will allow Let's Players, bloggers or streamers to play and connect with friends more easily. We're also looking into ways in which we can allow one player who owns BrambleLash to invite friends to play online without them necessarily having to have purchased the game themselves. This may be as simple as making multiple-copy versions of the game available cheaply, or a more technical solution.

Q. Any parts of the game that shouldn’t be missed?

Getting four friends organised to play a game together (even online) can sometimes be difficult, but it is absolutely worth it in BrambleLash. The ability to swap teams really shines when there are four people involved, with allegiances and rivalries being formed and broken by both betrayal and "accidentally" destroying your teammates. The potential for trolling your friends is very high!

Q. What do you normally look for when deciding to provide information/game codes to social influencers?

We're very happy to talk to anyone who is interested in the game and would like more information. Ultimately, we're first and foremost concerned with their enthusiasm in both BrambleLash itself and co-operative, multiplayer and party games. While numbers such as follower counts and engagement is important, we're mostly interested in an audience who will genuinely enjoy and get excited about the game. In a sense, quality over quantity.

Q. What is your policy on Youtubers/Streamers monetising videos of their playthroughs of your game?

Go wild! Seriously, we're not going to police how people film and display playthroughs of our game. If they can make money from it, that's great :) You can find a bunch of information and media to start you off in our presskit.

Q. Are there any community members/fans or content you would like to give a shoutout to?

We got greenlit on Steam Greenlight recently, so a massive thanks to everyone who voted and shared. Also, we recently demoed at PAX Australia and are really grateful to everyone who stopped by and gave BrambleLash a spin. Player feedback is so important to us and has dictated the entire game's design, so we're always happy to hear it (positive or negative!).

Q. Anything else you’d like to share about your game?

Q. What makes the Mad Croc game more than just another endless runner?

We have a unique systems of currents that will impact your croc character. The currents keep getting stronger and stronger, and eventually they will likely kill you. The challenge is to swim with the currents to reach as far as possible. Swimming against the current will slow you down, and you will not get to the next energy point in time.

Q. Why choose the endless runner genre to create an esports game and competition around? 

We think that an endless runner is a really good candidate for running e-sports on mobile. They have the broadest appeal of all games, are very easy to pick up and have a clear goal to compare between players. It's an individual sport, of course. Not all sports need to be team sports.

Q. What was behind the decision to offer a $100,000 cash prize in a competition? 

We wanted to do something different. Lots of companies burn a lot of money on advertising campaigns. Why not give that money to the game's fans instead?

Q. Is it open to players around the world, or just certain countries? It's open globally. This is a truly global competition where everyone has an equal chance of winning!

Q. Any tips for players to improve their play?

Go with the flow. Learn to see the currents, they are the strategy in this game. Also note that the levels stay the same. You can learn how to play well if you just remember.

Q. It’s extremely rare to find games that have LGBTQ-friendly content and relationships. Could you tell us what drove the team to include this in the game?

We made the game with the option to play as LGBTQ and to have positive depictions of LGBTQ life because there are so few games (especially romantic ones) that have the option. These days it's getting much more common, but when we started developing LongStory in 2012, there was almost nothing out there.

It's also more fun to write a game this way since there are a lot more things to think about in the story and we can't rely on boring assumptions. Not to mention the flirty lines have to be witty and charming instead of sleazy or sexist because it's not certain who is doing the speaking. It's hard to objectify if you are not sure what gender the protagonist is going to be.

Q. What are the goals that you were hoping to achieve by making Long Story?

Oh man, our goals were complicated. We wanted to make sure that players had a realistic experience of love, so that it wouldn't be like a contest where they had to do the 'right' thing in order to win at love. That was definitely the first goal.

After that there were some important sub-goals. Like, we wanted the player to be able to make choices about who they liked, instead of the game just saying - 'this is the person you should be into' by creating a narrative that focused on one lovable non-player-character. Lastly we wanted the way the player chooses to interact with the other characters have impact, but not to be too moralizing. In general the hope was to give the impression of real life, but maybe with a bit more fun and challenge.

Q. Any features that make it easy for Let’s Players, bloggers or streamers to feature your game?

The first episode is free so it's pretty simple (cheap) to download the game and try it out. The mechanic is dead easy and there are several Let's Plays already out there. I believe the fun thing to do is add your own voice overs + a little bit of directors commentary.

We're finishing up editing on our own Let's Play where the writing team talks about the process of creating episode three and it was really fun so I highly recommend doing a version with more than one person behind the mic.  

Q. What do you normally look for when deciding to provide information/game codes to social influencers?

If an influencer really wanted to support us, like was 100% a fan, we would consider giving them advance access through Test Flight or the Google Developer Console, but only if they were ok with waiting to release their video until after the launch of the episode because obviously, no spoilers. =)

Q. What is your policy on Youtubers/Streamers monetising videos of their playthroughs of your game?

We have no policies on that. They can link to our Tumblr at http://longstorygame.com that would be awesome and lovely of them.

Q. Are there any community members/fans or content you would like to give a shoutout to?

Basically every single person on our Tumblr who has ever made cool fan art, or written a review or fan fiction. It is  so awesome when something we have worked on for so long gains new life in somebody else's imagination. We love it, and we love watching Let's Plays for the same reason, it's a huge compliment and it helps us understand what other people see in the game.

Q. Anything else you’d like to share about LongStory?

We are really excited by the level of enthusiasm demonstrated by players on our various app stores and Tumblr, it's really neat seeing how many people were really happy to find a game that reflected their sexuality.