#kbros

kbros. (support leader B!)

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To date it has garnered 35,000,000 total youtube views and over 16,000 videos were made by some of the most influential people in the gaming industry, including, PewDiePie, Markiplier, DanTDM and Jacksepticeye. All the goodness of the original game is packed into the mobile version available for iOS and Android but we have some new and exciting features.

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Along with achievements and leaderboards you can now select to play as your favorite youtube characters such as TotalPoosquit, Markpooplier, Uncle Jim Jim and PooDiePie. What’s more, if you are in the mood to #makepoopgreatagain, we have you covered, you can play as Donald Dump and let those bowls loose on the people of New York and China, he loves China.

Recently we posted a first impressions review of the indie game Albert & Otto, now we’re bringing an interview to you with Kbros Games featuring a discussion on the game, development and the gaming experience as a whole.

Nikki: First off, welcome to the interview and thank you so much for answering our questions, we’re seriously looking forward to the release of Albert & Otto! With that being said, let’s start off with two simple questions, when did you first get into video games and how did that turn into you wanting to become a game developer?

Kbros Games: Those are always the toughest questions because I don’t know the exact moment I got into video games. I played the NES and Gameboy a lot when I was younger. But the two key moments that stayed with me to this day and I believe are responsible on the most part for pulling me head first into the world of video games were: walking through Balamb Garden in Final Fantasy VIII for the first time and fishing in Ocarina of Time on the N64 until 7am.

I didn’t always want to make video games or believe that I could. But I have a background in filmmaking and have been writing for as long as I can remember. Video games are another medium of that kind of expression for me.

N: When it came to drawing inspiration for the game, what made you take the direction you did, especially in the sense of channeling a style that is inspired from Tim Burton’s early stop motion work? Do you also pull creativeness from other things such as music or books?

K: I just love Tim Burton’s early work. Where nobody else had a hand in his productions, where he wasn’t working with producers or adjusting for mass consumption. It was purely what he wanted to make, and exactly as he wanted to make it. I can identify with that as an indie developer.

The boss fights in the game and all the shooting sequences were inspired by and created while listening to Black Sabbath’s War Pigs on repeat. If you play it over the game, it totally fits.

N: The story is filled with dark twisting surprises that actually allow the game to gravitate away from the usual route of the protagonist rescuing a damsel in distress, which is quite an interesting touch, how did you come up with this creative aspect? Was it kind of a light bulb moment or you just knew you wanted to do something that was different when you started out?

K: I always liked doing something different. I like the idea of making the audience believe one thing and then flipping it on them.

Also why does the girl always need rescuing? I didn’t want to perpetuate that notion. For example, I’m a huge Disney fan, but those princesses always waiting on some dude to sort stuff out for them never sat well with me.

A couple of years back, I started a series of paintings that depicted Disney princesses dealing with their predicaments alone. Snow White fashioning a Gatling gun that shoots little birds, Sleeping Beauty crushing Red Bulls to stay awake, Belle walking the Beast on a leash, etc. But that’s a story for another interview. 🙂 I always liked challenging norms, and the damsel in distress trope is the biggest of them all in the video gaming world.

N: When it comes to the setting of the game what made you determine the fact that it was going to take place in pre-World War II Germany, was this purely for story based factors or were there other things that you had in mind also?

K: It is for story based reasons. I wanted to explore little known events from our history and have a serious subject matter juxtaposed against the cute, albeit a little creepy, characters and gameplay. Germany is also a beautiful place. Its lush forests and beautiful architecture inspired a lot of my design.

  N: Both characters, Albert & Otto have a strong dynamic with one another which allows the player to use them together in order to progress through the puzzle based levels of the game, what was the inspiration behind this type of character/level design? It definitely creates a higher need for logical thought into how you’re actually going to solve specific puzzles to get to the next part of the game and I have to say that it certainly adds to the game in a positive way.

K: For a long time, I was embarrassed to admit that I put Otto in there because I thought Albert looked cool carrying a bunny in his bag. Then I learned that the creators of Banjo-Kazooie did the exact same thing with Kazooie!

So it starts off as this thing that looks cool and then the rest of the game evolved around that and ended up seeming like it was the idea all along. I feel a lot of things just happen when making a game, and as an indie dev I am fortunate enough to be able to add and take away features on the fly. This allows the game to evolve naturally and not be tied to a strict idea from the start.

N: Being a sole developer means you have a lot of ground to cover in aspects of art, design, programming and even music, how in the WORLD do you manage to blend all of those areas together in a harmonious way and in turn create a great indie title like you have without getting extremely overwhelmed?

K: I actually didn’t do the music myself. If I did, you probably would have reached for that mute button 5 minutes into the game, trust me. 

That credit goes to the talented Daniel Lobel and Rob Frost who really managed to get under the skin of what I was trying to accomplish and produce those awesome scores. Also Steve Green was the sound designer who brought it all to life.

Bringing the areas together in a harmonious way was the easy part. Working alone is simple; you only ever have to run stuff by yourself and things move along swiftly. But getting overwhelmed happened a lot especially since I was learning to code while making the game. There are moments when things just aren’t working out and you start to question if this really is something you should be putting everything on the line for. But then you realize that you are making a freakin’ video game!!! And the awesomeness of that pulls you through.

  N: What is the main thing that you hope players take away from the experience of playing Albert & Otto?

K: Over the course of the 4 episodes I do have a larger message I want to deliver. I want the player to really think about the choices they made in game. But overall I want them to have fun with it, laugh, get frustrated, and ultimately feel accomplished after defeating the final boss. My hope is that some aspect of the game sticks with them long after they put the controller down.

N: Lastly, what are your feelings coming up to the release date for the game after all the hard work you’ve put into it? Do you have any hopes for the release in regards to response or the direction you head in next?

K: *I just released the game a few hours ago and I’m sorry I’m answering your questions now only, I was working on it right up until the last minute. *

I feel that every game has its audience, people who really connect with it. This may come off a bit too philosophical but I like to think of it as a conversation: the player communicates through the controller and the game responds, prompting the player to respond to that, and so on. It locks the player in a conversation loop.

I noticed at PAX and other expos we did that some people appreciated the games aesthetic, others the music or the game mechanics, but there were some who really connected with the entire package. It’s really noticeable, you can see their eyes glaze over and they get lost in this world, you can see them having a conversation with the game. My hope is for Albert and Otto to find this audience and for the audience in turn to experience this conversation.

Thank you so much for your time! We at Wake and Game are SUPER amped about the release of Albert & Otto!

Thank you for the great questions!

The Karpinka Brothers deliver a winning performance of their "You Can Count On Me" album track "One of These Days." Watch Shawn and Aaron Karpinka's interview on The Gracie Note next!

Full article: http://www.thegracienote.ca/…/the-karpinka-brothers-reveal-…