The Veteran Weapon Designer of Resistance, Postal 2 and Weapon of Choice swings by CGI to discuss Grapple Buggy, new projects, Indie Games, Beer and Boomsticks!

Here’s a puzzler for you. What do Postal 2, Ratchet & Clank, Resistance: Fall of Man and Weapon of Choice have in common?

Well, apart from being great games, they’ve all let Nathan Fouts do what he does best: programming and designing epic weapons, huge bosses, environments, effects and… limb-hacking-programs. Oh yes indeed.

In 2007, he formed Mommy’s Best Games: an independent boutique development house that he owns, runs and operates practically single-handed. In between showing off Grapple Buggy at E3 and running his company, Nathan was kind enough to take some time out of his busy schedule to sit down with Casual game Informer and talk about his experience of the Indie gaming scene. And, naturally: exclusive news, beer, guns and heavy metal. Let’s hit it!

Jonathan Lester (CGI): Thanks for joining us, Nathan! We have a tradition of kicking off our interviews with an incisive, hard-hitting piece of journalism that’s very important to our fans. So, what’s your favourite beer? Sorry, I mean Beverage of Choice…

Nathan: Well Guinness usually fits the bill pretty well, but any porter with a little heft will usually do.

CGI: Right, down to business. You’ve worked as a programmer and designer for a number of well-known developers during the last decade, including Insomniac and Running with Scissors. What prompted you take the leap into starting your own company?

Nathan: I grew up playing great 2D games and have a love for hand-drawn art styles. I’ve got zillions of absurd gameplay ideas and monster designs swirling about in my head and have longed to bring them into being for years now. Back in 2007, with digital-only games coming into their own with this console generation it seemed like the right time to take my years of experience and put them to good use. And then economy dumped in my oatmeal.

CGI: Running Mommy’s Best Games as well as full-time development must take a lot of self-discipline and determination. In my experience, I end up drinking brews in my underwear every time I have the opportunity to work from home! How do you keep yourself motivated and how do you deal with the stress? Does it affect your everyday life?

Nathan: Unfortunately it does effect family life, but it’s something that with communication and lots of flowers you can usually balance things out. As far as keeping motivated, the game usually takes hold of me about halfway through and doesn’t let go. As long as I keep pumping out ideas, and keep them carefully listed for what I need to do, I’m fine. Keeping a profuse list of details on which to work, and then simply going down the list, finishing tasks, keeps me on track.

I also keep things up to date on the Mommy’s Best development log. It let’s me share with fans and other developers how things are going each week and gives them a forum for feedback.

CGI: We love the fact that Xbox Live Community Games allow anyone to develop and unleash their own casual titles on a massive audience- potentially heralding in a new golden age of bedroom programming! How easy were the XNA developer tools and game studio to use- and do you have any advice for fledgling ‘bedroom programmers’ that are just starting out?

Nathan: XNA is pretty amazing when you think about all the underlying programming it used to take to make a game in assembly, C, or PASCAL (still love it though!)

At creators.xna.com, they have several entire games with which to use as learning tools. I find that very educational to have working code and simply make changes to major portions, watching what happens with each change.

Additionally, the forums.xna.com are not only frequented by other helpful developers, but often Microsoft employees show up to explain things.

CGI: Your first independent release, Weapon of Choice, was awarded 3^rd place in the 2008 XNA Dream Build Play competition. What are your impressions of the experience…and the offerings of the other competitors?

Nathan: The contest was a great motivator to finish and polish the game for a given milestone. With our game currently in development, Grapple Buggy, we pushed from E3 straight into DBP 09 to whip that game into shape. Weapon of Choice was entered into DBP 08 with 5 levels ended up getting 2 additional levels, 2 more bosses, and 2 more endings for the final release. Grand totals being: 9 giant bosses, 8 weapons, 7 different characters, 7 unique areas, and 4 different endings!

As for competitors in DBP 08, I think Carneyvale Showtime definitely deserved a winning place as it’s a fine game and looks great. I wished it had gotten more promotion and hopefully the new “user ratings” system will help bring it and other great games recognized in the contest such as Blow to the forefront.

CGI: Which brings us nicely round to the subject of Weapon of Choice itself! I know you’re probably sick of being asked, but what were your main videogame influences when designing WoC?

Nathan: Literally dozens of influences, with some obvious ones such as Contra Hard Corps and Gain Ground, and some not so obvious ones such as Shadow of the Colossus. Run ’n’ gun shooters, preferably 2D, are probably my favourite sub-genre and with that I basically assembled all my pet-peeves and tried to address them to make a game improved in ways beyond simply adding a new type of weapon or monster.

As for the music, I go through phases and try to match the style to the game. At the time, I couldn’t get enough of early Metallica and Black Sabbath. Hamdija Ajanovic did a real bang-up job creating the rocking soundtrack and I can’t thank him enough.

Weapon of Choice: More carnage, innovation and slimy alien udders than you can shake a Jet Engine Cannon at…

CGI: We were impressed by the sheer amount of innovation and gadgetry that you managed to pack into WoC: including Deathbrushing, the spiderpack and the monstrously satisfying vengeance missile. How and when did you come up with these ideas- and did you ever consider trying to implement them in previous franchises? Deathbrushing in Postal would have been immense…

Nathan: Thanks a bunch! Deathbrushing is probably my favourite element of Weapon of Choice. It’s basically what I always felt would be fun in just about any bullet-dodging type game. I want to make sure everyone feels like heroes, like they’re in trouble but they manage to save the day at the last minute. Sure you can still die, but you’ve got more of a chance with this system. I do like the unforgiving nature of older titles to be sure, but I wanted to try something different.

In POSTAL 2 I actually implemented “cat-nip time” as a joke mode in which the player moves at full-speed, but everything else is slowed down (you get it by smoking the catnip in your pipe). They eventually implemented this improved type of ‘bullet time’ in Max Payne 2 but it was nice to have beaten them to the punch.

CGI: As a veteran weapons designer and programmer, you’re more than qualified to lecture on the subject of boomsticks. While we’ve got you here, what would you consider to be the most epic weapon in videogame history? (excluding the WoC arsenal- after all, we need to give everyone else a chance!)

Nathan: For player controlled weapons that would probably be the proton cannon from level 4 in Ranger-X. It’s neat to find it and then use it into the next boss section with a fight catered just to its use. Shooting it in giant tunnel and have it rocket you backwards several screens is pretty wild.

CGI: And because turnabout’s fair play: what’s your personal favourite weapon that you’ve had a hand in designing?

Nathan: Xerxes’ Jet Engine Gun turned out super fun, it’s a fan favourite, and I’m very partial to it. But the ‘Splitter’ gun in Resistance: Fall of Man is also very dear to my heart.

CGI: Now, we’ve seen some impressive first impressions of Grapple Buggy… as well as some exciting rumblings about a new project that you’ve been working on. I appreciate that you might not want to spoil the surprise, but can you give us a sneaky taste of what we can expect from Mommy’s Best Games in the near future?

Nathan: Hopefully a lot of things! Grapple Buggy is our current primetime development project. In Grapple Buggy the player will be plumbing the depths of an alien planet directing not one, but two characters looking for an all-important fuel source. Players will not only be driving like mad, jumping over cliffs and creatures, but they can also grab and swing at will, with all sorts of bizarre variations on grappling hooks. There will also be copious amounts of alien blood and goo in the carnage wrought by the Buggy’s various armaments. Grapple Buggy probably won’t be released until some time next year.

More in the near term, in the Weapon of Choice universe, I’m planning on releasing an update to the original to include a new difficulty mode and a few other tweaks. After that, I’m putting together a plan to release a stand-alone Weapon of Choice game tentatively called Weapon of Choice: COUNTDOWN. It will have a different flavour from the original, but I think fans will still enjoy. This won’t be a proper sequel, but definitely a fun addition to the first game.

CGI: Exciting stuff! Finally, we’d like to know your thoughts about the future of Indie Games. What do you think about the current quality of Community titles, and what changes could Microsoft implement to improve the current system?

Nathan: I definitely like the service and am grateful for all the hard work that Microsoft has put into the channel. The recent addition of user ratings will hopefully help separate Weapon’s from the Rumble’s. It’s a really neat system to allow gamers to rate games right on their home console.

With that said, I think having an easier time finding the Indie Games channel is very important. Any kind of direct connection from the top tier of the dashboard to Indie Games would help immensely for casual shoppers to find more games.

CGI: Thanks for your time, Nathan! We’ll be keeping a close eye on Mommy’s Best Games over the coming months. Is there anything else you’d like to tell our readers before you get back to the grind?

Nathan: Please give the Indie Games service a (second) chance. There are some sub-par games that may turn off people, but the demos are free, and there are some real interesting games available such as Clover and Colosseum. Check out the new “Top Rated” section for a game or two you may have missed.

Obviously CGI covers XBL Indie Games, but XNA RoundUp and XNPlay do a good job of covering Indie Games as well to save you time.

Most of all, if you find a game you like please tell your friends and help support that developer!

We’ll be keeping a close eye on Grapple Buggy and Mommy’s Best Games over the coming months.