Meet Mark Foster a United Kingdom pun-loving indiedeveloper whose work hasappeared on iPhones and computers alike, quit his day job, and saved his money to develop games like his up-and-coming game, “Chroma.” He participates in game jams with local video game events. His game, “Leaf Me Alone” won top honors with its deep artistic flair and puzzle platformer in the Ludum Dare Competition. In his interview he sat down and dialogued his work, Shakespeare, minimalism and Zelda.
You have taken top honors in the “Ludum Dare” for your videogame “Leaf Me Alone.” Basically in the Ludum Dare you all get a tone (this year minimalism) and 48 hours to create a videogame. Now how did it affect your process and development for “Leaf Me Alone?”
I’ve done a few Ludum Dares before and occasionally do small jams over a couple of hours or maybe a day. In the past I’ve mostly done this solo, LD is actually split into two categories, 48 hour compo and a 72 hour jam; the difference between the two is for the longer jam you can work with other people whereas the 48 hour one is totally solo. So this time was something new for me since I paired up with my musical friend David Fenn and made a team effort!
With jams like this only having a really short space of time to do it in you need to really cut to the core of what you want to do. Start with an idea, cut loads from it, then cut some more. Having a limited time and a restriction on theme pushes you into doing things you might not normally do, puts you out of your comfort zone and usually produces interesting results. I find restriction breeds cool ideas, which is why I love LD and these kind of jams, it just forces your brain to work in a slightly different way.
This time around I wasn’t too inspired by the theme, it actually felt a bit too broad to me (I think any jam game is minimal by necessity!). I find the best themes to be super restrictive, and it’s always interesting to not only see how people fit their game to the theme, but also how they might find ways of bending the theme to their will. That’s what produces such a cool variety of games for these jams, people take ideas in wildly different directions.
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It’s kind of like a breath of fresh air, it’s more joyful and childlike than most of my other games. I kind of think of it as a game I’d have made if I knew how to code when I was 8. When I was a kid playing stuff like Sonic on the old Megadrive/Genesis I always wanted to make my own game, or more specifically my own world; some cool place I and other people could play about in, and that’s sort of what this game became. It was scaled down from what 8 year old me would have wanted (or even modern day me, half the planned game didn’t get made but such is the way of game jams).
It doesn’t worry me at all, people will always disagree on many things, it’s human nature; however I think anything anyone creates could be thought of as art. Any book, song, painting or game is a form of expression, and to me that’s all art is, expression. I kind of think of Leaf Me Alone as sort of a little haiku/poem in video game form, and I really like that it turned out that way. It was never our main focus or intention, even the name was accidental as I have a chronic condition where I constantly think of terrible puns, honestly it’s punstoppable.
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This kind of debate about games and art often gets tied up to indie games, which I think is interesting. Even massive open world RPG’s made by big budget companies can by expressive and artistic, but I think indies get pulled into it more due to the scale of their games and the scale of development. It can sometimes be easier to see the raw soul behind a smaller game made by one or two people rather than large games made by hundreds. I read somewhere that ‘AAA games are Pop albums, and indie games are rock songs’, which I thought was a neat little analogy (unless you hate rock music).
I think every aspect of a person’s life will influence their work, with games I’m obviously influenced by a lot of other games I play, but also by things I see in day-to-day life. I think big chunks of the game I’m currently working on (Chroma) were spawned from tiny things I saw in life or overheard on a train that set my mind off down some weird path that led to a cool idea.
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I think games have a massive potential for this kind of narrative as well, telling their tale through the environment, mechanics and interaction rather than cut-scenes and walls of text. I try to keep that in mind as I work on my current project.
I think the core of it is I want to tell a story, and I want to break away from some conventional things that happen in games. I like things that are different and new, as you say – fresh concepts. I want to give the player an opportunity to discover for themselves how the mechanics of the world I’ve created work, where they are, why their character is there and what’s going on. It’s totally open world, no separate levels or anything like that – it’s one continuous 2D environment. It’s been a major challenge to allow players to go anywhere straight away through varying routes while keeping the puzzles balanced; I think 2 people who play the game will each have a completely different journey since it’s so non-linear. I’m very sure it won’t be a game to everyone’s taste, but as I said in a previous answer, people argue about many things, people have many different opinions. If you make a game that’s specifically catered to a niche group that you yourself are part of then those people would love it all the more (I hope!).
It revolves around color, light and shadow, in a dead world that has a history behind it. Understanding what that history is is the key to unlocking the real mysteries of the game. I fully expect not a lot of people will uncover those final end-game mysteries, but that makes them more special to the people who do work it out. I saw a talk by developer Terry Cavanagh (Super Hexagon/VVVVVV) and he said something that resonated with me, “I like it when games don’t care if a player can see all it has to offer”. That kind of blew my mind, games like the original Zelda has loads of secrets hidden away that were never made obvious at all, so if you discovered them it was a real “WOAH” moment, and you’d go share these secrets with your friends and it’d just be really cool. I think that’s a core element of Chroma, allowing people to discover things on their own as they dive deeper into the rabbit hole.
Speaking of Yin and Yang, what is it like working with those talented music makers David Fenn (“Leaf Me Alone”) and James Dean (“Chroma”)?
JD’s style is more electronic than instrumental, which I really love. The stuff we’re doing in chroma is mostly sound effects based, building up the sounds of the world and adding to that immersion; but there are some musical elements that bridge a gap between classic chip sounds and more modern stuff. It’s always hard for me to explain music in words but all I can say is it sounds awesome. JD just released an EP as well you can check out (http://jamesdeanmusic.bandcamp.com/) which I’ve had on repeat for a while because its so good (I’m listening to it right now).
What is the best way to support you and old-and-new indiedevelopers?
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