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Hi, please introduce yourself and tell us about your background in the games industry:
My name is Stanley Adrianus and I’m the founder and owner of Gamenauts. My day to day responsibilities include overseeing the business, game design and production of our titles, art directing our artists and making sure we have enough coconuts for the monkeys.
I had my start in the industry working at Yahoo! Games, where I was responsible for the art direction of the games and the web site for more than 5 years. I also designed some of the multiplayer games and was involved in the production aspects of the site.
When was Gamenauts formed, and what previous titles have you released?
Gamenauts was formed in September 2005 and our first title is an action puzzler called Spacebound, a PC casual game. Being our first title, Spacebound remains a special game for us and it was a great learning experience developing it. The core idea behind the game was to combine the timed, combo making aspects and square matchings of Lumines with the grid-based gameplay of Bejeweled. I also wanted something with a space theme for our first game to match our company’s name.
Spacebound didn’t resonate as well with the primary casual gamer audience as we would have hoped for. Nevertheless, it was a great starting point for us and it gained valuable exposure for Gamenauts as a new game studio. Spacebound was eventually released as a boxed, retail game in late 2006, something of a great milestone for us.
Interestingly, the main character in Spacebound, Captain Bloom, was very well received by everyone and we decided it was a great idea to make him our official mascot. We really love the little fella.
What inspired your latest game (Burger Rush), and why did you decide to make it?
At Gamenauts, we love the idea of merging existing game genres together. We looked to the 2 most popular genres in the casual games space and decided that combining a matching game and a restaurant/customer serving game would be something that the audience would love.
We’re also big fans of food and cooking games in general, particularly the more obscure ones from Japan. I have the feeling that Burger Rush won’t be the last food-themed game that you’ll see from us...
What’s the most interesting thing about Burger Rush and why?
In my humble opinion, the most interesting thing about Burger Rush would be how it’s succesfully merged two genres and yet still maintains the balance between the each gameplay mechanic.
Although Burger Rush is not officially the first game to combine those 2 genres, we felt that the previous games had placed greater emphasis on the matching mechanic than the customer serving or restaurant management gameplay.
As a result, we wanted Burger Rush to have an equal focus on each of the 2 gameplay mechanics. It was a challenging task initially and there were numerous UI iterations and mechanic revisions that happened in order for the gameplay to reach that sweet spot.
Since Burger Rush was released, we’ve gotten very positive feedback from both fans of matching and restaurant games, so we think that we’ve accomplished our original mission.
How long did it take to develop the game? Any big problems you encountered during development?
The total development time for Burger Rush was close to 9 months. We initially had a different matching mechanic early in the development, but after the initial focus test, we dediced to go with the current swap/ match 3 mechanic which worked much better for the game.
What’s your favorite indie game at this time, and which recent mainstream titles do you admire, and why?
I’m not sure if this qualifies as an indie game, but I was enamoured by Peggle. Although its gameplay is quite limited, it’s still strangely addictive. I’m also a big fan of old school adventure games and I try to check out those created by independent studios as often as I can.
As for mainstream titles, I’m a big fan of the Wii and I think Wii Sports offers the best casual gaming experience that you can have in front of a TV. I’m also looking forward to the next Fire Emblem for the Wii and the next Phoenix Wright for the DS as I’m a sucker for both series.
How do you see the future of casual games?
Although it seems like there’s a big explosion of casual games in the past few years, I think the industry is still very young and has a very long-lasting and exciting future. There are still a lot of undiscovered cool game ideas and worlds to be discovered. I think the casual gamer will be very happy and satisfied with what’s to come.
For the developers, the barrier of entry is still relatively very low, but at the same time the competition has gotten tremendously fierce. As the industry matures over the next few years, I suspect only the best developers can keep up with the rising expectations, although there will always be room for true independent studios.
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Interview with Stanley Adrianus
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