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Interview

Interview with Weedo Games, the creators of Shoot the Dragons

Do you remember our recent review of an insanely high-quality shooter game called Shoot the Dragons? You do!? Perfect! because today we’d like to share with you our interview with the amazing developers of this super high-end game.

Today’s interview may just be the most in-depth review of a single game we have ever done, so if you are interested in making an insanely high end-game, this is an interview you can’t miss.

If you’d like to check out our review of Shoot the Dragons, you can do that here.

Before we start, we’d like to thank the Weedo Games Team for participating in our interview, and for spending some of their valuable time answering our questions. Thanks guys!

Now without any further ado, our interview begins.

 

Ok first up, why did you decide to make Shoot the Dragons?

We made this game due to three ideals that drove us:

– Firstly, in our opinion a classic idea never really dies, it is just reborn in a new form. We wanted to make a game filled with classic gameplay but packed with our humor and with a modern design. 

– Secondly, we wanted to make a good game, but at the same time more than just a game. We got inspired by not only gaming and the classics found in there but also the passions that are found in the rest of our lives, rock music, dancing, soccer, and beauty. 

-Lastly, we wanted to bring back the joy that can be found just enjoying a really good game, just because it’s a mobile game doesn’t mean that it can’t be immersive to its players. 

 

How long did it take you to create the Super-Smooth Graphics in Shoot the Dragons?

We have an amazing Art and Design team who have gone through three periods to create the graphics that you see in the game now: 

-First off we spent half a year on research. We analyzed the graphics issues of currently existing mobile Shump games already out there. 

-Next, we spent a whole year designing this game and the characters and items within it. We’ve created over 4 prototype games and then reworked, updated and refined their graphics many times. 

-Last of all, in order to ensure that players can enjoy a great gaming experience, we then spent six months in development with certain players, where we continually listened to the player’s feedback and suggestions to optimize and improve our game through numerous rounds of testing (unfortunately building a game, especially a good one takes a lot of time and even more effort). 

Even now, we constantly update and improve our game (especially the Graphics and User Interface areas), so we really hope Edamame users can also help us to continuously improve the game with any feedback or ideas they would like to contribute!

 

Was Shoot the Dragons supposed to be a “simple” game from the beginning? Or did it develop over time?

We always wanted to make a game which can be enjoyed by the hardcore gamers out there, but also by the casual player and everyone in between. 

We have adjusted the difficulty curve on the game to allow anyone to be able to pick up and play the game, but we also want those that are our long-term players still to get enjoyment and be challenged by it. 

To do this we created a non-linear difficulty curve for the game. Instead of simply getting harder the further along the player gets, the difficulty flows in peaks and troughs to provide a more varied, and we believe fun experience. 

As new players progress and get more familiar with the game and can upgrade the character and his multitude of buddies that accompany him the game becomes easier, however, the further you progress in the game the greater the difficulty and larger the challenges facing our hero become.

 

Now for some geeky questions. What programming language and or software did you use when making Shoot the Dragons?

OK, geek out time! The game engine is Cocos2d with the programming mainly being obj-C and Lua.

The issue with COcos2d though is that it isn’t suitable for cross-platform applications. We want to provide the best gaming experience across multiple platforms when we are finished, so to be able to do this we plan to move the game engine from Cocos2d over to Unity.

 

Ok, here is a difficult question. What was the hardest problem you needed to overcome when developing Shoot the Dragons?

After a heated debate across the team, we finally (after agreeing that each part can indeed be difficult lol) came to the joint decision that the one thing that caused the most problems was our game design with what we wanted to accomplish with ‘Shoot The Dragons’.

We wanted to be a successor to the classic games of old but needed to remove elements which did not work well on the mobile platforms’ features. During pre-launch we listened to the feedback our testers were giving us and added this into our game as well also designing more varied experiences in-game ourselves for the players. When all these elements combined the design became more complicated as different elements mixed together. Making these elements work together in harmony was for sure one of the hardest tasks we faced. Seeing the feedback now from both the media and our players makes us glad we stuck with what we wanted to try and do, even if it was a challenging and at times sleepless process… it was fun to get here at the end!

 

Last question. Where do you get your inspiration or ideas from?

Our inspiration we took from many things, both in the computer game world and outside of it. 

-For the game design, we looked at games like Rayman Legend and the awesome Ratchet and Clank series (which helped us with the initial Buddies idea of a support character), classic games which were our starting point of the whole project included Salamander and Metal Slug. 

-Outside of gaming, we have been inspired by characters in films, especially the superhero genres when working out what makes a good hero! Our art team are massive fans of Pixar as the characters and humor found in some of their films is certainly unique, just like us! 

-An idea of some inspiration that struck us, was the creation of one of the bosses during the European Cup last year. Iceland’s team with their unique yet devastating ‘Viking Clap’ just called out to be put into the game somehow, so we came up with the ‘Viking Walrus’ character loosely based on their team captain with the clap as one of his special abilities.

We are so glad you did because the Viking Walrus is our favorite character! ❤️

 

A few words to Shoot the Dragons fans on Edamame Reviews.

-First off, guys, please give us a 5* review if you love us! 😉 Lol, just joking there. We totally believe that the quality of a game is always the core point, so constantly work on improving and refining ‘Shoot The Dragons’ as part of our goal of trying to make the best ‘SHUMP’ (sideways scrolling shoot-em-up) out there. 

-Also, we are working on developing and implementing some new and very interesting systems such as the ability to steal the bosses skills after you have defeated and captured them (Exclusive future news only for Edamame’s readers there!) 

-In the meantime, our team constantly works on creating new and interesting content for the game which we put out on a regular basis to keep the game fresh and interesting, be it new buddies, new characters or new baddies to try and beat. We guarantee our players that there is a lot more to come in 2017 for ‘Shoot The Dragons’ and you will love it!

 

Lastly a few words on how you feel about Edamame Reviews and our service.

We really appreciate the review that you have given our game and the unbiased reviews that you give to all games you test. It’s given us invaluable feedback so thank you, Guys! Also, the interview is a chance to tell the story around the game and share this with your readers and this for any game developer is such a great opportunity to expand on the processes that are behind the game you play on your device. Thanks again for allowing us the chance to do this Edamame!

 

You are more than welcome guys! Thank you for this extremely in-depth interview!

Thank you for following Edamame Reviews!
Let us know your thoughts on Twitter at @Edamame_Reviews

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