The Reticule – How would you compare CARS to titles like GTR2 and iRacing?

Andy Tudor - A lot of team worked on the original GTR2 and compete regularly in iRacing but Project CARS represents the next-gen of sim racing. By including the guys that love those games (and others) we’re getting some great insight into what the common themes are that really resonate with players (eg.. extensive telemetry, setups, ‘real race weekend’ feel & features) and mixed with our own concepts for social connectivity, dynamic weather/time of day etc.. we feel Project CARS is in a really strong position to both unite a lot of the sim racing community under one roof and compete directly with the competition.

The Reticule – Have you managed to get official licensing for the various racing disciplines you are going to offer?

Andy Tudor - Negotiations are going on all the time but they take a while to get nailed down legally. As soon as things are decided though, we tell our community (see previous Caterham announcements, Motorsport Vision track announcement etc..) so keep your eyes peeled as the next big license might be around the corner.

The Reticule – Can you give us more details about your described approach for CARS? “Being scouted playing high school football and leading your team to win the Superbowl”

Andy Tudor - That relates directly to the Career mode in Project CARS that idolizes a feeling of progression through your career from a junior or rookie starting out with just a raw passion and talent for racing, getting scouted for a semi-professional team, finding your feet and specializing in a discipline you love (BTCC, DTM, Rally, Indycar, whatever) and then going on to win the most prestigious titles/awards in that category and becoming known in the motorsports world for it. That may take an in-game year or season or maybe it’s a long-term goal but ultimately the analogy simulates the progression and opportunities a real racer driver would have as opposed to a more game-like ‘grind for cash or XP’ ethos. This kind of progression is commonly called a Franchise Mode in sports titles but it’s one that hasn’t really be explored fully in a racing title before. Other games have dipped their toe in the water here (GRID, F1) but there’s definitely room to push it further.

The Reticule – How are you going to incorporate DLC with CARS?

Andy Tudor - Plans haven’t been finalized yet, but new content will be released regularly for the game post-launch and will be tied to motorsport seasons, disciplines, manufacturers, specific events, eras (eg.. historic or 80’s cars), locations (eg.. German tracks) and many more. So it’s more like a continual MMO-style delivery than a console-style series of packs.

The Reticule – What are the strengths of the MADNESS engine when it comes to developing a game like CARS?

Andy Tudor - The MADNESS engine was built with foresight of being a multi-threaded, multi-processor engine that can be easily scaled dependent on the game type. So it has already seen a ton of improvements since it’s first inception on Need For Speed SHIFT to allow full dynamic shadow casting lights for truly terrifying night races, huge improvements to AI, physics, tire models, input etc.. Any new game features therefore can be considered as modules to plug into the engine that is already capable and prepared for it.

The Reticule – Has it been a challenge to implement the dynamic day/night and weather systems?

Andy Tudor - Work on these systems is due to start soon and the key thing is always considering the final emotional response from the player whether it’s “Wow, that looks real” or “Jeez, it looks like it’s gonna rain, better pit in next lap”. Getting this emotional response is the biggest challenge, otherwise you’re just making either pretty graphics that don’t have any functionality or something that works but doesn’t look very good. Technically of course there are some hurdles on the render side and some changes to the pipeline on the art side but it’s something we’ve thought of doing on previous projects and so are pretty prepared for it now.

The Reticule – Is Team Management limited to single-player, or will it be something you can organise Clans around?

Andy Tudor - Team Management in Career means hiring AI teammates as your second driver, communicating with your team via Pit2Car radio in races, and managing your career via the calendar (choosing which events to attend, balancing practice times with exhibition events etc..). In connected game modes, Team Management means ‘playing with friends’ similar to clan/guild play with different people taking different roles, recruitment, communication, stat tracking and scheduling systems so people can socialize and play together in a co-operative and competitive way. When combined with the cloud-based network you can imagine your phone giving you a push notification that a teammate has changed the setup for your car that you’ll be racing in that weekend whilst another has applied your new sponsors decals to the front bumper. You can reply back thanking them, and organize a testing session that night to try out the new settings with one of your team acting as the crew chief watching your telemetry.

The Reticule – What platforms is the cloud social network going to appear on, and how will it differ on various platforms?

Andy Tudor - Wherever possible, data will be stored in the cloud allowing it to be accessed either in a web browser, mobile app, or anywhere you can log in to your account. So the only difference would likely be in navigation of all that data dependent on the device you’re using.

The Reticule – For those readers who haven’t heard about World of Mass Development, can you explain the basics behind this development process?

Andy Tudor – WMD is a brand-new experience for gamers and allows them to go behind-the-scenes whilst a game is being made, to see the kind of decisions that are made on a day-to-day basis, see the game come together over time, play regular versions of it up to release, and also offer their opinions on the direction of the game, give suggestions, and speak to the people making the games directly. In essence therefore it’s a VIP backstage pass to games development – one that hasn’t really been exposed to players before. For us also, it means our attention is forward focused on our players and we can get direct and instant feedback from them on our plans as opposed to developing in secret and then launching and hoping you made the right decisions.

The Reticule – What has the fan pick up been like for the various Tool Packs? What Packs are being bought the most?

Andy Tudor - Ever since launch day we’ve been staggered by the demand from the gaming community to experience this new way of making games. Especially since it starts from a one-off membership of just €10 to get onboard. Most people start this way therefore as a taster; join the forum, grab the game and test it out, and then start contributing. Soon thereafter though we’re seeing people get hooked and want more than a monthly new build of the game and access to some of the higher-level interactions so they upgrade to the €25 membership.

The Reticule – How did you decide on the profit sharing between yourselves the developers, and team members?

Andy Tudor - Fairness really – 30% to developers is a nice sweet spot between a lower percentage offered in a traditional publisher-developer relationship and a slightly higher percentage that comes from a digital-only delivery system like the iTunes Store.

The Reticule – Do you foresee businesses’ using some of the higher level packs to get advertising into the game?

Andy Tudor - Potentially, and just like any games development, in-game advertising is carefully implemented so it’s tasteful, appropriate, and fair. But in the case of Project CARS, advertising is a also natural part of motorsports so armco, billboard, and vehicle/event sponsorship are in keeping with an authentic experience there.

The Reticule – Sharing the profits out to people who buy the Tool Packs sounds a very innovative idea, why did you decide to do this?

Andy Tudor - When players join WMD, they’re in essence becoming valued members of our development team… you can play builds of the game just like us, comment on every single aspect of the game, help us find bugs, ask us questions directly etc.. Sharing the success of the game once it’s released therefore is our way of saying thanks and paying you back for your contribution.

The Reticule – You talk about releasing CARS as Free2Play, will that be solely on the PC, or will Free2Play be on the consoles as well?

Andy Tudor - We hope by the time the game is released that consoles will have caught up to the concept of a Free2Play business model but since we’re in-development currently we’re remaining agile on this strategy and will re-evaluate it nearer the time of launch.

The Reticule – Do you have any plans for a boxed retail release further down the line?

Andy Tudor - Potentially, we’re not ruling anything out currently.

The Reticule – How much input on the direction of CARS do members have and how do you gather their feedback?

Andy Tudor - The forum system allows the company hierarchy to be really transparent, meaning everyone on the team and everyone in the community has full visibility of everything going on and is therefore free to talk and comment on anything. This means that no matter whether you’re a lead artist or fan of the game, your voice can be heard. As on any forum too, it’s easy for us to see ‘hot topics’ of game features/cars/design decisions that people are really passionate about. When we need some specific feedback or input on something we can open specific threads or polls. Initially we were a bit swamped with the sheer number of active threads etc.. and the huge influx of new people but we’re on top of it now and our mantra is to always be open and honest.

Check back tomorrow for the second part of our interview with Andy Tudor.

Minecraft is a sandbox game, developed by Mojang, that allows you to do just about anything your imagination can dream of. Many players have taken the game in different directions building weird and wonderful structures and buildings or, like Vechz, designing custom maps for other players to download and use. Probably the most popular incarnation is the making of Lets Play style videos for YouTube and other social networks, the most popular of these having even been praised by Minecraft creator Notch himself.

There are many Lets Plays out there to choose between but which one should you watch? Luckily I have been able to speak to BdoubleO aka John, who has his own Minecraft Lets play series Building with BdoubleO, about his experiences in Minecraft and life in general.

Kevin – Who is the real BdoubleO?

John – I am twenty nine years old, first name is John…last name…not gunna give that one away. I am a general contractor in Michigan. I have one brother and one sister who are both trying to work their way on to the YouTube scene. I love Basketball so whenever I get free time I play a little ball with friends. Have been Married for 2 months now, going on 50 years.

Kevin – Have you always been into video games or has it been a recent enjoyment?

John – I have always been a gamer but just recently got into PC games. I grew up playing console games but the big ones for me were the NBA 2k series and of course Call of Duty. When I discovered Minecraft I got hooked into this computer gaming world and I’m looking into trying new games.

Kevin – Your Youtube page is growing by the minute and is mostly known for your Minecraft building series and the Vechz maps. What if anything do you plan to do with your channel in the future?

John – That is a good question…ideas run through my head constantly. As you may know I make most of the music for my videos and had a little history in the music biz. So the Minecraft music video has always been a plan for the future, but it is done so often that I fear it would fall into the copycat category. Guude and I both have some major plans for the future that involves more of the community but that will remain secret for now. I also have plans for the new creative mode. I have always wanted to dedicate some big things to donators and I am working on something for them in creative mode right now.

Kevin – If you could add absolutely anything into the Minecraft world what would it be?

John – Let me get my damn glass back!!! Haha that’s always been a constant annoyance but of course just part of the game. My brother brought up an idea today where he wanted to be able to ride the newly implemented dragons. This in my opinion is a must! let me ride that damn dragon or I stop playing forever!

Kevin – Recently you have been tackling Vechz Legendary maps and Race For The Wool maps with Guude and others. What do you think it is that seems to draw so many players to these kinds of custom maps?

John – I think these race maps add the “goal” that Minecraft has been lacking. Minecraft is a great game but there is no end goal or feeling of victory that most games provide. The Vechz maps give you that, and I think that is what most lets players are looking for.

Kevin – What got you into Minecraft and made you decide you wanted to start a YouTube page?

John – Originally I started watching Coesquest videos. I followed that series for some time and then stumbled onto GuudeBoulderfists channel. After seeing him play and how much fun he was having making videos I got the itch and the dream that I might be able to make some videos with him some day.

Kevin – Do you have any tips for aspiring lets players on Youtube?

John – After uploading 17 videos and only having 5 subs and no growth I looked into promoting some of my videos. Basically I paid YouTube to put my video on the first page of some search results. This may sound cheap but I knew I had good content to share and that was my way of getting it out there. Another thing that was a kind of a joke but in all actuality helped me get where I am today, I donated to Guude (my favourite LP’er) and through that donation he started liking my videos. The rest is history from there. That brought me from 250 subs to currently just over 8000.

Kevin – Whats the funniest moment you’ve had whilst gaming?

John – The funniest moments have to be while playing with Guude and my brother. The funniest to date has to be in about episode 11 of my Minecraft Legendary series with Guude where I shoot him off of a walkway and he screams at the top of his lungs the whole way down. To date I haven’t laughed harder.

Kevin – From time to time you like to talk about real life and your experiences during videos which is something not many lets players like to tell to everyone watching. Do you see this as an important part of your videos?

John – I like to use my channel as an outlet to help people through some experiences I have had. I do find it very important to continue that because I have had several messages from people telling me it helps them a lot. One person said I helped their girlfriend quit smoking weed, another said I actually saved him from committing suicide. Moments like these are very humbling for me but even more encouraging to keep giving the little wisdom I have in my videos.

Kevin – Are you looking forward to Minecon and whats the first thing your going to do when you get to Las Vegas?

John – I am really looking forward to Minecon. The first thing I’m going to do is call my wife and let her know that all the prostitutes are ugly and that I will be faithful to her and then have a blast with Guude. Him and I have never met in person so we are both looking forward to it.

Kevin – For any Minecraft lovers who hasn’t seen any of your videos before, why should they come and watch you?

John – They should come watch me because I am the future king of all things Minecraft. when you hear the word Minecraft you will think BdoubleO. When you sit down and get bored with television, you will wish you were watching BdoubleO. When you go to sleep at night, you will wish that laying next to you was BdoubleO…..That is all.

You can see BdoubleO and Guude’s full Legendary playlist here and the Building with BdoubleO series, which is regularly updated, from his YouTube channel here.

Chris – What does CS:GO mean for the future of Counter-Strike in general?

Chet – We think CS:GO is the best version of Counter-Strike. So you can never force people to do anything, all we can do is make the best version of Counter-Strike we can, and the best looking version of Counter-Strike, and taking all the player feedback and incorporating that, and then we will see what happens.

Chris – Is CS:S still going to get updates?

Chet – Oh yeh in fact there was this big update the other day to the beta. We will keep supporting 1.6 with exploit fixes, and CS:S with the same thing. But we don’t want to change those games, while here in CS:GO during the beta we are willing to the feedback from the community and make something that may be different.

Chris – Can you tell us about the new Aresenal game mode?

Chet – Well look at CS:S, and one of the cool things of working on CS:GO is there is twelve years of data to look at, so with CS:S we saw how popular Gun Game was, and so we’ve actually contacted those guys, and are kind of working through with them, getting their feedback on it, so we’ve added what we call Arsenal mode, which is essentially a version of Gun Game. There are two versions, one is demolition and that is all about, we remove worrying about the weapons, so your objective is to plant the bomb and you cycle up through weapons as you go. We also have arms race which is the classic Gun Game where every kill gets you a new weapon.

Chris – What is mod support going to be like?

Chet – We’ll have the same level of mod support that CS:S has, so we’ve already started talking to some of the other modders as well with what they want to do, and what they need. During the beta we will probably get even more into that, and keep supporting them through release.

Chris – What is the difference between competitive and casual mode?

Chet – If like you want to play with your friends, and you still want to be competitive in the sense that someone still wins and loses right, but you want to be more laid back about it, you want to sit around and have all talk and not worry about the weapon choices you are making because you can have them all available. And so for that, it is more of a social way to play the game. And then when you want to be more focused, test your skills, your going to play with a skill based ranking. Matchmaking kicks in, and you are playing against people of the same skill level.

Chris – How is the skill based matchmaking going to work?

Chet – So there is an ELO ranking everyone will be assigned, and so as you play your ranking will either go up or down and you will be matched accordingly.

Chris – Is this the next step, along with DOTA, to making more e-sport games?

Chet – It is this weird thing of DOTA 2 and CS:GO were started and worked on independently of each other without that thought, and now as they are coming to maturity towards the same time, it seems that way. I think everyone at Valve, we get excited about different things at different times, and this is what we are excited about now.

Chris – How much feedback has the pro-gaming community given you?

Chet – So we met with the CS:S guys and some 1.6 guys at the very beginning, before we even announced it. Now we are talking with a lot of 1.6 guys, and actually in New York City, in Comic Con in October we are going to and have meetings with a bunch of 1.6 guys and actually let them play extensively and get feedback and they are going to do a demonstration tournament.

Chris – Do the 1.6 guys like the changes so far?

Chet – Some of the guys I think. ksharp put up a really good article where he talked about the need to have an open mind towards this happening, and to just update 1.6 with new graphics isn’t enough, it needs to be more than that, what we are doing so far he is pretty happy with. We will talk with him some more when we are in New York. All those guys, all the pros, we have a private forum to discuss just with them feedback and ideas. It is a bit esoteric right now because they aren’t playing the beta, once the beta gets growing, that kind of feedback we will see getting a lot stronger.

Chris – What changes are you making to the classic CS maps?

Chet – We looked at maps that weren’t being played, so like Dust_2 people are still playing like crazy, so that one works. But Dust we had seen dropped out of being used in competitions, so what is going on there? Oh there is a problem with T spawn a lot of times, we will move that up. One of the things we have done is standardised the spawns, so they are the same all the time. We’ve also opened up another path so the choke point is a bit more expanded. When you go down into the underpass to make sure that is a viable solution for T’s as well, while before, you pretty much get sniped if you go that route. We’ve given it a lot more things for you to hide behind, and ways to move down that area.

Chris – What is the idea behind the weapon choice wheel?

Chet – The wheel is just for the console players as an easier way to access that. PC players will probably have a more standard looking interface for that.

Chris – Will there be any free to play modes, are you looking at that?

Chet – Right now we are focused on making the best version of Counter-Strike we can make, we haven’t even thought about worrying about that yet. We will worry about that when we get closer to release.

Chris – What new weapons do you have?

Chet – There are eight new weapons, some of them are throwable and some are new weapons. We’ve updated all the weapons almost to make sure you have different choices along the way, and it is not just four weapons you are worried about.

Chris – Will there be a quick knife like in Call of Duty?

Chet – No, it is going to be the same as it always has been in the sense, it is about you making those tactical choices.

Chris – Is the bar across the top showing player icons and their dead or alive status going to be in casual and competitive modes?

Chet – Right now that is what it is, it is a lot of stuff we will iron out during the beta on how people feel about different aspects of the game. We are open to a lot of changes.

Chris – How is CS:GO going to solve the design issues such as readability of characters which TF2 avoided my moving away from realism?

Chet – What we did was look to the community again, and what the community was doing was what they call mid-model where there is just one model for each team as a way to distinguish quickly and so we’ve essentially brought that in. As you’ll see in this map here, there are variations to the model, but essentially it is the same model. Its not done out of not doing the work, it is done out of easier identification of the models. It is distinct, so when you are playing in the skill based rounds and you need to make that identification because friendly fire means something, you are able to do it quickly.

Chris – Finally, do you have any date for the beta?

Chet – We are saying early October, what will happen is it will roll out first with keys people have got from this show, and then the pros will be getting keys as well. Then it will start expanding out, we will give them out to sites to give them to their communities. We kind of want to roll it up and scale the beta, but by years end everyone will be able to be in the beta.

It is a shame that the demo is so short, I blasted through in half-hour, but it was most certainly action packed. The demo only gives you two weapons to tinker with, an assault rifle and an electro-energy spewing machine which looks pretty funky. There is a lot of shooting, a hell of a lot as there are quite often just swarms of small, annoying robots which keep trying to jump at your face to rip it to shreds.

There is certainly a hint of Serious Sam and Painkiller here with the full on in your face action, that certainly isn’t a bad thing as I really quite enjoyed those two aforementioned titles. This probably won’t be the game for you if you are looking for a deep complex shooter in the style of Half-Life or the good Call of Duty games. But sometimes you just want to let off some steam, and that is what this demo has allowed me to do.

I did enjoy targeting the cliched, but joyous, explosive barrels and a bunch of highly charged objects which send electricity sparking in a delightful way to deliver a nasty shock to the robots. In my short run through the demo I managed to find a handful of secret areas, the trick to Hard Reset is clearly to shoot anything that looks like it might explode, it generally will.

A bit of an old school shooter then, and nowt wrong with that. I’m not sure how well it will hold up over the length of the full game, that will be a bit of a test.

Hard Reset comes out on the 13th September, only on the PC.

The Reticule – Football Manager 2012, we all knew the announcement was incoming, it is that time of the year after all. Do you think you will ever surprise us all and skip a year?

Miles – That depends on whether I decide to have a holiday at some point! It’s unlikely though – we’ve got so many things we want to do with the FM series over the next few years, and what would all the FM fans do with their time if we did skip a year?

The Reticule – One of the complaints that can very easily be thrown at you guys is that you often are simply making a game with an updated database and a few tweaks without anything ground breaking. Do you feel there is any validity to this?

Miles – None at all – we’ve got over 800 new features this year. But “ground breaking” wise, we’re simulating the role of a football manager. We have a match engine. We have a transfer system. We have training. Tactics. Conversations with players. Conversations with the board. More than 50 countries leagues.

It’s not as if they’ve introduced ice skates to football, or made it so that Orc’s can run onto the pitch and kill players, so I’m not really sure what “ground breaking” things people expect us to add – we’ve been the most innovative developer in the genre for nearly 20 years, constantly adding things that no one else has, which is maybe why we’re still around making games now.

So we’ll continue to add revolutionary features to the genre. We’ll continue to evolve what we already have. And will try to be the best in the genre every year, and release games that are better than those we’ve released before every year too.

The Reticule – Are you making any major changes to the game, or is 2012 another case of ‘evolution, not revolution’?

Miles – There are elements of revolution, such as the tone system, “anytime, anywhere”, the contract negotiation locks, the scouting reports, the adaptive layout and some things that haven’t been announced yet. And will continue to evolve too.

The Reticule – The feature which really struck me as being a big improvement was the newly announced ability to add new leagues to the game as you play. How difficult has this been to implement?

Miles – It’s been being worked on in the background for a few years. The hardest part was the thought process behind it, really, as there’s been a lot of debate about the best way to do it. That and not breaking things by adding it in!

The Reticule – Do you think this will make a big difference to how people play the game and what leagues they try out?

Miles – It’ll make a difference to those who play long career games, for sure.

The Reticule – Last year saw the launch of the Dynamic Reputation System, how successful was it last time out, and how have you improved on it?

Miles – It’s gone down very well with the long term career gamers, and has made a big difference to the series. There’ve been a few tweaks, but it works well, so no need for any overhauls.

The Reticule – Something I would love to see would be a challenge mode where you are put in charge of a club with the immediate task of say, saving them from relegation with five league matches to go. Is this something you guys would consider putting into the game?

Miles – We’ve considered it many times.

The Reticule – Have you ever considered turning the Football Manager games into free-to-play titles?

Miles – We announced a few months ago a partnership with KTH in South Korea to make a game called Football Manager Online which is free-to-play with microtransctions. It’ll be released in South Korea next year.

The Reticule – Will 2012 use Steam again, and if so, how deep will the integration be?

Miles – It will use Steam again, yes. I don’t believe we’ve announced anything we’re doing in this area yet.

The Reticule – Have you thought about moving into other sports again like with Out of the Park Baseball and NHL Eastside Hockey?

Miles – It’s not something we’re looking at currently. Whilst OotP and Eastside were both great games, and OotP our highest reviewed game ever, the public didn’t take to them in the kind of numbers that made sense for us.

The Reticule – Do you have any plans to go back onto the 360 or PS3?

Miles – It’s highly unlikely – the demand just isn’t there.

The Reticule – Finally, what is the one feature that excites you most about the new game?

Miles – At the moment, of the things announced, I get most use out of the contract locks. Being able to set a fixed wage, for example, can lead to some fascinating negotiations with the agents.

The Reticule – So far, you’ve brought us a one-eyed alien, a comic book-jumping superhero with an emoticon for a head and a pair of exploding lunatics made of fire… so first things first, I have to ask: what the hell are you guys smoking?

Alex Jones – At the end of a long day there is nothing like the rich, bold taste of the crystallized tears of war orphans.

The Reticule – The Maw, ‘Splosion Man and Comic Jumper are all pretty unique, but what have been your biggest influences when creating games?

Alex Jones – Most of the guys grew up with the games and movies from the 80’s and 90’s. We are always playing and seeing new things so influences can come from anywhere.

The Reticule – Up until Ms. Splosion Man, you’d only brought out new IP’s. What were your motivations behind revisiting that game? What were the most difficult and/or daunting things about doing a sequel to such a well-received game?

Alex Jones – There were so many ideas left over from the original Splosion Man that we still wanted to do. We also did not have enough time to polish the previous game as much as we would have liked and felt we could do a much better job with a little more time. I don’t recall anyone being too daunted about it living up to the sequel. The sheer volume of levels as well as getting the networking to be smooth on launch instead of needing to be patched like the original Splosion Man were two big hurdles.

The Reticule – All your games have been laugh out loud hilarious up to now; a great achievement considering that as a rule, games that try their hand at humour rarely end up being genuinely funny. Was injecting your games with a sense of humour a big focus when you started out or was it something that came along later?

Alex Jones – Having likable character-based games with a sense of humor was a big focus starting out. Everyone is always joking at the office so it is hard not to include all sorts of crazy things as projects go forward. We weren’t going to make the next big MMO so the founders had to focus on something they thought they could do well and would set them apart from what was on the market at the time.

The Reticule – Your debut game, The Maw, was very ambitious for a studio’s first ever game. Was it particularly challenging doing a 3D game right off the bat as opposed to starting smaller and progressing from there?

Alex Jones – Creating our own 3D engine from the ground up and making a game at the same time was very challenging. Even though it was 3D things were very rough and there were a lot of limitations on memory and the size and structure of the levels for example. It would have certainly been easier to do something smaller but I believe the founders really felt they needed to make something that would grab peoples’ attention.

The Reticule – Was it a conscious decision to move into 2D games after The Maw?

Alex Jones – Not that I know of. Doing a 2D game is definitely much easier in many ways, so that was a good choice for a game with a short development time like Splosion Man. The Gunstringer is a 3D game however, so we have not limited ourselves to 2D games.

The Reticule – What can you tell us about your upcoming Kinect title, The Gunstringer? What’s the premise? Is the Kinect sensor the only control method available in the game or will we be able to play it with a conventional Xbox 360 pad?

Alex Jones – The Gunstringer is a cowboy puppet that is controlled by the player as he makes his way through several different themed plays seeking revenge on those that betrayed him. You spend most of your time running, jumping, shooting, punching and fighting bosses. The art style is unique in that the props and enemies are all like pieces of a play that have been hand-made by people. Kinect is the only control method but if you want you can play the entire game sitting down.

The Reticule – When can we expect The Gunstringer to ship worldwide?

Alex Jones – The Gunstringer will be in stores September 13.

The Reticule – Once The Gunstringer is completed and shipped, what can we expect from Twisted Pixel going forward? Will you be focusing on new IP’s or doing another sequel (that was a big hint for a Comic Jumper 2, by the way)?

Alex Jones – We have not announced what we will be working on next. We love doing new things so we will keep doing that as long as possible. We are lucky in that we don’t even know what the future will bring.

The Reticule – Do you guys have any plans to maybe develop for other platforms other than Xbox 360? Is developing for the PS3 or maybe even the 3DS something you’ve ever considered? Personally, the prospect of playing your games on the move is an enticing one.

Alex Jones – Yes, we definitely consider developing on other platforms and are excited by new technology and what we can do with it. What platforms we release on is due to many different factors that are constantly changing.

The Reticule – While I’ve got your attention, I’m going to pitch you an idea: I always thought that a Super Smash Bros style brawler featuring characters from your existing properties would be the epitome of cool. Any thoughts? Since I gave you the idea, I’ll gladly take a free copy.

Alex Jones – I have heard someone else mention something like this also. It is a great idea!

The Reticule – Thanks for your time.

Earlier this week we previewed Gratuitous Tank Battles, the upcoming game from Positech Games. Today, you can read the full interview with Cliff covering the multiplayer component of the game, Cliff’s love of tanks and more.
The Reticule – Why did you decide to carry on with the same game style as Gratuitous Space Battles?

Cliff Harris – I always think my games are best when I make exactly the game I want to make. I really enjoyed making GSB, and it was just natural to make a game with a similar general theme. Also, there is a lot that two years on from GSB, I know I could do better next time around, so it was a joy to pull apart and improve all the things I’ve always wanted to change.

The Reticule – Can you expand on how the RTS/Tower Defense hybrid will work?

Cliff Harris – Generally speaking, GTB is a tower defense game, BUT, you can play attack or defense. Defense is as normal, but attack is where each wave, it’s you that places down the attacking units to move along pre-set routes past the enemy turrets and trenches. It’s quite influenced by Plants vs Zombies, but done with a lot of graphical detail and complexity so if you turn off the display of the paths, it should look like a big RTS battle rather than classic Tower Defense. There are also customisable units so you are actually putting together mechs and tanks and soldiers just like in GSB, but deploying them in a TD setting.

The Reticule – You’ve kept the top down approach, was there any temptation to make GTB isometric?

Cliff Harris – I find isometric a bit of a technical fudge. It was top-down or full 3D. I really like top-down games and nobody seems to make them any more, unless they are simple flash or web games. There are a ton of 3D tower defense and RTS games, so I thought it would be more interesting to stick with top-down. I like my games to look distinctive, not just another 3D game. I also think tower defense as a genre works better as top-down.

The Reticule – Do you think GTB will appeal to a wider audience than GSB because of the earth-bound setting?

Cliff Harris – Possibly, I don’t know. The real reason is that I’m a bit obsessed with tanks. I’ve spend 2 birthdays in a row at the Tank Museum. I’ve driven a chieftan and sat in a challenger, clambered around in all the WW1 tanks… various relatives have been tank crew, and I live near the tank training area in the SW UK. I guess I wanted to make this game because of my own fascination with such things, rather than it making any sort of commercial sense . I have a constant reminder of tanks. Some days I hear the AS90 firing and see my windows rattle. Tanks are in my blood!

The Reticule – Have you come across any major new challenges with this title compared to your previous work?

Cliff Harris – In GSB, spaceships could fly under and above each other, which simplified a lot of stuff. In GTB, they can’t do that! Also, the units in GSB were just sprites, but GTB has animated mechs and soldiers, and also all units are multi-layered, so you can mix and match turrets and guns etc. This is all a big optimisation hell, but it was fun getting it all working. Decent gun recoil was harder than you would think, and GTB requires a proper level editor too.

The Reticule – What made you decide to use the World War One theme?

Cliff Harris – I think it’s weird that WW1 has never been used as a setting for a nice shiny strategy game. The WW1 games tend to be grognard hex based stuff. People say that’s because the combat is static and the guns are weak. So the solution is to make it a tower defense game, and give the troops lasers. No game is ever made worse by adding laser guns and mechs. Even the Sims, or Wii Tennis. You know it makes sense. One of the original names for the game was ‘Zulu! with lasers!’.

The Reticule – Will there be a story mode or just one-off skirmish battles?

Cliff Harris – A bit early to say. The singleplayer battles are a connected web of engagements that unlock each other, but it’s not a big huge campaign, more a series of one-off battles. I’m planning to give the player the choice of attack or defend at each battle, which would possibly break any really coherent traditional narrative.

The Reticule – Is the multiplayer component being expanded in any major way over GSB?

Cliff Harris – GSB didn’t make much of a deal about high scores and who you fought against. You download a challenge from ‘Dave76′ but you generally don’t care. I plan for GTB to be much more about your online profile for your own personal ‘regiment’ You will see a lot of stats and data from the regiment that you are fighting against, and I hope to have a lot more made of leaderboards and
achievements. This game will definitely have achievements built in from the very start.

Paradox Interactive are one of the big players in the games industry, and they had a pretty impressive this years E3. Their CEO, Fredrik Wester (the man in the image above) has a clear vision for the company, and in this interview he talks about E3, digital distribution and some upcoming titles from Paradox.

The Reticule – E3 is not long past, how did the show go for you guys?

Fredrik Wester – We had a great show; got a few Best in Show nominations for our games and had lots of people coming by our booth, some even wearing their Magicka bath robes!

The Reticule – At the event we see Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo holding big conferences to promote their respective consoles and handheld devices. Do you think it is about time someone stood up and held a conference about the PC?

Fredrik Wester – I don’t think the PC needs the hype as much as the consoles do. PC Gaming see a stream of innovative content being added all the time and PC is by far the best platform in terms of value to the gamers. An E3 PC press conference would probably only touch on the Triple A titles and PC is so much more than that.

The Reticule – I got the feeling at times during E3 that the whole event was becoming a bit overblown with little in the way of hard facts, rather it was just a series of videos. Do you think E3 is losing importance and relevance when compared to events like Gamescom, PAX and the Eurogamer Expo?

Fredrik Wester – The competition from other shows is much bigger today compared to four or five years ago and this year’s E3 was the least hyped of the ones I’ve been to. The shows are getting more specific, some focusing more on online or social and the “one show to rule them all” doesn’t work as well anymore. That aside, I still think it was a good show.

Crusader Kings II

The Reticule – Paradox has a very strong line-up for the coming months and next year with games like King Arthur II and the Magicka PvP, what game do you think is going to be the standout?

Fredrik Wester – The Magicka concept is being further developed in 2011-2012 and this will be very exciting. Personally I expect a lot from 4X Space Strategy game Sword of the Stars II, partly because the game looks really good and partly because the genre hasn’t had a really good release in a few years. I also have high expectations for King Arthur II, where the Neocore team has done tremendous work on the look and feel of the game.

The Reticule – Paradox are known as a company which brings out PC games, but with the rise of tablets and mobile gaming, where do you see the company this time next year, will you still have such a focus on the PC?

Fredrik Wester – PC will be our main platform, but we will release for console and tablets as well. We also see Mac as a good compliment to PC and Apple devices and so will have a central role in our growth strategy.

The Reticule – How do you see digital distribution changing over the next few months, EA are putting a big push behind Origin, do you think this is going to lead to publishers limiting digital releases to only their own digital platforms?

Fredrik Wester – To the gamers, the best choice would be a more open model where you have aggregators/retailers selling all types of games. However, since the services for gamers are all going online I guess the trend will be for more and more publishers and developers going for direct sales to consumers.

King Arthur II

The Reticule – What kind of uptake have you seen with Paradox Connect so far, has it reached the audience you had hoped it would?

Fredrik Wester – It has started off small, just as we planned and we haven’t added that many services to it in the last 6 months. We’ve been in a development phase and are currently testing new functionalities and games that we hope to add later this summer or fall.

The Reticule – Do you have any plans for it over the coming months, any more games going to be released on it?

Fredrik Wester – We have a card game based on the Hearts of Iron franchise that will be released in the coming months, it is 100% online and we are eager to see how it will do. I see Paradox Connect not as a platform for different types of games, but as a service that in the future will be integrated into all our games to make them better and offer more value to the gamers.

The Reticule – Finally, what new titles can we expect to see you reveal soon?

Fredrik Wester – We have done a few games that are influenced by titles released in the 1990s and we also have Project Postman in development with Fatshark Games, a game I look forward to a lot myself. We also signed projects with Cyanide Studios, currently working with A Game of Thrones: Genesis, and Power of Two/Zeal Studios that made the indie game Dwarfs!? 2011 is really exciting but our expectations for 2012 are even higher.