An interview with Rob Fearon of Bagfull of Wrong

This week we have an inteview with Rob Fearon, erstwhile creator of all things retro and a blastingly british mentalist to boot. His seminal games Squid Yes, Not So Octopos and War Twat can be had for free at his website (linked at the bottom of the page). Enjoy!

Phil:

The first thing that strikes me about your games, are the really great titles. I particularly like war twat as a title, because it really sums up the nature and futility of war. War.. is a twat. Its so deep and profound. Even Squid Yes, Not So Octopos and its sequel have a rather similar depth to them, even if they are perhaps a little more picasso-esque in their denial of interpretation. How do you come up with such great names for your games!

Rob:

I do what any creatively bereft indie artist does. I steal them. Well, sorta. Squid Yes, Not So Octopus is a throwaway line from a Half Man, Half Biscuit song, I figured “hey, I wonder if they’d mind if I nicked it and made a game from it?” so mailed Geoff at Probe Plus who asked Nigel of HMHB and they said fine, go for your life. So I did. And the lives of any passers by too. I was going to call the follow up Binman, Thinman, Lexicographer but I couldn’t work out how to draw a lexicographer in 60×60.

As for War Twat, there’s not enough games with swearing in their titles. There’s Fuck Space and Space Fuck by Cactus and well, that’s about it isn’t it? We’ve got a glorious bunch of swears in the English language so why not use them? I think I’m just ahead of the curve here, in ten years we’ll be playing Microsoft Cocksticks and EA Fuckknuckle and not blinking an eye. It’ll happen, I tells thee and when it does, people can turn and say “that Rob, he started it, he’s a genius”.

Squid yes, not so octopus 2

Phil:

I really do get the feeling that you put a bunch of yourself into your games. Hopefully not physically, but spiritually. How do you go about the process of development in terms of ideas and inspiration?

Rob:

I do what any creatively bereft artist does… no wait, I’ve done that answer haven’t I? I dunno, I tend to go into a trance for a few weeks and stuff just plops out of my brainbonce.

War Twat was born of frustration – I’d spent a week growing to hate Everyday Shooter and driving myself increasingly spare with the grind, the noise of the guitar making my brain bleed the more I played and crying myself to sleep each night over the tag line “What if god made you a little dot”. What on Earth does that even mean? If god made me a little dot would I spend my time shooting robots or would I probably get trodden on by a cat or something? I don’t know, but I didn’t like it anyway. So, I kicked back at it and made a game so stupidly hard, no high concept rubbish masking an iteration of Robotron and no arty angle to speak of – just straight to the silly bit. Yeah, that’ll show that Jon Mak I thought. And it did, I mean where is he now? Shhhh at the back.

The graphics were designed by my then 4 year old (Erm, that sounds bad doesn’t it? He’s still mine, just not 4 anymore – I don’t collect them then give them away or anything). I sat there and asked him what he wanted in the game, he said “a truck, a handbag and an alien” so that’s what he got. Sod crunch and gold farms, child labour is the future of the industry. Harness the imagination of a child and riches will come to you.

SYNSO, on the other hand, came out of awesome web magazine now blogthing Way Of The Rodent. I can’t remember the precise details of how it came about but a chap on there said he wanted a game where the maximum score was 9. “I can do that”, thought I and did so. The sequel came about because I hated so much of what I put into the first and wanted to make things right again in the world. Plus working to the deadline for entering Indiecade… which I naturally enough didn’t make. I think posting a foaming rant instead of an artistic statement probably put the kibosh on that one. Oh, and that it’s not a beard strokingly worthy game.
So yeah, my inspiration comes from all over the shop. A lot of music I listen to, a random album sleeve, a passing comment in a forum thread and other games I’ve played (mainly Minter’s with a side order of Eugene Jarvis lovesnuggles). I’ll start off with a random cluster of disparate ideas and hack away for a few weeks to see what gives from it. After that, it’s iterate and annihilate all the way – I learnt the hard way of what happens when you get afraid to drop a shit idea so I tend to be brutal in that regard. If it doesn’t fit even slightly I’m not going to spend time trying to make it fit and rejigging around it, just kill it off dead and move on.
After that, it’s bludgeoning an agenda home in trying to wedge in as many accessibility options as I can work out how to fit in. I’m a strong supporter of accessibility in games and love the hard work that folks like Barrie Ellis, William Pilgrim (who’s responsible for the switch control’s in SYNSO) Special Effect and others do to help folks enjoy games on their own terms. So many small things you can add to your games that make a massive difference and it makes me pull sad faces that this stuff isn’t considered de rigeur to include. Plus, y’know, if I can do it, anyone can so there’s no excuses. I could rant about that all day though, so I won’t this time.

Squid yes, not so octopus 2

Phil:

Another strange attribute to your games, is that they are free. I find that hard to compute, given the quality of the gameplay. I notice on your website you have a paypal donation option. How does that work out for you in terms of actually making a profit? Do you ever plan on creating pay-for games and if so, how will you get players to pay for them?

Rob:

I’m lucky I suppose, I don’t need to make a living from making games, I’m a full time carer which takes up an obscene amount of time, results in ridiculous day/night crossovers and making games is something I do because I want to, not need to.

Yes, I’m perpetually skint, I run a couple of sites that even with the support of the users still mean I throw money out monthly rather than make any but truth be told, I don’t really care too much. The paypal button brings in the odd fiver here and there from kind passers by (and it’s always awesome when someone clicks it – people should click it more!) but it’s never going to support a fast cars and fast women habit or anything. It’s all very well people boffing their mouthvomits over the Radiohead model or how NIN can do it or whatever one of the football management games it is currently throwing their game at the general public for a nominal fee but they’ve all got something most indies don’t have. A fanbase. Last time I checked I don’t have half a million folks ready to fork out some of their hard earned wonga to get my next game and I can’t see it happening any time soon in the future either. My games aren’t exactly the type that you can iterate upon to infinity a la Dwarf Fortress, they’re quick, short sharp shocks that someone on a forum once said they’d pay £3.20 for. How you come to that figure, I have no idea. Is there a formula? Time smiling x Graphic Fidelity – Cost of mainstream game or something? Answers on a postcard.

I don’t have a problem with that, mind – If I made a fortune it’d probably make me corrupt to the core and I’d develop a crack habit or something and destroy my family life and end up washed up in a clinic somewhere bemoaning how I could have had it all if only it weren’t for those pesky kids. Mind you, it might stop my most asked question being “and have you made any money from them yet?” so that’d be nice.

If I were to go down the payware route, it’d probably be something akin to Zombie Cow’s recent way of doing things (make totally non-shit game and punt it out for cheap). £2.99 still seems as reasonable a price as it did when I was punting out for M.A.D. games in the 80’s and ties nicely into my eternal fascination with budget software. Talking of which, have you seen some of the stuff Pheonix get away with? It’s awesome and I’d bet they’re eating money for lunch out of carrier bags. White Van Racer? Maniac Mole? Amazing. Maybe I’ll do a Don’t Buy This or Cassette 50 equivalent soon, if nothing else it’d be a laugh. I wonder if I could find enough respectable indies willing to tarnish their reputation for a cheap giggle?

Phil:

You have gone for a deliberately retro feel to your games. It feels like there is almost an underground scene within the underground scene that is interested in retro shooters. Is that just my perception, or is there a strong community of shooter creators?

Rob:

We’re the dirty unthinkers nobody speaks of, man. A bit like some sisterhood or something in a 70’s Doctor Who episode who work against the powers that be, quietly, in secret, occasionally pausing for a bad special effect and some idle mind control. We’re so underground, Paul Weller didn’t get anywhere close to us when he got his head kicked in.

Seriously? I have no idea. I run a no rose tinted spectacles allowed retro obsessive community of developers, it’s my spiritual home of homes so it’s sort of normal to me to do the retro thing.

I write the sort of stuff that’s not really down with the kids, it’s not beardy stroke stroke, grounded in NES generation platforming or exploration, serious shit or anything that stands up to a 30 page dissection – it’s stuff for old codgers like me with 5 minutes to spare a day who want to blow stuff up. I don’t see that as especially underground stuff more generational. It’s enchuffing to see kids and teenagers getting into it but I tend to find more kinship in my generation, those of us who grew up playing Williams games till our hands felt like a claw. The same folks who thought Space Giraffe was about as good as it gets. The ones the games industry forgot about in the nineties. The bastards.

I didn’t get into making games till late in my life so I missed the chance to make the arcade games, Speccy games or whatever I wanted to play so I make them now. One day, I will kill Jeff Minter and be him, y’know?

I don’t think there’s nearly enough folks doing this lark, there’s Charlie of Charlie’s Games. Cas, obviously. PomPom to a degree, Minter is still churning out the awesome and some of the guys over at Shmup-dev do some good things but nothing I’d call a community or movement – just a bunch of disparate folks doing their own thing that might happen to align to some degrees along the way. It’s probably best that way too. No-one likes an overcrowded party and it means we’re all off doing different things in different ways which results in better things for everyone in the long run.

War Twat

Phil:

I saw that SYNSO has an XBox 360 port. Is that something you think long term you will get into? Doing console development rather than PC?

Rob:

Were I not such a useless buffoon, I’d love to. Fixed specs? Oh yeah, that’s probably the biggest draw there is. I’m not by any means a natural coder or even one who has a brain wired for code, it’s quite the effort for me to get these things out of my head anyway which creates a bit of a barrier to me going there.

The uber talented Andy Noble is responsible for the 360 version of SYNSO, he started it for a bit of practice and it eventually ended up fab even if I do say so myself. I look at his code and my eyes cross over, never has Intellisense had such a work out as when I’m browsing his source. Then of course, there’s the forced monetisation thing – I can get away with a shonky menu system if I’m giving the game away for nowt, I can get away with a few rough edges on the graphics here and there or even some totally rubbish ones – if I were to be putting a price on these things then I hand on heart couldn’t let it out the door and ask for even 80 fake Mickey Mouse points for it in that sort of state.

When Andy dropped SYNSO in my lap it used the old double pixel chunky sprites designed for 640×480. Imagine them suddenly on a 1280×720 screen. They look cock. No way was it going to go out doing a Digital Eclipse y’know? So I went back and redid all the graphics, 3d renders to replace the old sprites, super massive scale high resolution arenas and things, Andy threw in some shiny new effects and shader stuffage to make it glorious. That’s a world apart from what you can get away with when bunging something out for free and it’s a massive leap up in asset generation stakes and the time it takes to get stuff together.

So aye, it’s something I’d like to move towards in the future but it’s going to mean I’ve got to get my shit together a whole lot better than I do currently and find an art style that I can feasibly work with that isn’t going to consume months out of my life for that alone. The pay off of being able to lie on the sofa in the buff playing your wares is totally worth it though, especially when you spend an inordinate amount of time tied to the PC chair.

Phil:

I recently started an entry for the Ludum Dare competition, although I never got round to finishing it, it seems like there is a healthy number of people taking part in game development competitions. Although these entries obviously aren’t of the same scale as AAA retail titles, it does feel like there is enough talent still within bedroom programmers to create unique games. Have you found that to be the case?

Rob:

God yeah, I mean to go back to Jeff Minter a mo. There’s him and there’s Giles and Space Giraffe knocked the socks out of most things I’ve played over the past 30 years and his latest game is bloody smart too. Take a look at some of the stuff coming out of TIGS and even my own little corner of the web, RR and there’s this immense talent base there. Some of it might not hit the spot but heck, when you’ve got folks like Anna Anthropy, Terry Cavanagh, Steven Lavelle, Ron Bunce, Ovine By Design and many more really pushing the quality stuff out there on a regular basis it’s pretty hard to argue. Just take a look at Cliffski’s latest epic, Dan and Ben reviving the adventure genre and storming metacritic, Matt of Hermit Games banging out the best vertical shooter I’ve had the privilege of playing – this is stuff you couldn’t possibly get greenlit or the support for in most of the mainstream industry and it’s vital to the health of the gaming scene.

With digital distribution rapidly moving from a sort of hidden thing to being the de facto way to purchase stuff we’re getting back to a time when one man in his bedroom can make a smash hit game. That’s as funky a thing as you could want.

Phil:

Finally, is there any advice or knowledge you want to impart on other British indies?

Rob:

I don’t think I’m the best person to give advice about anything, although it’s never really stopped me before.

Thing is, if you’re an indie then your strength lies in just that. Write the games you want to see made, y’know? There’s an audience out there for just about everything and you can find your niche without trying to follow the masses. You, yourself and what you put into your games are your strength. Make stuff you believe in. Make stuff you’d want to play and pay money for and make it not shit. I know the latter seems rather obvious but I think we’ve all played enough games now to realise it’s not a given.

On a personal note, I’d love to see more quintessentially British games. Bowler hats, cups of tea, Monty Python, shit weather, queuing, dominatrixes and politicians, all ripe for games. In the eighties we had games about moles and miners, blowing up Parliament, elevating our social status from dolescum to moving to Hampstead… what happened? Where did this stuff go? We need more of these things. Make it so.

Do something interesting! If a cocky bearded git can muster enough interest in his stuff to make two appearances in a row at the Eurogamer Expo, there’s your proof it works.

And click my paypal button, obviously. I’m out of chocolate fingers and in dire need of teabags.

Thanks Rob for that refreshing take on the indie scene

You can visit Rob’s website at Bag Full Of Wrong for more information about his great FREE games.

Tags: Interviews

This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 8th, 2009 at 6:01 pm and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.