Game Rants talks to Roto Force developer Anton Klinger about game jams, development issues, its unique gameplay pitch, and post-release plans.
Anton Klinger has been working on small-scale games for a decade, but everything changed in 2016 when he participated in a Game Boy-themed jam, which took him on a journey to become a full-time independent game developer. Roto Force started as a run-and-gun shooter under a different name with limited prospects. However, the man behind Accidently Awesome would turn this 10-day prototype into a unique game combining multiple genres.
Roto Force would go through various iterations with changes in movement, weapons, levels, and enemies until the game initially called Pixel Soldier changed its name to reflect the updated gameplay. Game Rant talked to Klinger about game jams, his inspirations behind Roto Force, run-and-gun gameplay, and issues during the development. Interview has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Q: For those of us not familiar with the company, could you give us a brief history of the Accidently Awesome and yourself?
A: Well, the first thing is it's not really a company, it's just a name I made up for the games I make. I mean, I am still a company, or a sole trader, or what you'd call it. I started making games ten years ago as a hobby in Flash, and I like to make little, simple games. I started getting into making games in school and went on to study computer science. In the meantime, I kept making small games in my free time, mostly participating in game jams, and putting some free games on the internet.
Roto Force also started as a jam game, in 2016 at Game Boy Jam 5. I made the game called Pixel Soldier, which was essentially a prototype of what is now Roto Force. I kept working on Pixel Soldier in my free time for years while I was studying, and it has now grown to be a much bigger game. It's still mostly me doing the programming, the art, and the animation, and my friend and colleague Florian, who goes by Captain Rudy, does the SFX and music.
Q: So, Roto Force started as a GBJAM 5 project. Can you tell us more about that experience?
A: Yes. I think every year there's the Game Boy Jam in October, I think. It has restrictions inspired by the Game Boy's resolutions and color schemes, limited to four colors. You have to finish within a week. I think this is a really great Jam because having all those restrictions puts you immediately in the mindset of making something small and more focused idea-wise. You have much less to worry about in terms of the art side. I mean you still have to worry about the art side, but if you can only use four colors, it's much easier to make everything look more decent, even if you have no art background. So as mostly a programmer, I can still make something decent with the restricted color palette.
Q: So, I understand that at the Game Boy Jam they also rate the games somehow, can you tell us about that?
A: Yes, at the end of the Jam, there's a period where everyone can play the games and rate them. Pixel Soldier got 12th placement in gameplay, so that's something. I'm not sure how many participants there were, but I think at least a hundred.
Q: Was there a specific reason that you wanted to drop the name Pixel Soldier, and go with Roto Force?
A: Yes, Pixel Soldier was just something I came up with one or two hours before the submission deadline. It was just one of the first names that came to my mind because I was inspired mostly by the game Alien Soldier for the Sega Mega Drive, which is an amazing game. So, I just called mine Pixel Soldier, because there's, you know, pixels and stuff. In terms of why I decided to drop the name, it's simply because it stopped reflecting on what the game is about. Pixel Soldier sounded too much like the military, too serious.
Also, some don't like having pixel in the name, it can make it sound cheap to some, although others might like it. The Roto part, the main gimmick, wasn't a thing in the initial jam game because it was static. Rotation of the entire screen came later in the development but is now one of the hooks of the game. It made it easier for people to associate the gameplay with the game. It was just a better name. We had a few different versions of the name, Roto Rush being one of them. The Roto part stuck, we just hadn't at first decided which name to pick until eventually settling on Roto Force.
Q: You mentioned Alien Soldier. Was that the reason that you chose shoot-'em-up, or is there some other reason you chose this type of game?
A: Yeah, in Alien Soldier you have specific boss arenas where you can walk on the ceiling and dash around. So I started the game with the controls of a Game Boy. That's not a restriction of the Game Boy jam, but it's just a restriction I put on myself. So it would only have four directions as well as A and B. Since it's a shoot-'em-up, certainly one needs to shoot, and the second one would usually jump, but I decided jumps are lame and dash is much better. So it became shooting and dashing, sort of like a small part in Alien Soldier.
Q: Being born of a Game Boy jam means there's a lot of Game Boy legacy in the game. You even made yourself an additional restriction out of that. Are there any other games, in addition to Alien Soldier, that inspired you?
A: I mean, not directly. It's just that there are a lot of games that have indirectly influenced the design of the game. Alien Soldier is the one that has the most direct influence, and I don't want to sound like I've copied from it, it's very different. Having a lot of boss fights is something Alien Soldier does a bit better. Roto Force is not that intense, but it does come close.
Q: Even games classics like Asteroids, and if you remember Super Stardust, which has a rotational aspect, come to mind. Are there any other games that come to mind?
A: There's the old arcade game, Tempest, where you are looking down a tunnel, shooting at things, and moving at the edge of the tunnel. It's pretty similar, and I've never actually played it, but the gameplay was always stuck in my mind. I always wondered what it plays like.
Q: We talked a little about the gameplay, but can you tell a bit more about the variety of weapons, and the styles they allow?
A: So, in the game, you have multiple weapons, even though at first I was going to focus on one weapon. However, eventually, I gave in and added some weapons. It was very fun designing weapons, so I added more of them. Now there are quite a bunch, and you unlock them Mega Man-style, one per stage. The first main consideration with all the weapons is that there should be a reason why to release the shooting button and why firing constantly isn't always the best option.
So, for example, the first weapon, the machine gun. It is an all-rounder that's decent in every situation. It has a burst when you start shooting and over time as you keep firing it reduces the recoil but also the fire rate a tiny bit. So that's a reason to stop shooting. Some weapons have a charge-up, and you have to shoot at the right moment. Others are short-range, more bursty, or have damage over time. The second requirement was that it needs to at least reach the center of the stage so that no matter where the enemy is, you can hit it from somewhere on the map.
I also spent a lot of time balancing the weapons, because of the different properties. It's impossible to perfectly balance them, but I wanted at least one situation in the game for each weapon, where you'd prefer that weapon over others. I think I've managed to do that, and it's fun when exhibiting the game. Everyone seems to have their favorites, and they're often different.
Q: As I played the demo, I tended toward the machine gun, though I didn't notice the different modes.
A: With the machine gun it's very subtle, and you can very well just hold the firing button. With others, the changes are more pronounced.
Q: So, another important part of the game is movement, which you realize immediately when playing the game. Can you talk more about movement in Roto Force?
A: Yes, with the movement you only really have two options. You either move along the floor, the edges of the arena, or you dash to any point on the walls, except the wall you are on. There were a lot of different variations the dash went through because it is a very strong tool, allowing you to instantly reposition. There were a few considerations, like whether bullets should still be able to damage you while dashing, and how quickly you can dash.
I've settled on being able to dash as often as you like, and there's no cooldown because otherwise, it feels awful when you'd like to but you can't dash. However, dashing constantly doesn't help you because you need a safe landing spot, and you can't fire while dashing. So, if you are dashing, you are more on the defense. Most attacks can't hit you while dashing. There are some exceptions, like slow-moving projectiles from bosses. Some enemies also have shields that you have to dash through. We were thinking about dash-stunning the enemies, but there would need to be a cooldown, so we threw that out the window. Also, we scrapped dash doing damage, because if you are almost invulnerable, and it deals damage, then it just becomes dash to win.
So dashing is pretty defensive, and to win bosses fast you'll have to dash as little as possible. Time spent dashing is time spent not shooting. One last important point is that it used to be so that you could dash instantly, but now you can also aim your dash by holding the dash button. I also added a bullet time effect but noticed people were just constantly playing at 50 percent speed, so that was awful. So instead I made it so it slows down but quickly goes to 0 percent speed and stops completely. You have to then choose to either complete or cancel the dash. This way it can be used more methodically and strategically.
Q: You mention on Steam that it's a small game, and you can finish it in a day. Can you tell us more about the difficulty of the game?
A: Yes, of course, the assumption that you can finish it in a day is based on how well you deal with the difficulty of the game. Because it is inspired by old-school games, it is a little difficult, but the way I handled it is that I split it up into multiple difficulty modes. You only unlock the harder difficulty after you finish the previous one. If the first one was way too easy for you, you will get through the difficulty very quickly. I also added accessibility options, where you can reduce the game speed, have a damage multiplier, make yourself invulnerable, and so on.
Q: Have you ever considered it a bullet hell game?
A: It is one of the genres I use to describe it because it doesn't fit neatly in any one genre. So usually I describe it as a twin-stick shooter, bullet hell, run-and-gun. Something like that. Some stages and bosses can be bullet hell-like. The hitbox isn't quite as tiny, and the dashing makes it different. In my opinion, if you have only left and right to move to, it makes it hard to make many interesting bullet patterns for you to dodge. In a bullet hell, you'd have four movement options.
Q: You mentioned already that there are different difficulty levels. Are there other aspects, like leaderboards and completion time, that give more replay value?
A: The thing is it's not really an arcade game, even though people say it should be. Initially, it wasn't thought of as an arcade game so adding points after the fact isn't a good idea, in my opinion. It should be designed from the ground up with that in mind. While I could've done combo multipliers and so on for points, I've only decided to keep track of the time of completion and deaths for a stage. I am probably going to add Steam leaderboards for that, and once you complete the game you unlock a few modifiers. Modifiers include, for example, only dash and not move, switch weapons every time you dash, or Ironman mode where you have only one life. You can even combine the modifiers to make the run ultra-hard.
Q: Earlier you mentioned the four-color palette, which came from Game Boy Jam restrictions. Can tell us a little more about the visuals of the game?
A: It has changed, even though it might not look like it, or is subtle. At first, it was a fixed four-color palette that I got from one of those online color palette generators. One of the biggest changes was that I added the ability to dynamically change the color of everything. I used this in a couple of different ways. Different stages have different colors, but also when the player loses health the color changes a bit. Also, when a boss does a particular, strong attack that is very important to dodge, the color scheme changes.
Another subtle change was that I upgraded the resolution from Game Boy resolution to Game Boy Advanced resolution because I found it too confined for the game. In addition, I use mixed-resolution pixels. That is because when you rotate pixel graphics, and you don't have 90-degree angles, there are going to be so many jagged edges. That can cause eye strain. There's an option to enable the retro version if that's how someone wants to enjoy the game. However, pixel size remains the same, even with the mixed resolution pixels.
Q: You also mention on Steam that there's no story or narrative in the game. However, I noticed that there's a writer included in the credits. So what is their impact?
A: So, since I wrote that Steam description, a few things have changed. At the very beginning, there was zero thought to any story or anything, because I was focusing solely on the gameplay. Then the idea was to have a mission briefing for each mission, and after the mission have a mission debriefing. Those were my thought of slowly introducing some context to everything, even if there wasn't a story.
The writer also suggested that we could have lines for the bosses and mini-bosses before the fight starts. So, those one-liners have been added to the game. However, it is still very important to me that the story doesn't get in the way. That's why I made it optional to view, at first. It hasn't changed much about not having a story, it's mostly silly little goofs. Don't expect a grand story behind it all, just to have a little fun and to make it absurd. I think we've accomplished that.
Q: One thing that seems to be very important in the game, perhaps due to it being a fast-paced action game, is music. How did you come up with the music, and the direction with that?
A: That's very simple. As I menontied earlier, my friend Florian is working on music. We've known each other for a very long time, from school. He's also a DJ. He has a specific taste in music, and whenever I need new game music, he delivers. It always sounds good to me. Mostly he's into drum and bass, but he also likes hard bass. Most of the game's music is drum and bass. The thought was just to have something fast-paced for the fast gameplay, and I just trust Florian to deliver.
Q: You also have lots of other people that have helped with the game. Can you tell us more about that?
A: Yes. I've started to hire and commission artists. The first thing was the stage backgrounds. I am just a hobby animator and mostly a programmer. While animating little sprites is fairly easy, and something I've got the hang of, drawing bigger sprites is very difficult for me to get right. That is something I needed to get right. After that, I needed boss animations, which I commissioned, too. I think it vastly improved the game to have someone who really knows how to draw.
Q: What were the hardest parts of the development of the game, and which came the easiest?
A: That's a tough question, I've been working on this game for so long. I think my style of working is that I have my to-do list, and I work on it until I hit a particular, difficult task. Then I just start doing something else that is easier and fun to do. This harder task might take a few months to complete, while on the side I've done a hundred smaller things.
Certainly drawing stuff is difficult, and I've learned to do rough drafts at first, and I've started commissioning people that can do it better than me. However, as a student, it has been a budget problem. Now that I've been working a little and have some savings, I have the freedom to do it more. When you are doing these zero-budget indie projects, some tasks can become so overburdening. With just a little bit of budget, you get so much mileage about everything.
Q: The game will be available for PC, Mac, and Linux on Steam as well as mobile on Android, and iOS. Is there a reason for not having console releases, and is there any interest in them?
A: Yes, and yes. So another part of the development history is that it's written in Java. That's just the language I initially learned programming with. When I left Flash behind, as Flash was dying off, I looked for other ways to make games. I already knew Java, so I looked for Java game frameworks and started using a Java game library called libGDX. The problem with Java, however, is that there is no Java runtime for consoles. So it won't run on consoles unless you port it to other languages.
Currently, the plan is to finish the game, then talk to a porting company and get it to consoles. So consoles are not going to be part of the initial release, but it's going to happen a little later. A few times I was considering porting it to C#, but I thought I was almost done, so it wouldn't be worth it. Then after a few more years of development happened, I realized I should've done it back then. But it is what it is, and my being very comfortable with Java made it easy for me to make the game.
Q: You haven't yet announced a release date, as far as I know. Is there anything you can reveal about the release window at this point?
A: Yes. I can tell you that it is going to happen this year. I can say that much. I had completely stopped working on it to focus on my studies. However, from the beginning of the year, I've been working full-time on it. I am trying to become a full-time game developer to turn a hobby into a job. If I can't complete the game by the end of the year and release it, I need to seriously reconsider whether it's a good idea for me to become a professional independent developer. I need to learn how to reduce turnaround and stop polishing things indefinitely. I need to fight this perfectionist urge to keep polishing.
Q: Have you in the meantime come up with any other game ideas for Accidently Awesome?
A: Yes, most certainly. That's another important point: I want to release this game, so I can work on all other game ideas I have. After spending a lot of time on the project, you get tired and most importantly mad that you can't get to other projects. So, that is definitely a good motivational factor. I have some few-hour prototypes of other games. I'm also looking to develop some mobile games. I have a few puzzle game ideas – smaller projects that I can hopefully release quickly to get better at releasing games. The main idea is to have them free, without paid ads, only advertising my other paid games, like Roto Force. And of course, I already have so many ideas for sequels to Roto Force that would take too long to implement in Roto Force. I don't think I'm going to make a direct Roto Force sequel immediately, but as I mentioned, maybe an arcade spinoff.
Q: Is there anything else you'd like to add?
A: I want to thank all the people that helped me, and especially all the people that believed in me. All the people in our local game dev community, Game Dev Graz. The whole time they've known me as the guy developing Pixel Soldier, I mean Roto Force. Even when I haven't released one commercial game, they still consider me a game developer. I think that's cool!
[END]
Roto Force will be available for Mobile and PC in 2022.