Tri-Achnid

Florian: I am Florian Himsl, I did the programming and design.

Edmund: I'm Edmund McMillen, I did graphics and design.

Edmund: Florian and I had been talking on and off for a while about doing a game together, he would always show me his prototypes, I thought his physics work in flash was very impressive. He IMed me one day with a spider prototype and I thought its design was too good to pass up.

Florian: Basically I was trying to figure out new rag doll models for my physics engine. The 3-legged spider stood out, I had to make a game around it.

Florian: I started playing around with online game design nearly a decade ago. Being a student allowed me to put as much time into it as I wanted, without having to care about money and stuff. I always tried to create a unique experience rather than quick entertainment. My goal is to try to stay on this path, while making a living doing games.

Edmund: I’ve been doing indie games now for about 4 years, starting with Gish then going on to do a hand full of small flash games and other pc games. I’ve always wanted to do design and graphics for a living and being independent gives me the freedom to make games that I’d like to play.

Edmund: I see an independent game developer as someone who has the freedom to do exactly what they want with their game and not answer to anyone. They would also have to fund their own project.

Edmund: I think there's a big difference between just making a game, and making a good game. I still believe if you make a good game, it will easily stick out from the crowd.

Edmund: the fact that this is an extremely new art form that people are just now realizing is an art form.

Florian: I like that online games are free and open to everybody. Designers can publish their work with a few clicks and users can view it without having to download something for hours or paying money.

Edmund: After Florian showed me the spider prototype I started to design a world around this small fragile spider. my goal was to push the player into a very low and depressing atmosphere with muted colors and music, then get them attached emotionally to the spider with hands on movement and the fact that they need to take care of the spider’s young as well as the spider itself.

Edmund: we played around with keyboard controls a bit, we tried out a few modifications with the controls but just settled into what we had gotten used to, it’s probably something we could have worked more on.

Florian: At first there was just that rag doll which could be dragged with the mouse. Then I added a force which would make the legs push up the head. With that in Tri-Achnid could already walk. Later on I decided to make the legs stick to walls and make it possible to grab onto objects. That's how I turned the rag-doll simulation more and more into a game. It basically evolved by itself.

Edmund: In a lot of ways the levels were designed around the abilities we discovered as we play tested some of the early beta levels. A good example of this was when we added the "blue birds". I was playing around in a level that was a series of suspended rocks that Florian had just added these birds into, the birds were objects so you could grab them if you were quick enough. I accidentally fell off of a rock, and almost to my death, but as I was falling I was quick enough to grab and hold onto one of the blue birds. My fall slowed to a stop and I gradually started to fly upwards. This was something that was unintentional but worked so well we designed a few secrets around it.

Florian: The physics engine took too much time/effort. It's way too complex for what it is and what is needed in the game. This issue was never resolved.

Florian: A lot of people can't complete level 2 because they don't understand what they have to do. This game could use a smoother learning curve and more tutorials and tips.

Edmund: work as fast as possible. Florian and I work best when we keep an idea fresh. Tri-Achnid only took 6 weeks to make so it was easy to keep the momentum going through its development.

Edmund: 6 weeks. We actually submitted this same game last year but it was rejected... actually it was bashed into the ground last year by the IGF judges... 2 of the judges said it wasn't even a game... go figure.

Edmund: The only thing we changed was how the game was presented to the judges. Last year there wasn't much of a description and we trusted the judges would just play the game and come to their own conclusions on why the game was special and innovative. This year I wrote an in depth description telling the judges what our goal was with Tri-Achnid and what made it special and innovative. That's the only thing we did differently.

Edmund: Flash

Edmund: The game’s extremely maternal.

Edmund: Florian and I are currently working on 2 new projects that should release next year, both are as experimental as Tri-Achnid and should turn a few heads when they are finally finished. I’m also working on a game called Gish 2.

Florian: www.komix-games.com