Interview | Rain Games Talk 2D Platformer Teslagrad Wii U

Cubed3: Please introduce yourself and the team working on Rain Games.
 
Eduardo Garabito: I'm Eduardo Garabito, a writer, editor and jack-in-all-trades at Rain Games. I mainly take care of our community, press, and other important small tasks in our videogame studio (regardless of its size). We're a small team mainly from Bergen (Norway); with around ten people including 3D artists, programmers, sound designers, musicians and much more.

Cubed3: What projects have Rain Games and team members worked on previously?
 
Eduardo: Most of the members of the team come from other forms of media, doing designs for many different things. For example, our artists Aslak and Olli made designs for Eurovision and for national broadcasters, with our lead Peter Wingaard managing organisations and festivals. Lead programmer Fredrik made a few small games before he joined us, and I worked for other indie devs too. As you can see, we're a mix-up between gaming and non-gaming roles.

Cubed3: We like the look and feel of Teslagrad - please explain the concept in a nutshell.
 
Eduardo: I'd say that Teslagrad is an action puzzle/platformer where magnetism and other electromagnetic forces are key to progressing through the game, and thereby discovering the secrets kept in the long abandoned Tesla Tower. Of course, I'd eagerly wait for further questions.
 
Cubed3: Please explain the world of Teslagrad and how the protagonist becomes involved in the storyline.
 
Eduardo: Teslagrad's world has its roots in another different game, an unreleased title called Minute Mayhem. That game, which was the first project of the newly created Rain Games, was set in a four-nation world, each of them with a different brand of steampunk-inspired technology. One of these nations was called Elektropia, which is the nation where Teslagrad takes place.
 
At a certain point, the magnetism and electromagnetic forces that featured that nation inspired us to envision a very different game. Minute Mayhem was kind of a top-down view multiplayer/casual game, and that's how the Teslagrad project was born. Let's focus then on the nation of Elektropia. Teslagrad is the main capital of Elektropia, which is like a blend of Norway, Russia and the Balkan countries, obviously with a strong steampunk touch and scientific/technological quirks. The little nameless boy, the protagonist, is the last of the Teslamancers; a dynasty of half-magicians, half-scientists that are able to control magnetism. Why he's the last of them and who are the soldiers pursuing him? That's what you'll discover once the game is released!

Cubed3: The use of voiceless storytelling is a refreshing change - how did the idea come about, and have you had any issues with conveying the story in this way?
 
Eduardo: We thought of how narrative was delivered in many old titles where voice acting was still not an option. Some of them had exposition dumps based on text in the start of the game. But when we were small children, we never could read all that text in a foreign language. The best of these games still managed to tell us exactly what kind of world we were in and what we were doing.
 
Other media have a lot of good examples of this form of storytelling as well, and both movies and comics frequently succeed in more than the feeling of a place, telling an entire story just trough the visuals.
 
When we started work on Teslagrad, we knew that we couldn't do voice acting for all the languages we were planning to support. Peter (our lead dev) was reminded how the best games had solved it in the past, and he thought: if we know from the start that we have to tell the story entirely visually, then we can design for it from the start. It took a lot of work with storyboards to get the story in Teslagrad to work. In the end we are really happy with how it ended up. Even though there are a lot of tiny details to the narrative that are hidden away, most everyone that plays Teslagrad gets the basic story just by playing the game.
 

Cubed3: The artwork looks vibrant and delicately detailed - how did the ideas for this world come together?
 
Eduardo: Thank you! I think the most important fact here is that not only do we have three marvellous artists, but that they have been involved in the development and creation of the world itself, long before the final art had been born.

Cubed3: What existing games, films or animation have helped inspire the Teslagrad design and concept?
 
Eduardo: Many, lots of them. Going from hundreds of games of the golden 8-bit/16-bit era, the magic world of puppeteering (Aslak is our expert there), countless types of concept art and illustration (that's Peter's influences), to Ole's taste for Franco-Belgian comics (such as Tintin and Spirou). Not to mention the musical ones, we could be talking about them for years.

Cubed3: What aspects of Teslagrad do you feel make the project unique, when compared to other 2D adventures out there?
 
Eduardo: Its unique mood, atmosphere, and magnetic-based mechanics. We've been compared to Braid or Limbo, and though we feel incredibly flattered and honoured by that comparison, we think Teslagrad has another spirit itself.

Cubed3: What made you decide to bring the game to Nintendo Wii U?
 
Eduardo: It was a great opportunity we had to publish our game with a company which made many of our most beloved games in our childhood; we just couldn't let it slip! It's now quite obvious that not only Nintendo, but many of the major publishers out there are getting more and more indie devs into their platforms, which is a dream for us. Attending gaming events and spreading the word helps in that regard.
 

Cubed3: How do you intend on using the GamePad controller to bring something different when compared to other platforms?
 
Eduardo: Even from it early concept, Teslagrad was a, let's say, console-like game. Our first published version has been the computer one, that's true, but either way the game was designed with console control schemes in mind. The Wii U has a really interesting and unique feature, which is off-screen play. Not only you will be able to play completely on the Wii U GamePad, but the map and secret card system will also be accessible from the controller, taking advantage of the touch interface - it feels really nice, by the way!
 
Cubed3: What hurdles have you had going at it as part of an independent team?
 
Eduardo: The usual. Making games is an incredibly complex, long, difficult and risky process. We are a pretty small team. As with many of the indie devs out there, we've had to keep an eye on the company's numbers, and work out countless small problems for which we weren't ready. We've been growing and learning while making Teslagrad, and we didn't have the resources or support that many bigger game developers have.
 
Also, what's incredible is the tremendous amount of outstanding indie games being made in recent years. That's a blessing of course, but it's getting more and more difficult to gain some exposure. And of course, we indies have no big budget to spend on advertising. Still, we think it totally worth it when the goal is to do what we really want to: creating cool games.

Cubed3: What are your thoughts on Nintendo's approach to indie developers in recent years?
 
Eduardo: Nintendo is helping us, giving us advice and invaluable feedback, and doing their best to adapt Nintendo's philosophy to a new wave of smaller developers. It's really exciting to be part of it. It's also important, of course, from the point of view of the company's financial results. We think that they are doing really well, and they're taking steps into totally changing the game industry as we knew it.
 
Cubed3: If you could both work on any Nintendo franchise, what would it be any why?
 
Eduardo: As I said before we have so many different Nintendo franchises we love, that it's almost impossible to choose. But having to choose one and only one, we'd pick two! Metroid is the obvious choice (and actually a really important influence for Teslagrad) and the other would be The Legend of Zelda, the classic ones especially.

Cubed3: What are your plans for the future - could a sequel be on the cards?
 
Eduardo: At this moment we are completely focused on the console versions of Teslagrad. We have some other concepts that we'd like to study, of course, but we feel that it's not the right time. So for other games or sequels, time will tell. It's exciting enough to get this work done, which is not a small task!