Good Game Get! Interview

… in which we ask a game developer three specific questions based off our site name!

GGG! Interview #005 Brandon Williamson of Nyralu Labs

Brandon Williamson makes games from the future.

I’m not kidding you.

Whether it’s something beautifully absurd like his Magnetic Shaving Derby or his gorgeous and sonically perfect Forget-Me-Not; the man clearly knows how to time travel.

His love and craftsmanship surrounding his games is nothing short of inspiring.

I’m delighted to have him answer our questions!

- Kyle

The feel of playing it. The sort of visceral feel (or something) that can come from the interaction and feedback between you, the controls/your actions, the audio and the graphics. I don’t know how to put it in words properly but I’m thinking of things like…. Popping a bunch of bubbles in Bubble Bobble and seeing the enemies go spinning out and fruit going everywhere. The way how when you’ve fired a bubble in Puzzle Bobble, it sort of glints in the light when it sticks to the other bubbles. The nice crunchy sound effects in Minecraft when you’re digging, followed by the “pop”-ish sounds when you pick up what you’ve dug. Smashing bricks with your head in Super Mario Bros. The sound effects in Final Fantasy games when you navigate menus and when numbers go up. The way your ship gets pushed around by asteroids in Minotaur Rescue. The sounds when you bounce on stuff in Skullpogo, and the way the animals you bounce on go flying up and then fall down off the screen while a number pops up… you can almost *feel* that pogo stick. It’s stuff like that that keeps me coming back to a game. Also, the euphoria that comes from repetition, like the “ready….go!” voice at the start of each level of Puzzle Bobble.

Thinking about it, this is probably the same stuff that keeps old ladies playing slot machines.

There are plenty of other things that make games good too, but… collectible fruit is #1. I don’t know why that is, but it’s true.

This stuff about the feel of playing a game also holds true for non-computer games… I like the sound scrabble tiles make, and the feel of holding a spread of playing cards. These might be as important as the actual rules of the game, to me!

I really like making stuff. It’s all I want to do. One of the things I make being games is because I grew up playing them, they’re a large part of my..culture or whatever. I could have been making cabinets out of wood, or knitting horse suits or writing books or something instead.

I like problem solving, it’s fun trying to figure out the best way to code something. And I’ve found I like trying to make elegant systems of interacting, imaginary objects.. It’s satisfying when the code is all neat and organised. After awhile the code becomes overgrown and gets out of hand, and then it’s not so satisfying but by then the game is hopefully playable so it’s all okay. Then one day I play my game and I’m actually playing it for fun, and that’s magical.

A surprise, after spending time experimenting.