This week at Big Sir Games, I got the chance to sit down with the “Bossman” Ian Beckman himself. Before we get into the meaty questions and secrets of Cosmo’s Quickstop, let’s get to know Ian a bit more!
Ian graduated with a BS in 3D character animation and then educated himself in the art of coding. Programmers are expensive and he had big plans to make a video game. After getting to grips with code back to front, he has since taken the role of director/programmer on Cosmo’s Quickstop.
His main tasks include creating an intergalactic world that not only looks amazing but also runs smoothly with NO BUGS. Except for our business bugs that you’ll get to meet later in the game.
Without further ado let’s dive into the interview!
Q: Every game has its start, and I wanted to know if you had any struggles at the beginning of production?
A: We came into this project quickly and I did a very poor job of laying base organizational code for everything. Having not started many big projects, I approached things more in a game jam way of just getting stuff working fast. Because of that, the code quickly became disorganized and all spaghettied up! Since I was the only one working in the codebase I was at least able to keep things straight in my mind, but going back to some of the earliest code in the game now reminds me of how messy it truly is.
Q: How did you overcome this production issue?
A: Once the game went from a short-term project to a long-term project in my mind, I started trying to keep things more organized. As we created more and more amenities and upgrades, I applied more of a formulaic style to them so it was easier to go from one’s code to another. Also, due to having more amenities, we were forced to create a system that instantiates prefabs on level creation. This allows us not to have to worry about the placement of each object in each position at each level, our system just handles it for us.
Q: What are the main elements of the game you’ve been working on this month?
A: I’ve mainly been working on getting the campaign 100% content complete. This means designing and programming the final upgrades for different amenities, converting the last two bosses from prototypes to 1st passes, and hooking up the rest of the goals and cutscenes into the campaign story.
Q: What have you had the most fun with this month?
A: Getting the upgrades done always feels great. The way we set them in the codebase makes it simple to add more and iterate on them, so you get a lot of stuff done really quickly. It is also a great design challenge to come up with these upgrades. We want them to be meaningful choices for the player, but the early upgrades can’t be too game-changing. But the capstones for each amenity or chore are the exact opposite. These upgrades often drastically change how the player should approach these tasks, giving them more in the moment decision making power on what they should do.
Q: What’s the hardest task you’ve had to face this month in terms of production?
A: Creating the final boss has been very tough. It is important that the player can equip their station with whatever amenities and upgrades they want, so the challenge the boss presents has to be universal. It is important that it feels different from the main game, otherwise, it just feels like a harder level opposed to a dramatic final moment. Creating something that doesn’t demand specific needs from the station layouts but also creates new gameplay challenges has been something we’ve had to iterate a lot on, but I think we have found an interesting sweet spot.
Q: What are you going to be focussing on in September?
A: Balance! Once we have the campaign stuff in and it’s working, the next step is balancing all the income vs difficulty of the various amenities and upgrades. Making sure the player feels that different options are viable whilst rewarding more skilled gameplay. This is a sweet spot that we will aim for in Cosmo’s Quickstop.
That’s all for now! As always, for more updates on production and all things Cosmo’s Quickstop make sure you follow our socials and Wishlist our game on Steam by clicking the link below.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/724680/Cosmos_Quickstop/
