Biology Battle: Interview

By William Barker

When I was at high school I studied biology in year 11 and 12 and though I took issue with osmotic pressure, there's something to be said for mitochondria.

My teacher would often talk of cell organelles but he had a carbuncle on his cheek. It constantly wept pus.

So when we got news that a game studio in Thailand, Novaleaf, was developing a game called Biology Battle, we decided to stalk them (which meant we could write-off the Thai holiday as a work expense) and forced CEO and chief architect Jason Swearingen to answer a few innocuous questions:

Will Barker: I like battling, but biology bores me. What's the ratio of battling to biology in the new game?

Jason Swearingen: Biology Battle is 95% Biology Free! Now with more Battle! While we were seriously considering making Biology Battle incorporate more tangential learning techniques to make the game more educational, it’s too bad but we simply ran out of time. 

Maybe I’m getting old, but I somehow feel that it’s my social responsibility to make games educational if it doesn’t detract from gameplay. It’s not something I paid attention to in the beginning of Biology Battle’s design, which hurt our ability to incorporate "edu-nuggets" in later. 

For our next games, I’m going to keep this in mind through the entire game design process.

Will Barker: I see, but would you call Biology Battle a 'casual' game?

Jason Swearingen: OK, first a bit of a rant. I personally hate the terms “casual” and “core”. The “casual” label really gained hold during the explosion of match3 puzzle games, and I think really symbolizes  business’s desire to boil games down to two target audiences, regardless of how square-peg-round-hole the approach is.

Alright, that through, let me put on my CEO hat: Biology Battle appeals to the casual gamers desire for bite sized gaming experiences, and also the core gamer’s desire for challenging and competitive gameplay.

Hey, I just did the businessy trick of answering your question without really answering your question. Perhaps I’m more well suited to the role of CEO than I thought…

Will Barker: Very well. We've played the demo, and one of the first things we compared it to was the hugely popular Geometry Wars. Clearly it was an influence, but how careful did you have to be to avoid being labeled a clone? Which areas or features did you feel you innovated?

Jason Swearingen: Generally speaking, the classic 8-directional and side scroller shmups like SmashTV and R-Type are really where I’d say most of my inspiration from. 

Though one thing we did get inspired from Geometry Wars was the idea of the infinite level, which I think is a great addition to the genre when targeting for “bite sized action”.  

When it comes to innovation, that’s actually an area I think we shine very well, though it might be hard for gamers to appreciate some of the technical innovation.

Innovation gameplay-wise, we included an "asymmetric co-op" feature which allows players of multiple skill levels to have fun together in the same game, and still be balanced to be challenging but not too difficult for each type of player. 

This was important because while the Xbox360 is focused on the core gamer, XboxLive games are sort of the casual games for that audience, and they play them with less skilled friends/families. 

Another gameplay innovation is the “Life/Death” mode scoring mechanics of Biology Battle. Here we focused the design to encourage competitive players to maximise their time in both life and death modes to get the highest score. This requires a bit of 'metagame' to decide the right balance.  

Technically, I think the biggest part I’m proud of, is using XNA to write a high-performance arcade game. If you hear any of the complaints people have using C# to write games, that’s not a small feat, especially on the Xbox360 which has considerably worse performance running C# code (it uses the CF.NET for those keeping track). 

We are also including a p2p topscore list, and GPU accelerated fluid particles, which while some-what gamer features, fit squarely in the “technical innovation” category.

Will Barker: Hmm. GPU accelerated fluid particles sounds kinky. We like what we're seeing from this new game for PC and Xbox Live Arcade, but we're all pretty lazy here at the Games Channel, so I have to ask, have you built cheats into Biology Battle?

Jason Swearingen: Actually it’s something I wanted to do, but on October 30th Microsoft released the final XNA dev bits we needed for launch, and at that time they updated their EULA to include the line “No Cheat codes” so that’s a bummer.

Will Barker: Typical. Okay, so one of our (my) favourite multiplayer games at the Games Channel (that I make everyone play whether they like it or not) is Puyo Pop Fever. Do you have any of these puzzle games in development? If so, you rule! If not, no worries.

Jason Swearingen: Hah, no plans for the moment. I aspire to build games like X-Com, or Final Fantasy Tactics over the near term. We give all of our developers 20% "personal project" time (and 10% profit sharing), so if any of them are interested in writing puzzle games, I won’t stop them. ^_^

Will Barker: Good to hear it. Now making games sounds like fun, and so is cooking food. We like BBQ kangaroo here at Web Wombat. What's your favourite dish and why?

Jason Swearingen: My favorite food is *home made* macaroni and cheese. Not the crap you get in a box using fake cheese. My favorite recipe calls for 20%, real sharp-cheddar cheese by volume.  

Will Barker: Yum. The Nintendo Wii is doing amazing things at the moment and revolutionising gaming by bringing it to a non-core, I mean new audience. Is this a platform you'd like to program for?

Jason Swearingen: Sure I’d love to dev for Wii, and the iPhone! But it was a strategic decision to focus on XNA, which restricts (empowers?) us to develop exclusively for PC, Xbox360, and Zune. 

Choosing XNA was the right decision, but it doesn’t stop me from wishing for those extra platforms. =)

Will Barker: For readers out there looking at getting into videogame development, what would you recommend as the best place to start? How did you get into it?

Jason Swearingen: I feel if you want to be a hobby developer, just pick up a good book on the subject and start making your game. I personally would recommend XNA for noob developers, just because C# is a simple language, you get Visual Studio C# Express for free (the world’s best IDE), there is a huge community for support and code samples, and a lot of great books.

However, if you are looking to get into game dev “for reals” then get a good computer science degree. 

Games are real-time simulations, and to succeed you need to have a solid foundation in systems architecture and algorithm design, super-human applied problem solving skills, and a passion for learning that extends well beyond the class room.

For me, I actually didn’t get a CS degree (I’m a business major), but when I was working at Microsoft I taught myself how to program, and ended up doing development in Vista DRM. 

Even though I always wished to do game development, I actually didn’t start it until Biology Battle. This is my first game ever. From what I learned, I would again emphasize that games are just another form of software, and for anything beyond “casual” complexity can not be accomplished in a haphazard fashion.

Will Barker: You guys are based in Thailand. Is this a first in the games industry or do you have domestic rivals/friends in Thailand?

Jason Swearingen: The local Thai game industry is focused on the domestic market, doing outsourcing, or casual games for DS or Wii.

In regards to both writing games for the "Core gamer" markets and also our use of XNA technology, we are alone in the industry. In fact, when Biology Battle is released on the Xbox, it will be the first Thai game to be on that console.

Will Barker: Are there any cultural influences unique to Biology Battle and/or games made in Thailand?

Jason Swearingen: I think the biggest impact is the "East Asian deference to authority" that you see, well, in all East Asia. Coming from the USA (Microsoft) I knew what to expect, but I was still a bit surprised when I saw it in action. Employees here expect to be micromanaged, which doesn’t work very well when the product (games) requires a high degree of creativity, problem solving, and 'fun'.

Another issue is the lack of familiarity with western canon, cultural knowledge, especially games. For example, if you asked a Thai game developer where the term “Hail Cesar” came from, you would be hard pressed to get an answer that is related to the Roman Empire in any way.

Biology Battle factoids:

• The game is written in XNA

• It will be released on the Xbox 360 (XBLCG) this November 19th (2008)

• PC demo version can be downloaded from games.novaleaf.com/biology-battle

• Cost US$100,000 and 11 months to develop

Will Barker: From the beginning, tell us what is involved in creating a game such as Biology Battle? I always think of game development offices as giant Counter Strike hubs where no one really does any work (like what we do), but I imagine there's the ideas phase and the art and designing the game. But what other crucial production decisions get made?

Jason Swearingen: I think one of the biggest, overlooked areas is system design and architecture. At Novaleaf we write all of our tools and technologies from the ground up, no middleware. So it’s especially important for us to have properly architected systems, that are modular and work well other components.

When it comes to shipping a game, a lot of hard decisions revolve around setting and following project milestones, and cutting features properly.

Will Barker: Releasing games online is becoming increasingly popular. Games like Wipeout HD for the Playstation 3 was launched online only - why did you choose to release the Xbox 360 version of the game online?

Jason Swearingen: Given the choice of digital or physical distribution models, I personally will always favor digital. I really feel online sales/distribution is the future, and for a developer like Novaleaf being all the way in Thailand, online is really the best choice for us today too.

Will Barker: What's on the horizon for Novaleaf? Do you have plans to release games on different platforms in the future?

Jason Swearingen: As a general guideline, we plan on releasing PC versions of our games about 6 months after the Xbox version.

However because we are tied strongly to XNA technology, we don’t have plans to do Wii or PS3 development anytime soon. But plans can change, so I wouldn’t dismiss the thought outright. =)

Will Barker: Finally, what does Sawadee Khrap mean?

Jason Swearingen: Actually, it’s both “G’day!” and “Ooroo!”

Will Barker: That's nice. Thanks for taking the time to talk to us, and best of luck with Biology Battle.

Novaleaf Game Studios:

8 people total (6 technical, 2 administrative)
Part of a 20 person company (Novaleaf Software)
Self funded
Based in Bangkok Thailand
Game studio is 1 year old (Novaleaf Software is 2 years old)
Focus on XNA as technology
Uses a multicore engine developed in-house (no middleware)

Game: Biology Battle
System: PC, Xbox 360 Arcade
Players: 1-multi
Online: Yes
Developer: Novaleaf Software
Distributor: Novaleaf Software