Dean Dodrill

Dust: An Elysian Tail

If you’re a gamer who pays attention even a little bit then you’ve probably already heard about ‘Dust’. A lot of the bigger gaming news sites have featured the game in some way and the buzz about this game is growing. The first Dream Build Play contest brought us the one man development machine James Silva and his dark and awesome game ‘The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai’. This years Dream Build Play has brought us a new one man game development animal with Dean Dodrill and his contest entry, ‘Dust: An Elysian Tail’. Dean took some time out of his busy schedule as he was wrapping up his contest entry to answer a few questions about ‘Dust’, who he is and just how in the world he accomplished such a visually stunning game by himself.

The excitement is already building for your upcoming game ‘Dust: An Elysian Tail’, but can you tell us a little more about yourself?

Dean: Sure.  I'm trained as an illustrator, and at an early age decided to learn animation.  So I'm pretty much self-trained as a traditional and 3D animator.  Around 10 years ago I decided, along with my brother and the blessings of my wife, to embark on an independently animated feature film called Elysian Tail.  Ideas for the film had been in my head for as long as I could remember, but actually doing the film full-time took a lot of thought.

So that's what I've spent most of the last decade doing.  The film is in a good state, and I feel it will find an audience of both traditionally animated and action films.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tR7vE6l1MN0

If the film looks as good as your game does, I’m positive it’s going to do well! Now that we know a little bit about the man behind the game, tell us about the game itself. How would you describe your game ‘Dust’?

Dean: Dust is a culmination of all the things I like in games.  I love 3D games, but have a deep fondness for a good '2D' game.  It saddens me that in this age of incredible technology, 2D games have somehow been passed over.  It's similar to what happened in the animation industry.  I know that a lot of people miss that 'look'.
So it was my goal to create the best looking 2D game I could make.  The look (and really, the world and characters) were inspired by my feature film.  I basically took the film, locked the camera to the side, and made a game out of it.  The beauty of being in 2D is that it's easily accessible.  Even in this day and age, the average player has trouble maneuvering a 3D character.

Of course, it needed to be fun.  I love action games like Ninja Gaiden (on Xbox) and God of War, so I really wanted to take the idea of a combo system and bring it into a 2D game.  And adding light RPG elements was a must, as I believe any game is better when you see experience points go up :)

So ‘Dust’ got it’s start from your film and then became the game it is today. Can you tell us a little more about where you got the idea from for ‘Dust’ and how you transitioned the story from a film to a game?

Dean: I wanted to take a little break from the film.  I had spent around 3 months messing with IK joints, texture mapping, and tons of physics, and just wanted to put it down for a while.  My film is traditionally animated, but there are a ton of 3D elements going into it.

I had read an article by Dan Amrich from OXM regarding XNA.  Having dabbled lightly into basic programming many many years ago, and being a HUGE gamer, there was an itch inside of me that always wanted to make a game.  XNA seemed like a nice opportunity, so I decided to take a little break and learn XNA.
The original plan was to make a simple side-scrolling action game, like the older Castlevanias.  I knew I wanted some sort of leveling up, but my initial plans were much more conservative.  I just wanted to learn programming and release a simple game.  It wasn't even based on my film originally, but the first image I had in my mind was the player running with a herd of deer in a beautiful way.  That image did make it into the final product.

After a few false starts, I started to think I was in over my head, and the game concept became simpler and simpler.  I eventually stumbled into the XNA community, and was surprised at the wealth of information and 'help' that was being offered.  It was Nick Gravelyn's incredible set of tilegame videos that really jumpstarted me.  Trying to code at the speed at which he works during his 15 or whatever hours worth of video kind of drove me mad, but it helped put me into the mindset of a programmer.  It's important to note that prior to this, I had never done Object Oriented programming.

That got me started, and then I came across James Silva's book.  It basically chronicled exactly what I was looking for, and the world opened up to me.  I even chatted with him a few times and he was very supportive.  The biggest thing I took from his book was an organic approach to 'tiling' my levels, and good toolset design.  It didn't hurt that he had created a fantastic action game as well.

Around this time I decided to tie the game in with my film, which seemed like a cool way to open up the franchise.  That and it was easy to delve into the history of the world, and the character designs.  So the game has little to do with the story of Elysian Tail proper, and doesn't feature any of the same characters, but there are little touches here and there that fans might see (when the film is completed, of course :)  Another inspiration for the artwork of Elysian Tail that carried over into the game was my heritage.  I'm half-Korean, and while I was raised completely American, I wanted to add that little bit of flavor.

That’s incredible that you picked all of that up so quickly! Still it’s a lot of working making a game, can you tell us a little more about everyone involved in the creation of ‘Dust’?

Dean: It was basically just me.  My wife checks my backwards grammar, and I didn't put the game into playtest until fairly late, when I had ironed out most of the bugs.  I have to give a huge thanks to the XNA community, which has been most helpful.  Otherwise I do all the artwork, code, and writing.  Fortunately, all my experience with the film made doing the artwork relatively easy.  It was a fun challenge trying to make a character interactive while looking smooth.

I brought on an old friend I had worked with in the past, Alexander Brandon, to help with music.  We had done stuff together way back when I was doing contract work with Epic (MegaGames at the time).  His music was and continues to be awesome.  He's an accomplished composer with an impressive resume.

I was also contacted by an up-and-coming composer by the name of Chris Geehan (http://www.hyperduck.co.uk), who proved himself very quickly as an incredible artist.  He has also been a valuable contributor.  Music is very important to me (and I'm saddened that I have little skill in that area), so you can imagine how thrilled I was to have such great artists on board.

I’ve been enjoying playing it in playtest while you worked out the final kinks. It’s extremely polished and continues to impress me. How long did it take you to develop ‘Dust’?

Dean: I started my XNA endeavor around December of last year, and I believe I started actual work in mid-January.  So it's been roughly 7-8 months.  I'd say a good chunk of that was creating animations.  Backgrounds have been relatively quick, and since the lead character is pretty much complete, it's just a matter of creating interesting locations, enemies, and events for the player to experience.

My kids keep fighting with me for the controller every time I play ‘Dust’ and we all just sat spellbound watching the story unfold that first time. Just who is your target audience for ‘Dust’?

Dean: Everyone.  I made a conscious effort to make a hardcore action game that even a child could play.  That might sound like a cop-out, but I'm a hardcore gamer at heart and love difficult games.  But I also play games with my young children, and at those times I obviously prefer something clean and easy to pick up.  So I put in things like a casual mode where you basically can't die, options like autofire, and so on.  I've had a few children play the game and they love it.  I don't understand why developers don't put in a broader range of difficulties.  If they bought it, let them play it like they want.

Of course, at higher difficulties it can be brutally challenging, and if you know what you are doing, incredibly rewarding.  There's some depth to the combat, but if you just want to button mash, you can do that too.

Visually I've kept it clean.  No blood or anything like that.  And there's no language or anything sexually explicit.  I like a game that feels hardcore, but doesn't submit to those "mature" standards.  I know there are people who'll be turned off by the character designs, but I'm making this game for me first, so I really don't mind.

How did you get started in creating art and making games? And how does someone get born with such a large talent in both areas?

Dean: You give me too much credit... but here it goes ;)

Creating art was just something I always did.  I feel it's something everyone does, but most people just forget as they get older.  I'm not sure if it's something that can be learned, and I hear both sides of that argument all of the time.  I guess part of it is just something you are born with.  I love music, but don't have the skills to write.

I eventually decided I wanted to animate.  I'm a big fan of all types of animations (traditional, anyway), and would spend my summers as a teen just doing little animated films.  I eventually went to college to refine my illustration skills.  I wanted to be in animation, but they didn't offer it (it's hard to find anything like that in the Midwest).  In hindsight though, building my illustration made me a better artist and animator than if I had taken half-baked animation classes, so that was a blessing in disguise.

Regarding game design, I don't know if I'm that good at it, but I do love games and have spent way too much time playing them.  I'm still learning to program as I go, but the feeling of deploying my work onto the 360 and playing it with the same gamepad I play all my other games is a feeling that never gets old.  So that, along with my artistic skills, just seemed like the perfect fit.

I know you're planning on entering Dust for the Dream Build Play competition, how did you stay motivated and inspired while working in such an aggressive timeline for this contest?

Dean: The most difficult part about this last month (which has been a marathon in itself) was the time I had to spend away from my family.  I work at home, and the feeling of having to turn away your children because you are working at a breakneck speed is a difficult thing to do.  Now that I've wrapped up this submission, I'm spending the next week camping and fishing with my family.  That is my reward.

Another thing is that making this game always feels fresh.  I guess because, like the film, there are so many different hats I put on, and it never gets old.  Mixing audio, painting backgrounds, optimizing code, screaming into a mic.... it's all fun.  Most of the time, anyway.

So what's up next for Dean Dodrill?

Dean: I'm going to finish up this game, and then it's back to the real deal... the film :)  It's hard to think of it, but this game is really just a tiny slice of a bigger picture.  Hopefully the game finds success.

When you have a little time to play, what are some of your current favorites on XBLA and Xbox LIVE Indie Games?

Dean: That's a tough one.  I racked up a pretty good gamer score, and absolutely love my 360 (it's my favorite console since my TurboGrafx-16, and I've owned them all :D)... I even waited all night in the cold to pick it up, which wasn't such a hot idea for a new father.

Once I started this game, I almost stopped playing all games.  I've literally been that committed.  So I've missed out on quite a bit this last year.  My pile of shame is pretty high.  I do most of my catching up on forums, which is sad.

My favorite XBLA titles are probably Castlevania: SOTN (I'm a DIEHARD Castlevania fan.. spent nearly $120 for the PC-Engine game back in the day), Ikaruga, and Duke Nukem 3D and Doom (games close to my heart as a PC gamer).  I guess it's kind of sad that those are all re-releases.  But I do have a huge library of titles which I enjoy.

I really like The Maw.  Twisted Pixel understands the importance of character.  Omega Five was a great old-school shooter.   N+ was a fantastic platformer that I really enjoyed.  And Catan is probably my favorite strategy game.  Oh, and of course MegaMan 9, which I've sadly not had time to play.  MegaMan 2 on the NES might be one of my top 3 games of all time.
My favorite XBL Indie game remains Weapon of Choice.  I'm really looking forward to Nathan Fout's next game as well.  He really set a standard that I feel still hasn't been met in that market.  I've even chatted with him a few times... very nice guy.

 

 

Thanks to Dean for taking the time to answer those questions. I know it was a real treat for me to learn more about the developer who can create such an incredible looking game. The deadline for Dream Build Play 2009 has come and gone and it will be interesting to see how ‘Dust: An Elysian Tail’ does in that competition. Until then, I know I’m going to keep having fun playtesting ‘Dust’ myself and hopefully the rest of the world will get their chance to play it very soon!

Is anyone else looking as excited as I am to hand my wallet over to Dean when it finally releases? Leave some comments to let me know! Just be warned, this game is addicting and you still do need to remember to spend some time for your wife and significant others…trust me on this one.