Biology Battle Preview

As the developer behind one of the best games available on the Xbox 360 Community Games service, bettering many full XBLA games, there's no one better to explain the ins and outs of indie game development than Novaleaf Game Studios. We caught up with CEO Jason Swearingen to discuss the studio's debut title, Biology Battle, and what it's like making games for the Community Games channel.

VideoGamer.com: Novaleaf Game Studios is one of a growing number of independent developers. Can you tell us a bit about the company, how it came to be and where it stands at the moment?

Jason Swearingen:I think Novaleaf is actually quite unique in the game industry right now. Not only is our choice in technology and location (Bangkok, Thailand) very unconventional, but the company was founded by amateurs, with only myself having any professional software development experience (as a security developer at Microsoft). Currently our studio is starting our second year of existence, and employs 11 people. Based on our success with Biology Battle, I am confident in our abilities to tackle more complex games, so at the moment we are working on a couple of small, experimental titles while we focus on R&D work in the 3D arena.

Since I'm honestly new at this industry, I'm starting to explore collaboration with publishers to get additional funding I'd require for expansion, because like all indie game studios, I'd like to build my dream game, and external capital is pretty much needed for the sort of fast growth I'd prefer. With the global economic crisis in full swing, it will be a very interesting experience when I make my first attendance to Game Connection in San Francisco this March for that purpose. We are pretty fortunate in our ability to self fund, though, so no danger of heart attacks here!

VideoGamer.com: A lot of young people these days are taking university courses in video game design. How did you and the rest of the team learn the trade?

JS: Basically, we learned by doing it. Our first game (Biology Battle) was quite literally my first game ever. For me, I'm a self-taught developer, so I do strongly think that what's needed more than any formal education is the drive and passion for learning, and a method of applying that learning, such as the workplace or passionate hobby projects. Of course, the rigorous knowledge you gain in the academic setting is incredibly useful, and I know that there are areas of deep and fundamental theory in both game design and computer science that I am poorer for not knowing. For my team, the game and software industry here in Thailand is extremely small, so while they had reasonable academic experience, the lack of industry to gain real tangible experience is by far the biggest challenge we have faced.

Because of our inexperience, we spent a considerable portion of the Biology Battle project learning. A lot of mistakes were made, but that's always the consequence of learning something new, and the end results made it all worth it. I think if we did it again, we could complete the game in six months, instead of the 12 it took.

VideoGamer.com: Your first game for Xbox 360, Biology Battle, was released late last year on the Community Games channel. Are you pleased with the reaction and sales so far?

JS: I'm very happy with the game, and the reaction so far. Everyone who plays the game finds it enjoyable, and remark that it's one of the very top Community Games, even beating the quality found on many XBLA games. For sales, not so good. Because the Community Games platform is brand new, we didn't have any good way of determining price. When it came time to pick a price, I looked at the relative quality of Biology Battle, and seeing as it rivals the quality, fun, and experience of full XBLA titles, I chose the 800 point price. In hindsight, that was a mistake, and unfortunately we are prohibited from changing the price. Biology Battle is worth 800 points, but consumers have relatively lower expectations from the Community Games platform, so it's a lot tougher to prove to gamers that Biology Battle is worth 800 points when it's surrounded by games that may not even be worth 200. That said, sales are currently good enough for me to estimate we will break even from Xbox sales alone (I also plan on releasing to PC eventually). Also Microsoft's planned improvements to the Community Games platform, with features such as user ratings, will help prove the game's value.

VideoGamer.com: The game was originally intended to be a PC release. What made you put that on the backburner and focus on the Xbox 360 version?

JS: We were about three months into development of Biology Battle when Microsoft announced that "Holidays 2008" indie studios such as us would be able to sell our games on the Xbox 360 Live platform. This pretty much kicked us into high gear regarding Xbox development, because I wanted to have a game ready for the official launch of Community Games. Also the fact that the PC platform is much more diverse regarding hardware and software, so the amount of additional testing and code changes we have to do for a proper PC launch is considerable.