Last week, we asked Gameological readers to submit questions that we could pose to developers on the E3 2015 show floor. We picked four of our favorites (and carried over one from last year’s batch); those questions constitute The Gameological Questionnaire.
It’s essentially Oregon Trail in a Mad Max-like post-apocalypse, but the strategy game Skyshine’s Bedlam wears a host of other ’80s-era influences on its spike-covered sleeve. That’s because every member of the veteran three-person team behind the game—which was funded by a Kickstarter campaign last fall—are huge fans of ’80s pop culture. I survived a short demo from Sam Gage, Bedlam’s creative director, who was also kind enough to answer The Gameological Questionnaire.
The A.V. Club: What’s one thing in the game that took a lot of work to get right but that players might not notice?
Sam Gage: That is a good question. I guess trying to get the combat to feel right, to feel fun. To get enough craziness in there to make it just feel very arcade-y and very fun. I think the thing we’re striving for the most is to keep it as simple and arcade-y as possible, like the fewest mouse clicks as we can do—and, you know, just get into the fun as quick as possible.
AVC: It’s taken some time to figure out the balance of that?
SG: Yeah, yeah. Snip this, snip that. Add this, Add that. Yeah, just getting the feel right, that game feel.
AVC: How long have you guys been working on this game?
SG: We started talking about development way back in February or January 2014. And we talked about it, we kind of thought about it, got everything going, and we finally sat down to do the Kickstarter that we launched in October. That was basically just getting everything ready, and “Here’s our pitch.” After that, it’s been about nine months of solid development, and we’re looking to do a release in September. So we’re launching in about two months, hopefully, two-and-a-half months.
AVC: If you were to put a retro game playable into this game, which one would it be and why?