Your name: Joakim Hedström
Twitter Handle/ Other Social Media: @JoakimOnline
One interesting and random fact about you that people would not necessarily guess: I spent one year as an exchange student in a Japanese high school when I was 17. It was a very formative experience for me.
What country you live/work in: Sweden
The video game company producing the project: FRAME BREAK (We’re not formally a company yet, so for now I suppose it’s just a team name)
The name of the project: GRAVIBEAT
Estimated release date: As soon as google finishes processing the public release (any day now). Until then, a previous version is available as early access.
link to website/blog/steam page/Youtube/other: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.FRAMEBREAK.gravibeat Gravibeat.com
How did you get into making video games? I’ve been interested in games ever since christmas 1998, when my uncle gifted me and my brother a Playstation along with Crash Bandicoot (sans memory card, as nobody knew they were necessary. I had to try and beat the game in one sitting every time, never succeeded).
I think the first time I tried my hand at making video games (besides daydreaming about it) was in making custom maps in Warcraft III. I recall making my own version of a Hero Survival map with completely busted heroes and abilities. At that point it was mostly wish fulfilment and I didn’t really try to make the game appealing for anyone but myself.
Later on I dabbled a bit in making board games with some friends. This time actually trying to test the games and reiterate the rules in order to create a semblance of balance. Unfortunately those projects kind of fizzled out after a couple of playtest sessions, long before we could finalize the design.
My decision to pursue game development as an adult happened after taking a year off of university studies. My chosen line of education hadn’t been what I expected and I was wondering what to do with myself. Then I discovered that the University of Skövde had a game development program with a narrative focus. It seemed perfectly aligned with my interests and I decided to apply to see if I could turn my passion into a profession.
What is your background in? I just earned my bachelor’s degree in Media, Aesthetics, and Storytelling this summer, having studied Game Writing at the University of Skövde. Before then I studied teaching for two years, which has been surprisingly helpful for game design.
Blurb about game: In GRAVIBEAT, all enemies are drawn to you by gravity – use this to manipulate them into colliding with one another to make them explode spectacularly!
What inspired this game? In 7th grade, a friend of mine with a GameMaker license made a simplistic game that we’d affectionately describe as “A rock in the desert being chased by meatballs” using simulated gravity to create a fun survival minigame. It was incredibly unbalanced as enemies could build up momentum outside of the screen and come zooming in at undodgeable speeds (infuriating for the player, hilarious for us onlookers).
Last year, when I got the group that would become FRAME BREAK together for the first time, we wanted to try our hand at a simple game idea just to practice working together. I remembered my friend’s meatball game and suggested we try making a game based on its “homing enemies” mechanic. Once we got our first prototype running we found ourselves playing it over and over. It was simply addicting.
So we decided to explore the concept as thoroughly as possible and began working on the project in earnest. It’s been almost a year since then.
What makes it unique? Mainly the gravity mechanic. Swinging enemies around and making them collide is just so satisfying.
What will make it a success? The gravity mechanic provides that “just one more go” simplistic gameplay that characterises games like Tetris and Super Hexagon. To make it even more satisfying we’ve worked hard on the music and the visuals to let the player immerse themselves into the gameplay and enter “the zone”. Once someone gets their hands on the game, they won’t be able to put it down.
Who do you think it will appeal to? The game is simple enough that just about anyone could play and enjoy it. But if you’re the kind of person who will sink hours into making it as far as possible in Tetris or Super Hexagon, GRAVIBEAT will feel like home.
Number of people working on the project and skillsets: Four people, all recent game development graduates from University of Skövde. As mentioned earlier, I studied writing but my role on GRAVIBEAT has been a mix of project management, design, and graphics.
Cornelis is another graduate from the same program. He’s been working on graphics and UI design.
William studied programming and has unsurprisingly worked on programming.
Finally, Jack studied sound design but also has a knack for code. He’s been responsible for sound, music, and programming.
How are you handling art? As none of us have formal art education, we’ve settled on a design using basic shapes and lots of colour. While we couldn’t draw to save our lives, I think we’ve managed to make GRAVIBEAT very aesthetically pleasing. A bit like looking into a kaleidoscope.
What tech/stack do you use? The game is made in Unity, using FMOD for sound and music integration.
Are you full-time? If so how did you make the switch to working full-time in game development? While we had a stretch over the summer post-graduation where we were able to work full-time to finish up the game, we’re now figuring out how to scale down our pace to allow people to pursue work and further education.
Is this your first game? If not how many and what other sorts of projects have you worked on? Discounting all the various half-finished hobby projects I did on my own, and the numerous projects created at the university, I would say GRAVIBEAT is the first game I’ve worked on in a professional capacity. However, I want to mention Cosette’s Cassettes, an 18-student university project the four of us worked on during our second year. I served as the project manager then as well and while it’s a quirky, buggy little game I’m very proud of what our group managed to achieve in the 10-week project period.
What’s been the hardest thing about making this game? Partway through development we realised that adding a story mode was antithetical to the gameplay and scrapped all our plans for a narrative so we could work on other aspects that would better serve the gameplay. As two of us are mainly writers it’s been tough to work outside of our expertise, but also very educational.
I’m sure there’s some form of narrative that would mesh with and uplift the gameplay but we didn’t have the time and leisure to explore all options and find it. I’m sure one day it’ll hit me and I’ll be like “Ah, dammit!”
Anything else you would like people to know about you or the game? William worked hard to create an online global leaderboard for GRAVIBEAT. It would mean the world to us if you’d submit your high score and let us watch the list fill up.
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