Quinn's Q&A:
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Revision as of 23:11, April 26, 2015
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'''Is Papa Louie 2 done yet?'''
'''Is Papa Louie 2 done yet?'''
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We have been very busy with Papa Louie 2! Matt just finished up all the sound effects and new music for the game, and we’re working on adding more details to all of the levels. We just have a short list of things left to do, and then it’s time for play-testing, where we make sure all of the skills are working nicely and all the challenges are doable. After we’ve started this we should have a better idea of when the game will be ready to release. We don’t have any new previews since we don’t wait to spoil any of the surprises with playable customers or our new lands and enemies, but stay tuned for more details on when the game will launch!
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We have been very busy with Papa Louie 2! Matt just finished up all the sound effects and new music for the game, and we’re working on adding more details to all of the levels. We just have a short list of things left to do, and then it’s time for play-testing, where we make sure all of the skills are working nicely and all the challenges are doable. After we've started this we should have a better idea of when the game will be ready to release. We don’t have any new previews since we don’t wait to spoil any of the surprises with playable customers or our new lands and enemies, but stay tuned for more details on when the game will launch!
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=== Music, Pizza Chefs, and Table Manners ===
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'''How do you make the music for your games?'''
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For most of our games, we compose and record the music ourselves using a MIDI keyboard and software in our small recording booth here at Flipline Studios. The keyboard lets us play notes (like you would on a piano), and the computer records each of those notes and lets us make changes to them later in the software. This way, we can make it sound like any instrument we need, and we only have to use the keyboard to record them all. We only record one instrument part at a time, so it can take a while to record all the parts for a complete song.
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'''Why is Papa Louie a pizza chef?'''
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For our first Papa Louie game, we wanted to create a character that had a unique way of fighting enemies in the level, instead of jump stomping on enemies like in most platformers. We thought about our hero being able to hit projectiles back at enemies (which eventually became Pizza Monsters spitting cheese), so we tried to think of a swinging weapon that would also relate to the main character. Hammers and baseball bats had been used in a bunch of other games, so when we finally thought of a pizza paddle we knew we had to make our hero a pizza chef! That decision also led to the monsters coming from pizzas, and other enemies being ingredients that you use on pizzas, with the whole game revolving around Papa Louie being a chef.
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'''Why can't''' '''customers eat at tables?'''
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The lobby can get pretty filled up with all of the customers waiting in line, and all of the furniture and decorations that you can place in the lobby. The main reason is that there’s just not much room to have customers staying in the lobby after they get their food!
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=== Cheese Wheels, Food Choices, and Romanos ===
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'''In Papa Louie 2, why is there only one Cheese Wheel in the entire game?'''
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Back when we were making the first Papa Louie game, we started out with lots of different foods as enemies in our first draft, like jumping green peppers and flying cannolis. As we kept working on the game, we created more varieties of onion enemies and removed our older placeholder enemies — except we forgot about one lone Cheese Wheel in World 3! The game was already released by the time we noticed. When we started working on Papa Louie 2, we decided to add just one lonely Cheese Wheel to the new game as a tribute to the original.
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'''How do you choose your next Gameria?'''
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When we were brainstorming a sequel for Papa’s Pizzeria, we started a list of different food ideas and how the food preparation could be turned into 3 or 4 hands-on stations, and we’ve kept adding to the list since then! Sometimes we have a food that we want to use, but we just can’t come up with a good way to break the process up into Gameria-style stations — for example, we had “chicken wings” on our list for years because we couldn’t figure out a good mechanic for a Build Station, until we finally came up with the plate presentation for Papa’s Wingeria. When we look through our finished ideas to pick one, we also usually try to come up with a new mechanic that hasn’t been used in the previous games, like frosting cupcakes or saucing wings.
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'''Who is the mother of Gino Romano and the wife of Giacomo Romano?'''
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As some of you may know from the Gino Romano Flipdeck, his father was Giacomo “Gigante” Romano. To answer your question, Gino’s mother’s name is Florentina. She’s very very old and doesn’t get out and about much. Needless to say, you won’t be seeing her waiting in line for any of Papa’s restaurants. Florentina is fairly content with the cafeteria meals served at the Prune Creek Retirement Home.
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=== The Studios, Flavor X, and Baseball Teams ===
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'''Do you guys make games at your homes or is there a specific place that is Flipline Studios?'''
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When we first graduated college, we were working from our two separate homes (hence the plural studio in Flipline Studios). But less than a year later, we found a nice studio loft in Cleveland, Ohio. We live about 30 minutes from each other so the Studio is a nice halfway point between the two of us. It has an open office space, bathroom, kitchen, and a sound room for recording music and sound fx.
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'''What is the Flavor X drizzle recipe?'''
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Unfortunately, even we don’t know the recipe to the Flavor X drizzle. Papa Louie found a batch of it in the uncharted X-Zone. He taste-tested it and found it incredibly delicious and quite invigorating. Not content with keeping it for himself, Papa brought it out for the first time to celebrate New Years in Papa’s Cupcakeria.
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'''Can you list the names of the baseball teams in Papa's Hot Doggeria including where the team is from?'''
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Sure, we can do that! The Tastyville Tomatoes, the Burgerburgh Sizzlers, the Tacodale Hardshells, the Calypso Island Coconuts, the Maple Mountain Flapjacks, the Starlight City Buffaloes, the Frostfield Batters, the Portallini Gondoliers, the Oniontown Crushers, the Powder Point Woolies, the Sakura Bay Samurais, and the Toastwood Turkeys.
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=== The Holiday Edition ===
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'''Why did you start adding seasons in Papa's Cupcakeria?'''
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While the Gamerias don’t really have endings, we noticed a lot of players would keep playing the games until Papa Louie is unlocked (and sometimes longer). In the older games, you would run out of unlockable toppings much earlier than this, and there wouldn’t be anything new to look forward to along the way aside from new customers. So to keep things more interesting all the way through, we thought of seasonal ingredients that would unlock for different holidays, where customers’ orders would sometimes change throughout the year, and there would always be something new to add to their orders. You could also see the restaurant change with new decorations and see the town change with the seasons. Cupcakes seemed like the perfect food to introduce with seasons, since bakeries decorate cupcakes for all sorts of holidays.
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'''Why don't the other holidays from Papa's Cupcakeria return in Papa's Pastaria?'''
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A lot of the holidays return, but the waterfront town of Portallini has its own local holidays and occasions that are more common to the region. For example, even though the town has its own baseball team in the Portallini Gondoliers, the Gondola 500 is the largest-drawing sporting event in the area, so the town celebrates the Gondola 500 every September. In August, baseball season pales in comparison to the traditional Neptune’s Feast, where the townsfolk celebrate their love of seafood with festivals and feasts throughout the month.
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'''When is the exact date of the Gondola 500, Pirate Bash, and Onionfest?'''
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The Gondola 500 is held on the last Saturday of September in Portallini. Pirate Bash is September 19th, the same day as the International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Onionfest is a week long celebration in the town of Frostfield and usually takes place the second week of May.
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=== Blue Moon, Gold Stars, and Xolo ===
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'''What does Blue Moon syrup taste like (in Papa's Freezeria HD)?'''
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Blue Moon flavored ice cream is popular in the midwestern United States, and it’s a very sweet fruit flavor, though it’s hard to describe what kind of fruit it tastes like. Some people say it tastes like a blend of raspberry, lemon, and pineapple, or kind of like a fruit-flavored cereal.
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'''What happens when a customer earns a Gold Award and their star meter is filled up?'''
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You’ll get extra tips from the customer each time their meter is filled, even if they’re already a gold customer. Once they’re gold, customers won’t come into the restaurants as often, so you have a chance to earn Gold Awards on your other customers. Once nearly everyone has a Gold Award though (or on a customer’s favorite holiday in the newer games), gold customers will return again!
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'''Why is Xolo a regular customer in Papa's Freezeria HD, instead of a closer like in every other game?'''
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In Papa’s Freezeria HD, the original closers from Papa’s Freezeria return to the restaurant, so his sister Xandra takes back her place as an ice cream closer. Xolo couldn't be left out though, so he makes his debut visit to Calypso Island in Papa’s Freezeria HD as a regular customer. It seems that Xandra is just more picky about her sundaes than her brother is!
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=== Holiday Favorites, Onions, and Santa ===
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'''Holidays are fairly recent, yet most of your customers have been around for a long time. How do you match customers to holidays?'''
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Once we decide on the food items we’ll have for each holiday, we try to find customers who would normally like those foods, or that seem to go well with them. Chuck usually orders something with pineapple, so he’s a fan of Summer Luau with its tropical-themed foods. Sarge Fan would of course be excited about Onionfest and all of the onion-themed items in Papa’s Cupcakeria, and he switched his favorite holiday to Halloween in Portallini to order pasta with onions. We have a long list of every customer’s favorite foods, so we sometimes switch their favorite holidays in certain towns depending on when their favorite items are available.
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'''Of all the toppings typically used on a pizza, why did you pick onions as the main enemies for Papa Louie?'''
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We were originally going to have lots of different foods as enemies for Papa Louie, including spaghetti monsters and flying cannolis, and other vegetables like green peppers and eggplant. Sarge was originally going to be one of these regular enemies in the game, with lots of smaller pepper-tossing Sarges running around. When we decided he would fit better as the main boss of the game, we added more onion enemies for him to command, and removed a lot of the other random enemies that didn't quite fit.
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'''In Papa's Donuteria, why does Santa only visit during Christmas?'''
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When Santa first started visiting the restaurants in Papa’s Cupcakeria, he would first come during Christmas and order cupcakes decorated for the holiday. After Christmas though, he would still come back to the cupcake shop for regular cupcakes, and it seemed really strange to see Santa in the middle of summer! Since he seemed so out-of-place, in the newer games he’ll only visit during the Christmas season. And you must have been good this year, since when he first visits he already has a Silver Customer Award!
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=== Apps, Difficulty, and Gummy Worms ===
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'''Why do you skip some Papa's Gamerias when making apps?'''
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We didn’t really plan to go in order when making apps of the Gamerias. We started with Papa’s Burgeria since it had simpler mechanics and we thought flipping burgers and stacking toppings would be fun with a touch screen, and we did Papa’s Freezeria next because the ingredients were so different from everything seen in Papa’s Burgeria, and it’s always been a fan favorite. We knew the gameplay in Papa’s Wingeria would work great on a touch screen, so we decided to work on that one next. That doesn’t mean we’re giving up on the games in-between though. We’d love to go back and make apps of the other games we skipped in the future!
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'''Besides the Gameria series, what was the hardest game to make?'''
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Our MMO platformer Remnants of Skystone was definitely the hardest to make, but of the other games, Jacksmith was probably the most difficult to develop. In Gamerias, each meal in a game is basically built the same way (steak tacos aren’t too different from chicken tacos), but with Jacksmith we had six different crafting processes where each weapon was created differently. We were also trying to combine game genres in a new way, which always takes some time to get right. On top of that, we added tons of content to the game with dozens of enemy types, lots of elemental variations, and hundreds of weapon parts. We worked off and on for nearly a year on Jacksmith, which is much longer than we usually take!
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'''Why are there Gummy Worms in Papa Louie 2? All of the other creatures are burger-related or savory foods.'''
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As you might have guessed, Gummy Worms are not native to Mount Monterey. Professor Fitz believes they originate from the far reaches of Munchmore in an area that he calls the Gummy Grotto, though no one has traveled that far to find out if it’s true. Gummy Worms are a favorite of the Lettuce Larks, and it seems they’ve flown to the worms’ far-off habitat and brought some back to the cheesy mountain.
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[[Category:Flipline Website]]
[[Category:Flipline Website]]