Conducted By – Adam Ames
Please tell us a little bit about yourself and your role with the development of Countless Rooms of Death.
My name is Andreas Rauch and I am responsible for several aspects of our project. My first responsibility is writing the actual story and how it’s revealed throughout the game as well as giving ideas for puzzles, scares and the interior decoration of the different rooms.
In addition you could say that I am our representative; I take care of contacting websites like True PC Gaming and handle interviews and giving out requested information. I also handle social media for the project, answering the comments of users and fathering their feedback so we can evaluate how the community takes to the individual elements of the game.
How did you get started in developing PC games?
The three of us were in Teamspeak one evening, while playing, and came up with the idea to create a game. It began as a whim of ours but quickly evolved into a serious project. We were, and still are, fascinated with the idea of telling a story through our game while still making it fun to play.
Where did the idea for Countless Rooms of Death come from?
This is one of the harder questions. Countless Rooms of Death was, at first, conceived as a kind of deadly maze. During development, though, the game took on a life of its own and changed into a horror / adventure game in which you have to solve puzzles to access the next level. The story and the events that transpire changed too, some of those changes even surprising members of our team!
What are some of the successes and failures you learned from in developing Countless Rooms of Death?
There have been countless failures on our path during development as well as many successes, but we have been able to eliminate these failures one after another.
A rather funny example would be a chance event in the game which would turn the screen red and a voice would begin whispering strange things. We decided after a few test that the whisper got quite annoying and so decided to remove it… However, our efforts to silence the whispering failed constantly. Even 5 versions later she was still their, haunting our game! It took us quite a while to figure out where the last remnants of the event were hidden so we could remove them. For a while we were considering finding a Ghostbuster to come and solve the problem!
In its current form, how close is Countless Rooms of Death to your initial vision?
Countless Rooms of Death has extended itself almost independently during development and also expanded its story in some regards. Initially, as a kind of death-maze, it was ultimately more.
We now have a sinister game world which invites you to discover its secrets and the surprises that lurk within. The story itself will only be revealed piece by piece within the world itself, and only at the end will the final curtain fall and all the events that have transpired leading up to it be explained.
More or less: Countless Rooms of Death has grown far beyond our initial idea and has swept us up with it.
Some devs admitted their games were too hard upon release because they became experts as they developed the game. Talk about setting the difficulty levels for Countless Rooms of Death and if you faced a similar challenge.
We’ve experienced something along these lines too, though for us it was not so much the difficulty of the game but the atmosphere and the more shocking moments of the game.
We found during testing that, through our knowledge of the game, nothing really affected us and we were already thinking that, perhaps, neither the atmosphere or the shocker would be that good. After we had some testers within our circle of friends, though, that fear was smashed very quickly. The testers were, as we’d hoped, swallowed up by the atmosphere of the game,. As we heard the screams of terror, we were completely satisfied.
Were there any challenges you faced in ensuring Countless Rooms of Death would run on the various PC system configurations?
Since our game is based on the UDK engine we have had been fortunate in this area. The UDK offers many opportunities for a developer and runs without problems on all the configurations we’ve tested so far.
Please talk about developing the art style, level design and music for Countless Rooms of Death.
We created many of our assets with Blender; puzzles, items that reinforce the more shocking moments of the game and some static stuff for the environment. Of course, you can also find many static objects in the game that we were allowed to use by the UDK and fitted us perfectly.
The level design has been more or less a collective work. Toffa, our lead design troll, created the skeleton for the levels then started to fill it with the usual things; pipes, grids, cameras and so on.
The rooms were then checked in many test runs and, on the basis of those test, modified and improved. We tried to create impressive rooms which also offer something to explore. Sometimes they are abstract, sometimes they are scary and sometimes they are just crazy!
The music in countless Rooms of Death consists almost exclusively of CC0 pieces. There are many places where you can find music and sound effects that come under this license, and we are very grateful that we have been able to use such high quality material. Thank you to all who release it!
Outside of creating the game itself, what is the toughest aspect of being an indie developer?
Two major points: First, we had no idea how we should set up a company and what that entails in itself. Through a course at the Chamber of Commerce I / we learned more about the process.
Second, being a new and unknown company. We have no existing fan-base or easy roads to effective advertising (for example, Countless Rooms of Death on Steam Greenlight).
How did you go about funding Countless Rooms of Death and did you receive financial or emotional support from friends and family?
The largest investment in Countless Rooms of Death is the work and creativity we put into it. For the development itself, it is accomplished with no financial support. From our friends and families we are, of course, always supported emotionally.
Tell us about the process of submitting Countless Rooms of Death to the various digital distribution platforms and if you encountered resistance in doing so.
So far the game is only available on Steam Greenlight. Since we are still in the final development phase we have no yet introduced it to other platforms as they expect, for the most part, a perfect game.
However, we will have the release stage reached by the end of January. After that we hope to gain experience in this area. We certainly hope that there will be little resistance and that we will be able to offer Countless Rooms of Death on a variety of platforms.
Did you research similar titles when trying to come up with the launch price?
We have considered and compared the price of other indie games and are aiming for a fair price. It should reward the work put into the game and reflect the value of the gaming experience for the player.
Can you tell us why you chose not to release a demo for Countless Rooms of Death?
It is a lot of work to cut the game and the levels into pieces for a demo and our fear is that a short demo cannot truly present the atmosphere and feeling of playing Countless Rooms of Death.
How important is it to get instant feedback about Countless Rooms of Death from users through online message boards and other social networking sites?
User feedback is very important to us. While we cannot reply to each and every comment we get we do care for each one left. Some of the comments have already led to changes in the game itself, one example being the flashlight and how much it lights the ahead.
How much value do you place on the opinions of those who review Countless Rooms of Death professionally?
For us this is all still new and we are quite nervous when we consider a professional tester writing an article about our game. At the same time, though, we are naturally curious about the result of such a test. We would take both the positive and the negative sides of a report to learn how we can avoid failures in our next game.
Ultimately, we are three very ambitious people and want to achieve in our game this above all else: A great gaming experience that the player has fun with.
How do you feel about the various indie bundle promotions and the “Pay What You Want” pricing methodology? Would you be interested in contributing to a project like that in the future?
We are, ourselves, users of these bundles, and find both the idea and the execution of it brilliant. We would be happy to participate with Countless Rooms of Death in such a project.
What are your thoughts on how the PC gaming industry as a whole are dealing with the problem of intrusive DRM and piracy?
DRM is, in our view, really only a disadvantage for the honest buyer. Games have been left in unplayable states, even unable to be installed on some versions of Windows, due to DRM measures. Ultimately it doesn’t really stop the flow of games that can be gained and played illegally.
Understandably, developers and publishers want to protect the product they’ve invested so much time and effort into but, in our opinion, DRM is not the way to counteract piracy. More and more you have to think about the reasons behind piracy and provide something that attracts those who would normally pirate copies to buy them instead.
How do you feel about individuals posting videos and receiving monetization of Countless Rooms of Death?
For us it is a sign of recognition when a player goes to the effort of creating a Let’s Play video. We consider it advertisement, from which maybe the audience will buy Countless Rooms of Death based on what they say in the Let’s Play. We would have no problem with any Let’s Play-er monetizing their video.
How do you feel about DLC and its current implementation in the PC gaming industry?
In our eyes DLC is a double-edged sword. For one thing, it naturally allows the developer to add new content to a game. If it adds to the game experience or tells a new story then I think it’s useful. Unfortunately, there is the tendency leave out sections of the game then charge for it later as DLC and we are not on-board with that kind of business.
How do you feel about the online modding community in general and specifically if mods were created for Countless Rooms of Death?
This question doesn’t particularly apply to Countless Rooms of Death, but we find modding communities to be great. We have used many mods ourselves and had fun with what has been produced.
What advice would you give up-and-coming indie PC developers who are trying to break into the business?
You must always keep in mind, and be clear about, how much time and work is required to develop a game. There are many problems to be solved and, if working in a group, those problems could stem from disagreements with others. You have to be ready to compromise in that situation.
There is also the matter of creating and promoting your brand, in addition to creating the actual game, and both are not always easy and sometimes not even fun. That said, ultimately you have the chance to create something of your own and share it with others.
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Headquarters – Kleineibstadt, Germany
Release Date – TBA
Available PC Platforms – Windows
Team Members – 3
Publisher – None