![]() VVVVVV was a pretty big influence there, in how it marries together super short challenges with a larger world to explore. I love bullet hell games getting you right “in the zone”, and there’s something about the instant button press to respawn in super difficult platformers. Kitty: All of those things are big factors, including more minimalist game design. In a way, limitations are a great boost to creativity.Īlthough Disc Room as an idea has been floating about for a number of years now, which games inspired its original inception? Is there a soft spot internally for tough, ‘bang your head against a wall’ games like I Wanna Be The Guy, or was it born more out of a love for retro shmups? And it turns out you can! Combining that with our love for sci-fi just kept on inspiring. We wanted to challenge ourselves and see if we could get a whole game out of that. If you think about it, a bouncing saw blade is the most simple enemy you can add to a game right after spikes. JW: When starting out on the project, Kitty, Terri, Dose and I always said we wanted to make something very simple, yet interesting. On that, why exactly did you opt for discs as a nemesis? A giant disc appearing next to Jupiter poses one big question: Why? No spoilers, but there’s a deeper layer and larger mystery for the player to figure out. Where’d the idea for these deeply puzzling gold rooms stem from? It’s almost as if it implies reverence for a higher power within this community of sentient killer discs. That feeling of exploring an alien space, where everything is dangerous, strange and you don’t know what to expect is just too good. Think classic and cheesy, from 2001: A Space Odyssey to Rendezvous with Rama to Logan’s Run and Cube, inspiration really is everywhere. Kitty: Atmosphere is key! If you think about it for a second, Disc Room has a ridiculous premise: A giant disc appears in space, filled with rooms, filled with sawblades. What sci-fi did you look at as inspiration? Discovery is a huge part of the fun!ĭespite the game’s almost crudely drawn visuals, there’s a great sense of atmosphere and tone that’s constantly emitting from this alien disc ship. ![]() There’s more to it than there seems to be at first glance, and instead of spelling everything out, the player gradually uncovers these depths. Like our favorite sci-fi movies, there’s something to be said about the mystery of it all. Disc Room uses just one button and a stick, it throws you right into the game without any barriers. ![]() I think Dose, Kitty, Terri, and I all share some common ideas about game design: Just because a game is challenging, doesn’t mean it should be hard to play. Playing it is a mind-opening realisation that there’s plenty going on subsurface, is this a deliberate deception of sorts to surprise the player and keep them guessing? Like Minit before it, Disc Room appears to be, on the surface, a basic concept. With Disc Room only a couple of days away from release, we were fortunate enough to have a chat with part of the tight-knit team behind the game and we spoke about inclusivity, the joy of discovery, and whether or not they’re the best game ever to feature saw blades. Though it shouldn’t come as a surprise that Minit was a massive subversion of expectations, as much of the industry’s innovation stems from the indie space, the fact they’ve backed it up again with Disc Room is an achievement. The two banded together to bring us Minit, a strange little Legend of Zelda-inspired adventure game played in sixty-second increments. Kitty Calis and Jan Willem Njiman (perhaps better known as J.W.) both have an impressive pedigree when it comes to game development, with Kitty’s body of work including Horizon: Zero Dawn and Jan’s stretching back to indie hits such as Luftrausers and Super Crate Box.
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