Gas Powered to Self-Publish + Demigod Q&A

In their latest newsletter, Gas Powered Games has announced plans to self-publish future titles while also releasing a Q&A and a couple of screenshots for Demigod.

As I hinted at last time, we have some big things in the works for 2008. And I can finally start to talk about the first of many, our new big game, Demigod. We’ve been secretly working on this game for almost a year now, and we’re tearing the kimono off and revealing all the juicy details in the February issue of Games for Windows magazine. We’re really excited about finally getting the word out, and we can’t wait to hear what you all think.

But there’s more to Demigod than just us revealing a new game. We’re also announcing that we’re moving into self-publishing. It’s an exciting and risky move for us, but one that we’ve been wanting to do for a long time, and it marks the beginning of a new chapter for us as a company. Our goal, more than ever before, is to create the best games ever and to stay ever faithful to the art and craft of game making.

We’re barely two weeks into 2008, and we have another big announcement–the release date for the movie based on our Dungeon Siege property is fast approaching. In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Take will hit theaters on January 11 (only a few days from now) and people from all over the country are reporting that they’re seeing the commercials on TV and huge billboards on the sides of roads and buildings. This is a big thrill for all of us here at GPG, and we’re very excited about heading out to the theater next weekend and seeing the movie.

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Q: How did “white boxing” (creating the game with minimal art assets) Demigod in the early stages help shape its design?

A: If you were to look at the original design document, the original maps or play an early version of the game, you wouldn’t recognize the game we have today. White boxing gave us a luxury most game makers don’t get we could drastically change the gameplay when something wasn’t working without spending any money on redoing art assets. “Find the fun first” was our motto.

The first few months were crazy. We ripped out and replaced entire systems over and over again, but each iteration just got better and better. We finally got to the point where the game was an absolute blast to play, and all it was a bunch of white boxes. That’s when we knew we really had something special.

By the time we ramped up the team, Demigod was already completely playable, had a ballpark balance and people were playing it every day because it’s fun. White boxing also gave us an intangible benefit in that everyone on the team could just pick up and play the game they didn’t need to read through a big design doc in order to understand what we were doing.