Brent Fox and John Nielson of NinjaBee

What better way to find out about a new Xbox Live Arcade game then interrogate the developers? Can we clone? Should we clone? Can we clone our achievements?


NinjaBee has really started to make a name for itself. How did
NinjaBee come about, and what brought you from the PC to the Xbox 360?

Brent: Wahoo Studios has been around making games for almost
five years. We have done a lot of traditional work-for-hire games for
traditional publishers. A couple years ago we developed a demo for our
idea of a tycoon game on a console. We pitched it to a bunch of
publishers. Many of them liked the idea but couldn't take a risk
because previous attempts of tycoon games on consoles had not sold
well. We took our demo, finished it up and released it as a
downloadable PC game. NinjaBee was formed to distinguish our traditional contract development from our internally developed games.

We won some awards and got a little attention but we weren't great
marketers. Not many people knew that NinjaBee existed. We then met with
Ross Erickson, one of the geniuses behind Xbox Live
Arcade. He explained how Xbox Live arcade was going to work on the
Xbox360 and we jumped at the chance to make the game we had originally
envisioned. We believed in Xbox Live arcade so much that we began
working on Cloning Clyde even before the release of the Xbox360.


What was your favorite thing about working on Cloning Clyde?

John: It was a lot of fun to design, and the design came easy,
but I think my favorite thing about working on the game was during the
middle of production, when the animations and characters started coming
together and we could finally see the design coming to life.


How did you decide on what achievements to put in the game?

John: We wanted the achievements to be spread throughout the
game. We also wanted the achievements to come at more unpredictable
times instead of always at the ends of the levels when you already feel
you have achieved something. So taking those ideas and what we had, we
came up with what you’ve got.


How difficult would you say these achievements are to attain? Which achievement is going to be the most difficult? Most fun?

The achievements range from SUPER easy to SUPER challenging. Probably
the most difficult achievement will be to complete all of the levels
under their par times. As far as fun, I think people will get a kick
out of becoming a mutant-Clyde and discovering all his specialty powers.


It seems that a lot of thought was put into the multiplayer, with
tons of co-op levels and multiple versus arenas. Can you explain the
two multiplayer modes a little more in-depth?

John: We spent months figuring out how multiplayer would work,
and implementing it all is definitely why the game has taken as long as
it has to come out. The two modes are competitive, and co-op. The
competitive mode allows two teams of Clydes to go head to head mutating
into the animals to gain special powers, and seeking out their
opponent’s security machines and cleverly destroying them while
defending their own machines. For the cooperative mode, we wanted to
make ALL of the single player levels available to maximize gameplay.
This was always in the plan and was achievable with careful level
design. As an added bonus, your cooperative gameplay doesn’t go
uncounted, it is added to the stats you achieve in single-player mode.


Super Challenge-Levels and Killer Kenn Action Figures: Explain.

John: The super challenge levels were originally designed as
additional downloadable content, but because of the heaviness of the
schedule, we ended up just adding them for free. They are optional and
give the player a little more of a challenge than the regular levels of
the game.

Killer Kenn Action Figures are what we decided to use as our
collectable trinkets throughout the game. They have significance to me
personally because my Grandfather’s nickname was Killer Kenn. I thought
it would be cool to make Killer Kenn a hero that they made action
figures out of. He also may figure heavily in my professional future.


How does the soundtrack fit in with the game?

John: This was a pain. There are a lot of limitations when
working with such a small downloadable size. We originally wanted to
have a lot more music in the game, and had an entire sound track
written, but it soon became apparent that for this game, our long sound
track would have to be cut. It took us a while to come up with shorter
clips that worked, but in the end, we believe we came up with enough to
keep the game feeling good as far as music goes. Hopefully, you’ll be
too busy laughing and kicking chickens to notice the limitations.


How close is the game to being completed? Is there an approximate
launch date you're shooting for? How many points will it launch for?

Brent: Microsoft still hasn't given an official release date yet
but it will be very soon. Same with the price, but it will fit well
with the pricing for the current Xbox Live Arcade games. Besides, all of the Xbox Live arcade games are such a great bargain anyway.


Can we expect plenty of downloadable extras as you had for Outpost Kaloki X? What kind of downloadable content will there be?

Brent: We believe in extra downloadable content. This will be a
big part of many of our titles. More stuff makes everyone happy. On
Cloning Clyde we put a lot of extra effort into the multiplayer aspects
of the game. We feel like this was a smart move and we are really
pleased with the results but unfortunately this left much less time to
work on downloadable content. As John mentioned above, we had
originally planned on making the Challenge levels in Clyde downloadable
content, but we simply included them in the full game, instead.


What's your thoughts on cloning in the real world? I can't say I'd
be entirely opposed to cloning supermodels, unless there were chickens
in the picture, also. That would just be wrong.

Brent: We would need to have complete control over who could be
cloned. All the world needs is another Gilbert Gottfried or Rosie Perez.


Hmmm... On the other hand if we cloned our entire staff, we could make twice as many games.


Was is an odd transition going from developing Outpost Kaloki X to Cloning Clyde?

Brent: John Nielson approached us with Cloning Clyde even before
Outpost Kaloki was finished. A couple of the Outpost Kaloki X team
members helped out with Cloning Clyde, but a second team did most of
the development. The games are tremendously different in gameplay but
similar in attitude and style, so we feel that Clyde is a great
emotional successor to Kaloki even though it breaks new technological
and gameplay ground for our team.


What does NinjaBee have planned next for Live Arcade? Any chance on bringing Void War to the Live Arcade?

Brent: We have BIG plans for Xbox
Live Arcade. This is such a great platform! There are no official
announcements yet but I can say that we aren't working on anything
similar to Outpost Kaloki X or Cloning Clyde. Every game we release
will only be better than the previous. Anything is possible but we
don't have any immediate plans for Void War.

Thanks for the great interview, Brent and John. We can't wait to try
Cloning Clyde out and try out the gameplay! Getting the achievements
probably wouldn't hurt either.