The TiC Podcast Team recently conducted an interview with Alex Preston, the creative force behind Hyper Light Drifter. The game was posted on Kickstarter a few years ago and generated a lot of buzz with more than 12,000 backers pouring in over $645,000 in a short amount of time. The game exceeded its $27,000 funding goal in just a few hours. Since then, the team at Heart Machine has been working tirelessly to make their vision the best game it can be. Alex revealed new details about his enigmatic project in this frank and forthright interview. You can read the transcript of the conversation below.
TiC Team: Thank you Alex for giving us the opportunity to talk to you about your new game, Hyper Light Drifter. It’s one of our most anticipated games this year. The team and I have been fascinated ever since its reveal back in 2013. It reminds me of Zelda, but with a more mature theme. The music really sets the theme with a Tron-like rhythm. This leads to my first question, what does the main theme and story revolve around, and how did you come up with such a unique game?
Alex Preston: The main theme and the story revolve around the protagonist, the Drifter, and he has an illness and he is seeking a cure for it. That’s kind of the really basic premise of it. We haven’t gone too much further into that publicly just because we want to keep it under wraps and let people experience it for themselves. It’s something very close to me personally and I don’t like spoilers and I don’t even like trailers these days because they explain too much about the movie before you even see it or understand it.
TiC Team: That’s very cool. That’s a different way to do it. It really gives you a sense of mystery. When you go through the game, it seemed like the Drifter was going through ancient structures. There is obviously a mystery behind it. I know you don’t want to give away too much, but you definitely want to show off enough to impress the fans.
Alex Preston: The basic premise of the world is that it’s post-post-apocalyptic. So it’s hundred and hundreds of years past societal collapse and you’re helping out the last dregs of society that have basically banded together in hubs.
TiC Team: How did you come up with this unique idea? I remember reading that you had all these thoughts in your head, all these images in your head.
Alex Preston: It’s really an amalgamation of things I love about games and even animation. It’s been informed a lot by my own experiences, the primary influence being Zelda. It’s very apparent and I think a lot of people are inspired by that series, more specifically, A Link to the Past. It was kind of this really perfect game at the time and was doing things that others weren’t and was doing everything really well. It was also thinking of ways to modernize that experience. If you go back to it now, it still plays incredibly well but it’s old and it’s clunky. We have a lot of modern designs that we use in games now including language, mechanics, and capabilities with technology. We don’t have the same limitations we had before. So how do you expand on that? Do something different? That’s where my thoughts have kind of been revolving for the past few years about this.
TiC Team: The game is obviously a RPG. As you go through the course of the game, can we expect to find loot, treasure, and other things like that? Are those things present?
Alex Preston: You will be finding plenty of things in the game. Like most other games, you collect stuff so there are no surprises there. You will be opening some form of treasure chests because everybody loves things that come out of boxes. There will be stuff to gather for sure. There is equipment and different load-outs. It’s not as deep and crazy as Diablo for example because we’re a small team and we’re doing something more distilled. There is enough there to really dig in.
TiC Team: The character is clearly a loner but in most RPGs they’re eventually able to gather companions and create amazing teams. During the course of the game, do you meet NPCs that eventually become playable characters or are you alone throughout the entire experience?
Alex Preston: It is primarily a solitary experience but you will be encountering other NPCs in the world. They’ll just be for story, context and some basic interactions for shops and stuff like that. You play as the main character throughout the game. If you have a RPG you have got to have shops!
TiC Team: Areas where you stop and interact with villages and shops, and are given side quests and other missions are very important in RPGs. I remember in Final Fantasy 7 when you go to one of the shops you hear a dog barking outside. A cat is also just laying down and purring.
Alex Preston: Little touches like a kid playing with a ball are important. Those details add a lot of context and give life to the world. It’s otherwise a static digital experience. Sometimes it’s super goofy but in our game we’re trying to do something different but you’ll still find goofy stuff.
TiC Team: Those definitely make it more realistic. Now to our next question, does the Drifter have an animal companion with him?
Alex Preston: He has a little digital companion with him. It acts as your inventory and reveals some secrets you can interact with like other computers in the environment. You use them to unlock doors and other elements. It has its place.
TiC Team: Like the Peter Dinklage companion in Destiny?
Alex Preston: Something like that, but the Dinklebot is not my cup of tea really. This is a silent companion. There is no voice. It actually stems from being a big fan of Phantasy Star Online and being a player back in the Dreamcast days. Destiny is very similar to PSO including the little MAGs so it’s not an original idea to have a floating computer companion. A lot of people compare it to Destiny. PSO did this 7 years ago if not more way back when. It was a way more interesting companion because you could feed it, evolve it and change it. It also didn’t have a horrible voice-over.
TiC Team: He wasn’t a lot of people’s cup of tea. I completely agree with you on that part. The great thing about RPGs is the customization of your characters. For example, customizing their armor, weapons and abilities. We have only seen a few previews of your game with the main character wearing a red cape, gun and saber-like sword. In Hyper Light Drifter, will gamers be able to customize their characters from abilities to armor? Are there any skill trees for weapons and abilities or powers and status effects?
Alex Preston: There are a bunch of those things. You can modify and be able to swap out some of your colors, some of your equipment and you can upgrade a bunch of stuff. Again, it’s not incredibly deep like a Diablo game, that’s not the expectation here, like a winding skill tree per se. You still get upgrades, you still get skills, you still find stuff. There’s plenty of stuff there to do and to upgrade, tinker with and customize.
TiC Team: Did you think about building a crafting system? I look at it from the perspective of being set in the future. In those types of worlds, there’s junk everywhere and isn’t it cool to go out and pick up a piece of something that’s not what it originally was? If you add it to this other piece you can make a really cool sword or a really cool gun.
Alex Preston: Good God, no. The concept is cool and that system can be really interesting. It’s just that it takes a lot of work and it takes enough work to do what we’re doing right now. We have a lot of things to do as a very small team so it’s more about balancing out the experience. What do we really want to communicate the most? The fun stuff. Crafting is cool but its a huge system and a big undertaking to do it right.
TiC Team: How many are in your team?
Alex Preston: There are 5 of us at the core full-time. We have a few other freelancers and contract workers doing some other smaller tidbits. Full-time it’s just 5 of us! Originally it was just me and 2 of us for about 9 months. The rest of the team was hired after the Kickstarter campaign.
TiC Team: You guys are doing awesome with only that many people. The game looks fantastic. It’s one of my most anticipated games, the other two are Ori and Below. Ori is very addictive and you’ll love it. I believe Hyper Light will be very addictive as well.
Alex Preston: I’m looking forward to finally playing Ori. I’ve been playing Hyper Light for a year and I can’t contractually stop playing it!
TiC Team: With so many games releasing this year, we know it can be hard to find a perfect time to release. Not only that, but release at a great price. We know price varies with content. When can we expect to see Hyper Light Drifter release on the Xbox One and what will it be priced at? After the release of the game, what are your plans? Can we expect DLC?
Alex Preston: We have not yet announced the release date. We have only said 2015 for PC first. Consoles take some time so, for example, Xbox One has a certification process that you have to go through. There are hundreds of things on that list you have to make sure are good to go on that system. It takes time. We’re a small team to do that. We want to get it out the door on PC first and we will give ourselves the correct amount of time after. Sometimes it takes months, sometimes it takes much longer depending on the certification process. It’s all about getting it on the platform as quickly as we can, but doing it the right way. That stuff can be really intense and expensive.
TiC Team: It sounds like we will see it on the Xbox One in 2016.
Alex Preston: It’s possible. We’re trying to get it all out as quickly as possible. We can’t rush the certification process. We don’t want to release a broken game. We don’t want to release a bad game. We’ll take the time that we need to. Those are the realities of it and those are the goals. As far as price goes, we’re stating that it’s $19.99 so it’s a big game. The pre-order price starting out was $15 way back when, but since we had enough funding and a larger team, it’s become a much bigger experience. We’ve put years of work into it at this point. It’s well-worth that amount, if not more.
TiC Team: Take your time with the game. Please don’t rush. It’s better to release a very polished product. Before we move onto the next full question, how many gameplay hours are you looking to implement?
Alex Preston: That’s a hard question to answer. So far we’re busting out content left and right so it depends. We make sure we edit ourselves and we don’t put stupid buffery things in there like backtracking. It’s a big experience and it’s a long enough experience that I feel it will be well-worth anybody’s time. You know, time allotments for games are less important to me than a polished, good experience I’m satisfied with. I mean, it’s not a 2 hour game, it’s definitely longer. It’s a significant experience.
TiC Team: That makes sense.
Alex Preston: To give you some idea, our preview build in October was 45 minutes of content to us, but people spent almost 2 hours playing it to get everything. That was a very small portion of the world.
TiC Team: That’s interesting. It sounds really good if it’s only a small portion of the game. I am a completionist so I try to find every treasure, go through every nook and cranny, and check every hidden door and passageway. The 2 hours is excellent. That sounds like it could be anywhere from a 12-20 hour game.
Alex Preston: It will be significant enough to impact you and to get everything will be hard. We have hidden a lot of stuff in the game and continue to hide stuff. There’s plenty to do.
TiC Team: So what are your plans after finishing Hyper Light Drifter?
Alex Preston: Take a vacation.
TiC Team: Of course. Every developer deserves that after their product ships. What about after that?
Alex Preston: I think any person that’s motivated and creative has ideas that they want to realize. Ideas that are always there or that pop up at a certain time. They happen even if you’re deep in a project. Like right now, I have a lot of things I want to do. I want to make more games down the line, but I want to take a break after this.
TiC Team: How has your experience been with the ID@Xbox program?
Alex Preston: It’s been great. I’ve talked to a few people now. Chris Charla was the person that we hooked up with to get involved in the first place. He’s awesome. He’s a great evangelist for indies on the platform. We’ve had a few other interactions and it’s been a very smooth experience overall. No complaints from me on them.
TiC Team: That’s something we definitely hear consistently about the ID@Xbox program. Some other key developers we have spoken to told us. The ID@Xbox program gets a bad rep in the media but they sound like they’ve been very helpful. They’re also working on making every Xbox One into a development kit. I’m looking forward to it. GDC also showed us a plethora of new ID@Xbox games.
Alex Preston: The program has its issues like any program would that’s part of a large corporation. These problems exist on Sony’s side too, which is very indie friendly these days. Everyone solves their issues. Overall, it’s a marked improvement over last generation including the way they interact with people and the response time. It’s all been a very positive experience on our end. There are kinks that need to be worked out and the parity clause can be problematic. Overall, it’s much harder to complain about these programs now than it was 4-5 years ago.
TiC Team: Speaking of the parity clause, my team and I stress that it’s something that we would like to see removed. There are some Xbox gamers who would like to see it stay. We feel it’s a hinderance. Why have any hinderance?
Alex Preston: It’s a hinderance for smaller developers. I get why Microsoft have it in there for larger developers. Developers like us, even with the money we made on Kickstarter, find that a game is really expensive to make. People with even smaller budgets find it harder. You’re forcing them to do a lot of work up front to get on your platform instead of doing it when they can. You’re either telling them you can’t be on our platform, or spend $30,000 extra to get on here at the same time as you would on Sony’s platform.
TiC Team: When I speak to Phil Spencer next, I’ll try to talk to him about this and see if they can do something.
Alex Preston: The larger issue is that the people behind it and running it, like Chris Charla and the others behind it, are great and fighting for the indie community and want to embrace it. They also work within a larger corporation with its own goals and motivations and sometimes communication breaks down and it’s harder to get something done. Their goals might not be a priority for the larger corporation that they’re working under. There’s a lot of back-and-forth in those situations and I think on Sony’s side they’ve had more autonomy so it’s easier for them to lift certain restrictions and be flexible. It’s corporate culture. It’s small entities within larger entities, within all these different things. It’s complicated.
TiC Team: We want to thank you for stopping by on TiC Podcast. We really appreciate it. Keep working away on this game and make sure it’s polished. Indie games are killing AAA developers when it comes to polished products. That’s admirable unlike the state in which AAA games like Assassin’s Creed Unity ship.
Alex Preston: I think we have the advantage and disadvantage of being a smaller team. We don’t have 1000-man studios spanning across the world. That’s not indie anymore! We don’t have many working parts so you have less problems and have more time to focus on the smaller stuff. It’s an incredibly difficulty process on either end of it, on any part of the spectrum. It sucks that games have issues like Assassin’s Creed Unity but it happens. I’m glad to be shipping a polished product and that other indie developers are making polished experiences too.
TiC Team: I’m glad you’re making polished products too. I think it will be great. I’m really looking forward to it. When this game comes out, I definitely want to feature it on our website, ICXM.net. I would also love to do a Let’s Play with it. We want to thank you again for stopping by and we hope you consider us again for any future products that come out of Heart Machine. This is to help Xbox One fans learn more about your games. Thank you, Alex.
Alex Preston: Thanks guys.
