Chris Charla is the Director of ID@Xbox. He is the man behind the new program that aims at bringing the best indie games to Xbox One. Want to know how Ark: Survival Evolved is on the console? Well, he and his team are behind it all. It’s truly a privilege for us to interview him.
What is your Gamertag and the reason for choosing it?
My gamertag is iocat. It was my handle back in the BBS days so I’ve had it for a really long time. It’s actually named after an obscure modem called the Novation CAT for Apple II, not an actual cat cat, but I like it because it’s short and I have a history with it. It’s my name on Xbox and Twitter.
Which achievement has been the most frustrating to obtain? How long did it take you?
Treaty in Geometry Wars 2, no question! You have to activate 30 zones in King Mode without firing a shot or dying. I fought trying to get that for like four years.
I’m kind of terrible at Geometry Wars 2, but I really like it. Wax Off was another really fun one that took me a super long time too, probably playing the game every day in Pacifism for months alternating between going for a score and trying to get that Achievement.
The day I got Wax Off was one of those “good days,” where you’re just kind of feeling it. And actually my wife came down and started yelling at me about forgetting to take out the garbage, and I was trying to talk to her and play at the same time and suddenly – Achievement Unlocked! It was pretty cool.
But Treaty just taunted me for years. I was always dying right at like 28 or 27 or 29 zones. I probably got 29 zones like 40 times. True story: One year I asked for a special kneeling chair for Christmas so I could have better posture specifically for playing Geometry Wars 2. Anyway Treaty was just my nemesis but I kept going back every week or so to try and beat it. I finally bought an MLG controller for Xbox 360 because I was convinced it would give me an edge on that Achievement and I actually got it the first night I brought home the controller, so maybe it worked!
What is your favourite genre/s of game and why?
I really like adventure games (whether it’s pure adventure like Zork or action-adventure like Tomb Raider) and racing games (arcade and sim). I like exploring and solving puzzles, but I also love that second-to-second reaction time gaming where it’s all just in your brain stem and your thumbs and that comes in a racing game. I like most genres though. I still play a lot of Ms. Pac-Man (I have one in my basement) and I organize a Ms. Pac-Man invitational tournament at Christmas time a lot of years. So I guess I should give a shout out to maze games too!
What is your favourite game so far? (Doesn’t need to be an Xbox title!)
To me games are so tied to what was happening in your life at that moment, it’s really hard to pick. In no real order, some games that really kind of defined my life at the time would be Sonic the Hedgehog (Blast Processing!), Burning Force, Halo: Combat Evolved (There’s actually an Achievement – Back in the Day – in Halo: The Master Chief Collection that references LAN parties like we used to have for the first Halo; I’d always barbeque a tri-tip while we played CTF on Blood Gulch, with like 16 people on 4 Xbox consoles), Bushido Blade, OG Tomb Raider 1, Planetfall, Fez, Heavy Rain, Geometry Wars, Rescue Raiders, Herzog Zwei, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater, Animal Crossing (all of them), Castle Crashers, and Rock Band.
What is your most memorable gaming moment?
When we were just starting to work with Capy on Below, they had sent over some screen shots of the game. And one of them showed a really cool looking pair of giant doors. I was like “oh that’s pretty rad. I need to find that.” I had this super early build we used to show people internally at Xbox before E3 2013. And I was playing and trying to do something. I’d been playing on one life for a long time. Anyway I got hit, so I started to bleed out. And there was no fire in the room where I could cauterize my wound (which is how you stopped the bleeding), so I hit an exit. And suddenly I was in that room with the doors and I have no idea how I got there. And I’m bleeding to death. I know I’m about to die. I have no idea how I got there. So I’m like “I have to open that door!” So I’m running across this bridge, and my guy is just bleeding more and more, and he’s totally about to die, and I stood up in my office and I was just like yelling “Please! Please! Please!” at my monitor, just desperately trying to get to this door while I’m bleeding everywhere. And people out in the hallway are like “what’s going on?” I finally got across the bridge and right to the door, and then I freaking died before I could open it. It was so intense, it was like the best and worst gameplay moment of my life! That is a super powerful game! I have not played it since and I won’t until it’s out, and then I’m taking a day off to play it in my house in the dark. And get through those doors!
What is your Gamerscore and how long has it taken you to get it?
My Gamerscore is like 35K and I’ve been on Xbox Live since day one. I’m not really an Achievement hunter because I like to play a lot of games, but there are certain ones I’ll go for. Also, for most of the Xbox 360 era I was playing a lot of Xbox Live Arcade games and in the olden days those games were limited to 200 Gamerscore. I think I’ve only gotten every Achievement on one game (Costume Quest) in 12 years, which I guess is pretty sad. I was determined to get SMILE on Geometry Wars 2 before Xbox One came out, and I was training towards it when I got access to an Xbox One a little early and basically stopped playing Xbox 360. I’ll get it someday!
What is your gaming guilty pleasure?
Dungeon Maker on PSP. It’s a dungeon crawler where you buy dungeon rooms, place them in a dungeon, then the next game day they’ve been populated by monsters you can kill to get treasure that you buy more dungeon pieces with. There’s a DS version called Master of the Monsters’ Lair too which I play a lot. I have a LOT of hours in on that game. I’m not guilty about it really but I play a lot of the Legend of Heroes series too when I’m in the mood for an RPG.
If you could pick a video game character, who would you be and why?
Probably Bucky Lasek from a Tony Hawk Pro Skater game because it would be cool to be able to skate that well!
If you could pick a location, from any game, to visit, where would it be and why?
Ark: Survival Evolved because it’s a super cool combo of pre-historic and sci-fi. I keep admiring the scenery and then getting killed.
What can Xbox gamers expect in 2016 in terms of ID@Xbox?
It’s going to be a really good year! Way too many awesome games coming to list, but Oxenfree is coming next week; they just got a well-deserved IGF nomination! Below is coming… I’m on the record about how I feel about that, above! INSIDE is shipping and it’s going to be ridiculous. Cuphead is coming out, again just an amazing, bananas game. Rocket League will be out on Xbox One pretty soon, with a Warthog. We’ll probably have a few cool announcements through the year too. Independent developers are killing it on Xbox One right now, and the creativity we get to see every day on the ID@Xbox team is just amazing. The diversity of the games that are coming to Windows 10 and Xbox One from ID@Xbox developers just blows my mind.
Finally, where do you see gaming heading in the next decade?
In my opinion we’re in a golden age of gaming across all platforms right now. I don’t see that slowing down at all. I’m lucky enough to have lived and played through a few console generations and even though there’s always people who think “oh it was better back in the day,” it really wasn’t. The classics will always be there, but I think whatever genre you’re into, whether it’s an MMO or a side-scrolling pixel art game, there’s going to be games that come out in the next ten years that will be the new classics in their genres. It such an awesome time to be experiencing games right now.
Special thanks to Chris Charla for taking the time to answer our questions. Keep an eye on the website and Twitter for information on how you can feature in the next Meet the Gamer segment.
Mike is a games journalist, host of 1080Players Gaming Radio. They contributed 62 articles to ICXM between 2015–2016, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: operates 1080Players Gaming Radio on the Boost Radio Network; ICXM published cross-content from his outlet.