Tuesday 20th April 2010.
UPDATED: FOLLOW THE LINK FOR A GALLERY OF PHOTOS FROM THE EVENING
Proper Games made their debut last year with Flock!, and they weren't going to let themselves down with their latest game. It may have been out for a week already but they more than made up for it with the launch party – teaming up with Scottish Wrestling Entertainment, a rather unique night was provided for all attendees, with Ruffian, Real Time Worlds, Denki all making appearances, as well as local students and game fans.
Of particular note was the Final Fight themed match that rounded the evening off before the serious celebration drinking took place.
We caught up with; Chris Bradwell (art), Danny K Parker (coding) and Andrew J Smith (design, now a contractor with the company) to discuss Final Fight and Magic Sword
Congratulations on the Launch of Final Fight Double Impact.
All: Thank you
It's come out to great reviews everywhere and sold pretty well
Danny Parker: Well you know its doing alright.
Chris Bradwell and Andrew J Smith: Yeah, it's doing well.
Chris Bradwell: 500,000 wasn't it?
Andrew J Smith: Not quite.
CB: Well on the leaderboard.
AS: 50,00 across both formats.
DP: PSN more than Xbox which is unexpected, but cool.
Having a Wrestling match for the launch party, interesting choice. Awesome as well, especially The Final Fight, how did that come about?
AS: A mutual friend slash new colleague really. But we all had the idea at roughly the same time.
DP: We were sat in the pub, like all good ideas start, and Dundee is a very small place, and we have a lot of friends in various strange industries.
AS: and Dundee is a small place with massive men, who beat the shit out of each other. It was absolutely awesome!
And you were one of the Commentators, Andrew
AS: We had our very good friend Paul Wrider, one of the Senior Designers at Real Time Worlds, as well. I kinda got dragged into it. I tend to put my hand up and get stuck doing things. It was really odd because as MC you don't really see it the same as the audience but it seemed to go down really well and wandering around afterwards people were saying they really enjoyed it.
DP: Huge respect for the guys that did it. A lot of work, a lot of commitment and an amazing amount of effort was put into it.
AS: Frankly, I just spoke the words, they punched, head butted and threw each other out the ring. There was blood and sweat and guts. Honestly, those guys from Scottish Wrestling Entertainment are awesome.
So what were you're experiences of Final Fight before this, as I was a Double Dragon kinda guy back in the day?
AS: Boo! Double Dragon was rubbish, except the movie!
DP: The movie was awesome. Robert Patrick is the best bad guy.
AS: Although Final Fight sort of had a movie.
DP: True, Streets of Fire.
AS: Yeah, Streets of Fire inspired Final Fight and Streets of Rage. But I remember Final Fight as the game I used to play in the arcades.
DP: Mine was on the Mega CD. There was only one of my friends who had one and he had Final Fight. That's how I first played it and was “Wow, this is Awesome!” and the music was so good!
AS: The only consistent criticism we've had about the new soundtrack is that it's not the CD one. We could have had it but I think Sega own the copyright to that one.
DP: I do have to say though that Sega do great soundtracks.
AS: They really do.
You mentioned when you got the call, how did the project come about for Proper Games?
AS: It was pretty much a phone call wasn't it?
CB: Pretty much.
AS: I mean we rocked Flock with Capcom, didn't we Chris?
CB: We did, we think of it as a gift from Capcom.
AS: Yeah, its safe to say regardless of the performance of Flock they were very pleased with the working relationship we had to the point they basically rang us and entrusted us with a classic Capcom IP and that's a privilege.
DP: We were a fairly new studio, we made Flock all on our own. We're not new to this but as a company we were. It was an IP we put together ourselves and Capcom came on board more as a family member than a publisher so it felt like it was all of us together. Flock didn't quite go out as planned, but we got some great feedback. Capcom were with us through thick and thin. They thought we could do this. We could emulate a title that has a great big fan base and we can do it justice and give it that little bit extra.
AS: Shout out to Kraig Kujawa, Head of Design at Capcom US, who had this eternal thing that no matter what he suggested he always said “I just want that Proper Games touch.” He saw something with Flock and I think the only problem there was, was the target audience. The people that did play it and got it were mad about it, but the majority of people on PSN and Xbox Live are not them. Which is a shame, but nonetheless Capcom saw what we did and the passion we put into it and were “You know what? These guys can bring this back for a new generation.”
CB: I downloaded Flock for my mother on Steam and she loved it and keeps asking me for one of these Xbox controllers so she can play it properly.
DP: We hit a spell where we thought the marketing was going to go a certain way and it didn't, but at the end of the day we made a great game and we're all chuffed about it. Sales don't come into these things as much as people think at times.
Flock, as you mentioned was 100% Proper Games, what differences and challenges did this throw up as an emulation?
CB: I think the first question was “Blimey its an emulation, how are we gonna do something else besides emulate it”
DP: It was “Oh shit, its an emulation! What am I going to do?”
CB: We were to-ing and fro-ing a bit how we could bring Proper Games to it. The first big idea was the 3D front end then played with that and it came through very well I think
AS: It pretty much stuck, didn't it, since you guys came up with it. It was almost par for the course you try and come up with other ideas then turn around and realise “you know what we've already nailed it, arcade machine for the environment.” You lavished some serious detail on that, Chris.
DP: And with all the coders away doing the emulation, we couldn't get in the way so it was fine.
You went with more a recreation of the arcade experience of the games, rather than a full blown HD overhaul akin to Street Fighter 2 and most of the other scrolling beat em ups we see, was that how Capcom came to you or a decision Proper Games made?
DP: I don't think we ever came out thinking we should do an arbitrary overhaul, it was more “That'll be cool!”
AS: That's the thing, as fans we could have all sat around questioning decisions but we're all of the age were we remember playing it originally and felt that we just wanted to play that again. Yes, we've tidied it up in places but it's crisp, it's bright, it's fast, it's even got the monitor. We aimed to bring that moment back .
CB: It's proved itself as a classic. 21 years later and we're loving it as much as when it first came out. It's timeless.
DP: To its credit we took an emulated title and enjoyed playing it so much, what difference could we make? You don't bolt features on, you don't make things fancy because you can add to the experience in a very bad way .
AS: You run the risk of doing a Lucas and spoiling people's memories.
DP: Exactly. You don't have to make it HD. [Super] Street Fighter II [Turbo HD Remix] does look amazing but there have been others that haven't worked as well. It doesn't need it, the game was great, it still is great. It doesn't need a lot of help, just a bit of care rather than higher definition.
Xbox Live and PSN have seen a lot of scrolling beat-em-ups, yet not many other type of older games have seen the light of day on there? What do you think makes them so enjoyable 20 or so years later?
AS: I think people are missing a trick. There's something about Final Fight. Its really simple when you look at it. There's four or five basic enemy types, plus the bosses and two buttons. Yet is still really popular today because you can play through with a mate. I think that's what it is. Its like a summer blockbuster movie you can go and enjoy it without really paying attention. Its not a deep game, its not got story that's highly involving but just enough that it totally hooks you in, you and a mate are in there, having a laugh. You might punch each other by accident but its all good fun its a giggle to play multiplayer. It IS a laugh.
DP: Its co-op without the crowbar. A lot of modern co-op games really feel a little bit forced. Online, but long-distance co-op, which is cool, and we have it in Final Fight as well, but modern games are designed around that and it can feel a bit disjointed. Whereas you can just sit down with a mate on the sofa and play the game and our idea of the online co-op is to try and mimic that rather than reverse it.
Of course we keep talking about Final Fight, but there is another game in there. Magic Sword, which didn't really see much of a release outside of Japan until now. Was that Capcom or..?
AS: There were a bunch of games that we ummed and arred about with Capcom, and ultimately it was their decision, but it was decided that it needed variety and an interesting game rather than trying to match Final Fight with something. It was always going to be the marquee title. Magic Sword I love, I'd never played it before we worked on this project. Its basically Diablo but 2D. Its got that really addictive, very very simple combat and you run through these levels beating the shit out of some stuff and get bonuses. It may not be as refined as Diablo but it summons a similar kinda gain. It locks you in and you play it through to the end. Its a lot longer than Final Fight is.
CB: You press X to get to it
AS: We have had 3 or 4 people come up to us and ask “So where's Magic Sword? Do we have to unlock it?”
CB: We may have needed to make that button bigger.
DP: There was a point when we had Final Fight and we had to come up with the other game, everyone came up with a million ideas and they were all really different on what would go with Final Fight. To be fair it was Capcom that came up with Magic Sword. Everyone said “What the Hell is Magic Sword?” we all played it and said “What the Hell is Magic Sword?” Then we played it again and thought “Hang on this kinda interesting” Then you just keep playing it. At the end of the day I can see people playing Magic Sword more than Final Fight.
AS: There is a lot more to it.
DP: Yeah there's so much to it. So much to do, so much in co-op. It gets absolutely crazy in the later levels. It's Epic with a massive line underneath it. Plus its a game no-ones played which is really cool so it might get people to give it a try.
Finally what’s coming up next for Proper Games?
DP: OOOooooh We can't really say.
AS: It's safe to say we are working on some stuff. Its quite different again.
DP: Why don't we ever do the same thing again?
AS: I don't know!
DP: We're good at that. We seem to like giving ourselves the hard life.
AS: It will be different but still downloadable. We're not getting out of that.
DP: It's about the furthest you can get from what we've done while still being downloadable.
AS: I think people will be pleasantly surprised. But still ask “What's Magic Sword?”
