Sturmwind - Sega Dreamcast Homebrew!

[dcultrapro]

hey guys, got an update on Sturmwind, looks like its finally passed the final hurdle and on its way to us soon... check this out and translate to English via google chrome

http://3ds.gameplay.be/nieuws/33911/1/I ... -Sturmwind

look for the special mentions to atari and jaguar specifically!!

[TL]

[size=240]Interview with Roland from Duranik[/size]

(Originally appeared on the French site Gameplay and translated for RVG)

Hello! Thank you for having agreed to answer our questions.

1. Sturmwind is an all new independent shoot-em up released exclusively on Dreamcast, a machine considered dead for years. What motivated this decision? Why this machine in particular?

The fact is, it is really fun to program on these machines. We have always loved consoles, and have spent many hours on the Mega Drive, the Snes, the Lynx and the Jaguar. At some point, we thought about a new project, and in reality contemplated developing for the Sega system. But that seemed to be too complicated to release something in the form of a cartridge.

2. A demo version of Sturmwind was unveiled a few weeks ago. It seems clear that Sturmwind shared many characteristics with the game Axelay (including weapons and some enemies). What is your favourite game type? Where did you draw the inspiration to design your title?

As you can see, one of the weapons of our game is directly inspired by Axelay. But we we are also inspired by other games such as Blood Money, Wings of Death and R-Type: i.e. games that could be regarded as "European shooters". We are clearly not fans of manic shooters, we are perhaps too old for it;)


3. The official name of your team is Duranik. How many people make up teh team? What is your roles in particular (music, design etc.)?

Duranik is composed of two people. One deals with the programming, graphics and level design. With regards to the music, we have worked with two artists; one did in-game music and the other intro and menu music.

4. The creation of video games is usually a full time job, do you also work alongside? Has Sturmwind been done during your free time?

We have both have full-time jobs and Sturmwind was created exclusively during our free time. This also explains why it took so long.

5. Precisely, how long did take to develop Sturmwind? The game has been delayed several times, are you able to say when it will be released?

I can't give you exact date, but most of the production problems were resolved and should therefore mean no more delay. I would probably say in a few weeks. It took about 6 years to develop this game during our free time. Full-time, it would probably take between one and two years.

6. When and how did you learn to create games? Were how old you when you first became interested in the creation of video games?

I would say around the year 1986, when our parents had purchased us an Atari ST for Christmas. That was the good old days! We were about 14-15 years old at the time. It's really great because these machines were easy to take in hand and it was possible to learn to program very quickly. Then, we were more interested in consoles. The best way to learn in this area is a look at other source code and books. Today, it is of course easier: you find all over the internet in a few seconds.

7. Is Sturmwind your first game?

No we have been creating games as a hobby for years. Most were released on the Atari platforms, for example a demo for the Jaguar called "Native", or even the game "Alpine Games" for Lynx and "Impulse" for the Falcon. If you are a fan of the Jaguar, please take a look at the version of Impulse by Matthias Domin: http://www.mdgames.de/impulsex_eng.html

8. Creating Sturmwind no doubt required much work. Where do you find the inspiration and are you scrambling after the fact at this point? With regard to an independent game, money was probably not your main motivation. Is that a challenge? Or did you just do it for your personal pleasure and for the pleasure of creating a game?

Probably for these reasons at the same time. Originally, the game was not expected to become important, but we played with it over so much time... to such point that was difficult to set a purpose. At some point, we were forced to set a limit or it would never have been possible to finish the game.

9. Do you expect to sell many copies of the game? Most of the time, independent games are not a great success, and this is particularly relevent given that Sturmwind was released on a dead console.

In fact, we have an idea of what we could be regarded as a success. It is difficult to guess at the moment what is the extent of the Dreamcast market and our goal is realistic.

10. In to the design of the game, was it impossible to use Katana, the official Sega SDK, for rights reasons? Of so then how did you do it?

There are no reasons to use Katana today, and it is really not worth trying to find it. This could bring benefits for debugging, but also disadvantages in other areas. Sturmwind was developed with KOS (a development environment free of rights) and we have modified many things to operate according to our needs for the project. There is no problem with KOS, it is perfect to develop with.

11. From a graphical point of view, Sturmwind is much more impressive than the other shoot'em up for Dreamcast. How is this possible without official development tools?

As I said, an official development kit is not necessary, as long as you know how to use the PowerVR chip and how to draw polygons, nothing more. The rest comes from your imagination, and no SDK creates itself as if by magic.

12. What advice would you give to a novice developer? Where should they start?

It is rather easy now, there is plenty of free tutorials around for all aspects of the creation of a game, graphics to programming tools. The best advice would be to start with some thing simple and an easy to learn programming language. It is not really the idea of the century to begin with attacking the Jaguar or the Saturn if you have never programmed in your life!

13. Are you already working on a new title? Dreamcast perhaps?

We have no plans for the future for the moment, everything will depend on our motivation and Sturmwind reception.


Phew that was hard work re-wording it all so it made sense!!!!!

[dcultrapro]

thanks LAIRD!! Being at work I didn't really have time to touch it up lol

[Shadowrunner]

Awesome! Ive been waiting for this a while now, sounds like it should be released soon.

[dcultrapro]

yeah man, honestly can't wait, I've been speaking with the head of RSG Max Schaarl on and off since Jan 2011 and I'm confident we should have it before Winter... I don't see why it would be any later... but I'm not quoting him I'm just drawing an assumption, making an educated guess lol

[dcultrapro]

latest info is up on Duraniks FB page... looks like it will finally be coming soon!

here is a nice preview of the game

http://cdromrom.wordpress.com/2012/09/0 ... nd-review/

[zapiy]

I will review this soon as I get it.

[zapiy]

I have a copy in my hands and working on a review now.

Enjoy.

Please like the vid

[DreamcastRIP]

I have a copy in my hands

Git!

... and working on a review now.

Here's hoping it's a decent game after such a long wait, its Atari Jaguar roots and the money it cost me to pre-order the thing seemingly eleventy billion years ago!

[AmigaJay]

Looks amazing, will prob fork out for this.

[onthinice]

Thanks Zapiy!

Everytime I hear Sturmwind it makes me think someone is posting a picture of a World War II German assault gun or tank destroyer. I pitch a tent for nothing.

[dcultrapro]

as soon as I get news that its being produced I'll let you all know, last email I got was mid December and they had been testing the samples from the CD production company on various different DC models and the initial tests had failed. Can't wait to finally get my copy after 2+ years of waiting!!

[DreamcastRIP]

... Everytime I hear Sturmwind it makes me... pitch a tent.

I'm sure you're not the only Dreamcast owner to have done so! 

[Shadowrunner]

Just got an email from Redspot games. Looks like April 24th is the ship date  :36:

[dcultrapro]

yeah sorry I was going to share this hear but haven't had a chance, here is the official press release we got via email today