While some games grow increasingly complex, it's nice to see independent titles such as Eden Industries' Waveformoffer simple-to-grasp concepts. It's headed to Steam next month with a promise of some (most likely free) post-launch DLC.
Development of Waveform was, up until recently, being handled on a part-time basis. It's a familiar story in the realm of independent gaming, but remains one I've always found interesting. When creator and Eden Industries founder Ryan Vandendyck wasn't at his day job working on Luigi's Mansion 2, he was prototyping and fleshing out this project.
He's since taken some time off from Next Level Games in the ramp up to Waveform's Steam debut. Ryan admits "it's been quite difficult. A lot of evenings and weekends, with very little sleep or much free time. Ironically, my time spent playing games dropped to almost 0."
"Although I don’t regret doing it the way I did, and would even recommend it to many indies depending on their situation, I can’t say I’d be too eager to do it again!"
Those thinking of designing a game on the side will want to look at Ryan's blog posts on Gamasutra, where he's covered the life of a "double developer" and offers advice based on his experiences so far. I was curious to see what's next, once Waveform goes public.
"Although I’d very much like to transition into indie development full-time, that largely depends on the success of Waveform. I’m hoping it’ll be successful enough to allow me to continue working on more games (I have a few prototypes already made that I’d really like to commit more time to and develop into full games), but if it’s not I’ll probably go back to Next Level and figure out my next move from there."
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Likes
Platformers, Pixel-based graphics, Stickerbrush Symphony, Pokemon, Leaderboards
Meet the rest of the team
Hey everyone, this is Ryan Vandendyck, creator of Waveform. I'm glad you like the look of the game! Let me know if you have any questions or anything and I'd be happy to answer them.
Thanks everyone for the very kind words! If you're interested in keeping up with all of the developments of Waveform, feel free to like us on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Eden-Industries/292123117469622) or follow us on Twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/EdenIndustries). Cheers!
The music is really awesome, I agree! If you want to hear more songs, check out our Youtube channel which has various songs in the different trailers: http://www.youtube.com/user/EdenIndustries?feature=mhee
Thanks Enzi! I actually receive the comparison to BIT.TRIP a lot, and it's one I'll gladly take :)
As for the challenge of the game, that's one thing I'm quite proud of actually. Because the controls are simple, I also wanted a game that was simple to play for anyone. So the difficulty of just advancing from one level to the next isn't that high. However, if you really want to master a level, it's very challenging! This is due in part to the fact that your speed in the game automatically increases as you do well, and decreases as you do poorly. But it also increases your points earned, and intensifies the already awesome music, so there's a nice audio reward too! All in all, if you want to truly walk away from any level with 100%, you'd better be prepared for an intense thrill-ride that I'm confident will appease even the toughest of gamers. But as I said, for everyone else, you can take it easy and just enjoy the nice flow from level to level and still take in the awesome content.
I hope that answer provided what you're looking for, but just let me know if you have any more questions :)
This is certainly one of the most unique game designs I have ever seen. This looks really entertaining. The Indie devs will brings back what made gaming so good in the golden age.
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Contest:
7:00 PM on 02.25.2012 | 
As for the challenge of the game, that's one thing I'm quite proud of actually. Because the controls are simple, I also wanted a game that was simple to play for anyone. So the difficulty of just advancing from one level to the next isn't that high. However, if you really want to master a level, it's very challenging! This is due in part to the fact that your speed in the game automatically increases as you do well, and decreases as you do poorly. But it also increases your points earned, and intensifies the already awesome music, so there's a nice audio reward too! All in all, if you want to truly walk away from any level with 100%, you'd better be prepared for an intense thrill-ride that I'm confident will appease even the toughest of gamers. But as I said, for everyone else, you can take it easy and just enjoy the nice flow from level to level and still take in the awesome content.
I hope that answer provided what you're looking for, but just let me know if you have any more questions :)