At A Glance: MagicalTimeBean

IndieMonth · 2014-07-02T23:30:38Z

[b]MagicalTimeBean[/b] is Ian Stocker - is Ian Stocker a goat? He began his game career as a musician/sound designer specializing in Nintendo Handhelds and working on some 40 titles in 8 years. His first solo project was XNA dungeon crawler Soulcaster and after completing its sequel went completely indie in 2011 and created Escape Goat. Escape Goat 2 is the sequel (spoiler alert?). He claims to have liked Dark Souls before it was cool and lives in the SF Bay Area. http://www.magicaltimebean.... ______________ [b]Escape Goat 2[/b] is a goat-based puzzle platformer and uses the environment, machinery and a mouse (in a dungeon). It differs from its predecessor with a new art style, new puzzles and new magical hats. Made by MagicalTimeBean, published by Double Fine. http://www.escapegoat2.com/ [i]Play on: PC, Mac and Linux[/i] https://www.youtube.com/wat... [b]Mini Q&A[/b] [i]Answers by Ian Stocker[/i] [b]Why do you make games?[/b] It's the only way I can rid myself of these game ideas, which assault my mind until they are allowed to exist in our world. For this game in particular, I wanted to make a single-screen puzzle game where you had stackable blocks and machinery. The whole goat thing came later. [b]Why should people play Escape Goat 2?[/b] You'll enjoy your time with it. Seriously, nobody puts the game down when they first start it up. I've observed hundreds of people play it, and have scientifically balanced it for maximum enjoyment. [b]What element of game design do you hold above all others?[/b] Game feel is the most important thing to me. This is not just character control and responsiveness, but the feeling of inhabiting the avatar (the goat, in this case) from the get-go. The tutorial can't get in your way--ideally you won't even recognize that the game is teaching you things. But it also has to teach you enough to solve the puzzles. There's no hand holding. This is the transcendent experience I aim for in my games, and I get a little better at it each time. Escape Goat 2 is the best I've done in this regard. [b]Today’s Stories:[/b] Giveaway: Win a Copy of Escape Goat 2: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos... Interview with MagicalTimeBean’s Ian Stocker: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos... Developer Blog from Ian Stocker: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos... Some Words for Escape Goat 2: http://n4g.com/user/blogpos... Day 3 | MagicalTimeBean