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Filippo Dinolfo
Resistance Designer Nathan Fouts Talks XNA, New Company, and Modern Game Development
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January 26,2009 - Weapon of Choice is one of the better games on the Xbox 360 Community Games Marketplace. We liked it so much we featured it in our round-up of hot Community Games. We liked it because it manages to pay homage to shooters of the past while still feeling like a modern game. After that feature ran, we received an email from Nathan Fouts, the head of Mommy’s Best Games. Our Filippo Dinolfo sat down to have a chat with him, and we think you might find it interesting as well. We hope you enjoy it; we really had fun putting it together.



Gamer 2.0: So first off, could you give us a bit of background about yourself? I understand you've worked for some pretty big name studios. What games have you worked on?

Nathan Fouts: I’ve worked professionally in the industry for over a decade. At Running With Scissors, I designed and programmed for POSTAL 2, and for the multi-player and single-player expansion packs (including all their limb-chopping and grenade-kicking fun). I love those guys and it looks like they’re continuing on their sick mission with POSTAL III.

Most recently I worked at Insomniac Games. It’s a fantastic place at which to work and they’ve won “Best Small Place to Work” three times in a row for that reason. In addition to doing some time on Playstation 2 R&C games, I designed and programmed the weapons on Resistance: Fall of Man and programmed all the boss enemies in Ratchet and Clank Future: Tools of Destruction.

G2.0: What got you interested in going out on your own and what led you to XNA?

NF: As nice as it is to work on big games like those, for me, nothing can beat making completely insane 2D action games. With the advent of XNA and the ability for smaller developers to program using just retail Xbox 360, I knew it was time to start my own company.

For years, I’ve played and loved so many older action games. There are so many new, fun gameplay mechanics still to be explored in 2D and I’m thrilled to be able to bring some of that fun to a console. I do enjoy PC gaming, but console gaming was my first love.

G2.0: Was the Dream, Build, Play contest at GDC the first time you had gotten any hands on time with the XNA tools or had you been playing with them already?

NF: I had been watching XNA for a little while and only ended up using the development suite after an effort to create my own game engine failed to gain traction. I was working with an old boss at the time on my own engine, and when he saw how powerful and full-featured XNA ended up being, all his motivation to write the low-level code vanished. It was tough because I knew I would be forced into certain directions by picking a third-party suite, such as not easily porting games to the PS3 or Wii, but in the end it made Xbox 360 development a lot easier.

 G2.0: Mommy’s Best Games is a pretty unique name. Is there a story behind it? What’s the goal of the company?

NF: I thought it would be fun to have a company name that contrasts with the feel our action games, and the general, aggressive tone a lot of other company names can have. As for the logo, we love pie and figured that tied in pretty well with the family feel of the company name.

The goal of Mommy’s Best Games is to make great games for “Prodigal Gamers”. These are gamers who grew up playing games, but along the way have become so busy with their job, their spouse, and their kids, they no longer have tons of gaming time. Our games are peppered with an old school flavor, but the consommé is a blend of beautiful art and approachable yet wild gameplay.

THE TEAM


From Left to Right: Jack Mayer who designed a level for Weapon of Choice. He and Nathan worked together on Resistance: Fall of Man and Ratchet and Clank Future. AJ Johnson was the story writer and is pretending to drink maple syrup from that sign. Nathan and his wife, Amy, in skeleton makeup. They were in a Day of the Dead parade at the time. Hamdija Ajanovic. He created all the music for the game and actually doesn't have a country accent. Tim Porter, who helped to process some of the environment textures. Not pictured are Marc Hernandez who programmed a few enemies, Brian Lawver who helped with some texture art.

G2.0: There’s a huge scope to the quality of these numerous community games. Some people say that’s a drawback of the service, but personally I think the folks making these games are cutting their teeth on a console and that is something that hasn’t been possible before. Is this a good or bad thing?

NF: I think it’s generally great. Having young and inexperienced developers encounter console design and development early on should theoretically create better designers (and thus better games) down the road.

It does tend to lead to lots of sub-par games but I think that’s up to Microsoft to create ways to find the best, highest quality games. I would really, really like a user-rating system integrated into the console allowing players to rate each Community Game they play. As long as the high quality games prosper, I’m all for everyone making whatever games they’d like. If a consumer wants to dig down into the giant Community Games list and look for some random game to strike their fancy, I think it’s swell they have that option.

G2.0: What about Achievements? Are they even possible within XNA?

NF: Unfortunately, no Community Game is allowed to use official Achievements. That seems to be a policy limit not a technology limit. A lot of Community Games have implemented a similar system within their games, but those systems can’t reward actual points to gamer tags.

G2.0: In your own words, could you describe what Weapon of Choice is?

NF: Weapon of Choice is a 2D, high-energy, side-scrolling, action game with crazy weapons and even crazier aliens.

G2.0: Why is it so damned hard?

NF: Well we all know a game being “hard” is relative. General Grier would say you need to make sure you eat your oatmeal.

I worked hard to craft Weapon of Choice as an “approachable hardcore” game. It’s not as hard as all the games I grew up playing, and it has many new gameplay features to make it more forgiving and more fun, such as Death-Brushing and the Vengeance Missile.

I used to buy one game a month, for fifty of my carefully saved dollars and I would play each game for hours on end, regardless of how fair or difficult it was. I don’t have that kind of time anymore and there are mountains of games for everyone to play.

I wanted to make sure Weapon of Choice was tense, and rewarding, but still playable enough to keep you coming back for more. The system of allowing you to rescue new Operatives and increase your playable lives was critical to this end, as was the branching level paths.
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