Quick QnA with Gariax Game Dev Deuronius

Part 1:

1.What was your inspiration behind Gariax as a fighting game?

I didn’t have a lot of experience so In terms of Game style I would say Street Fighter 2, Fatal Fury etc this was my inspiration, a simple game but technical in execution, that would last the test of time.

2.What were the Game design challenges for Gariax and how did you solve them?

I had just completed developing Hitbuster Alpha so I felt that I had better technical know how to start on the task of approaching a slightly more mechanical heavy game,

To be honest although Gariax was my 3rd Fighting game, I still felt that I had not yet mastered the inner workings of a true fighting game, either way I gave it a shot.

I tried my best in building the game to be as close as possible to Street fighter 2 but balancing the game was a nightmare as I was working on three platforms simultaneously, PC/ Online and Mobile.

The challenge was what worked on PC didn’t work on Android, things like inputs of rotations felt horrible on Android touch screens, further more when I played Street Fighter 2 on Android I didn’t enjoy myself as compared to as on PC, I had a major problem on my hands.

I knew at the bare minimum the Gariax needed to be fun and multi-platform. To be able to make the game fun across the board I would have had to make the inputs simpler at the risk of loosing the FGC Purist who grew up following certain types of rules. It was tough, in fact I quickly understood it was a major risk.

On top of this one issue I faced was making a simpler Game engine would look like a short cut, that could imply a lack of skill or technical understanding of Fighting games, As an upcoming game dev especial from Africa I felt very pressured.

Anyway I bit the bullet and made 2 separate complete game engines for Gariax and tested them.

One was a strait forward traditional Game engine like Street Fighter 2 the second was a simpler input method.

I noticed on the website the simpler input method was getting more hits per day

After doing more research I could understand that older games from the 90s built their fighting games with the limitations that they had available.

which were levers and buttons, building their games around those inputs. I tried to imagine what the Game developers of the 90s would have done if they had the option of using touch screens.

Thus the concept of the “Express Inputs” was born

This information coupled with the temperance of modern players the lack of patience, convinced me that I can continue the game but with the Express input method, further more I figured that accessibility would only be an issue if a game was built by default with traditional inputs

but if the game came out of the box with Express inputs it would cease to be “accessibility” and simply becomes the games default “game mechanic”

I did random tests online, and played the game many times and fans seem to love it.

Whether the risk was worth it in the end only time will tell,

But the concept of building a game that was simple and fan and works on all platforms I can say was a success thus Gariax was born.