To be honest...Ittle Dew

[PUBLISHED TO FNP.COM ON / ABOUT 10/10/13]

par·o·dy [par-uh-dee] “a humorous or satirical imitation of a serious piece of literature or writing.”

It’s one thing to write a book, a song or to make a movie that takes the world by storm for the messages that they convey and emotions that they invoke. Themes such as race, religion, politics, a return to innocence or an early trip into adulthood - all of these topics have been covered in the countless stories, anthems and cinematic experiences that we’ve all experienced to date.

One way to show how much of an impact that an original piece of art has on society is how much it has been parodied (see definition above). Shows like Saturday Night Live, The Simpsons, Family Guy, South Park and artists like Weird Al Yankovic all know how to ‘parody’ with the best of them.

But what about gaming? Have successful games been parodied before? Of course they have, and from here on in we’re going to talk about one with a member of the crew at Ludosity - the indie game development company behind the PC title Ittle Dew.

>>COFFEE AND UNIVERSITY

In between Gothenburg and Stockholm, Sweden, the four-person team of Ludosity calls Skövde, Sweden home. Made up of Anton, Daniel, Gustav and Joel, the company’s website has a short, but succinct description of the company, “Ludosity makes kick ass games.”

Confidence. Honesty. Humor. What else could you ask for in an independent game development company?

When I approached this band of artists to get further insight into their latest title that’s now available on Steam, the founder and CEO of the company, Mr. Joel Nyström, answered the proverbial phone.

From the get-go, I could tell that this was going to be a different interview than what I was used to doing. But hey, that’s part of the fun of it. So here we go.

W2W: So who are you, what do you do for a living and how did you get into the industry?

JN: “My name is Joel Nyström and I make coffee and answer emails at Ludosity. As for how I got into making games, my girlfriend told me to apply for a University program so I did.”

Ah yes. The classic “she made me do it” situation. I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t been in the same situation a few times myself. But then what about the rest of the crew at Ludosity?

W2W: How did Ludosity unite into the mighty band of developers that they are today?

JN: “We were a bunch of graduates from University that decided we wanted to make our own type of games and not just go out and find a job at a big studio. We banded together over the idea to make fun, small, timeless games.”

A timeless game indeed. Much like the original The Legend of Zelda which their game mildly resembles (and dare I say “parodies”), Ittle Dew puts you in the role of a young adventurer who washes up on a beach only to embark on an adventure that is filled with satire and “colorful characters” (in more ways than one).

>>HARD WORK, DISTINCT LOOK, TIMELESS GAME

Something that you might be wondering about is the name of this game, “Ittle Dew”. What does it mean? Where did it come from? Do they know how to spell? Well these vital questions also ran through my head so I asked Joel to elaborate.

W2W: How did you come up with the name for this game?

JN: “We literally said ‘it’ll do’ when we completed the first game concept draft. And that was it.”

There you have it! The mystery is solved. Now go back to your rocket science and quadratic equations. Oh wait, you’re not working on that? Ok, neither am I. So let’s continue.

W2W: To make a game takes a lot of sketching, coding and the like. What software did you use to make this game?

JN: “We used Unity to build the game in, but it’s up to each developer what tools they used besides that. Visual Studio, Photoshop, Blender, Maya, etc. Also some in-house tools.”

Sounds like the standard tools to make a game of this size. But as any work of art (no matter what form it may take) usually doesn’t just materialize on the first go, I wondered about how the look-and-feel of the game was created.

W2W: So even though the gameplay mechanics greatly resemble Zelda, Ittle Dew is very much it’s own, unique title. How did you come up with the artstyle?

JN: “We were striving for a distinct look that would stand out from the crowd. We went through a great number of concepts for the art direction. We even started production on several of them before finally settling on the current one. It was a lot of hard work.”

As you can see from the image below, Ittle Dew took a ‘few’ tries before the team finally came up with the final artstyle for the game.

So then what about the overall style of the game? Does the team at Ludosity have a message that they are trying to get across with their game?

W2W: Other developers are trying to send a message to not only gamers, but to the world at large. Is Ludosity trying to send an important message to the world with Ittle Dew?

JN: “The last thing we want to do is to pretend that we’re making something important or deep. So we’re just being honest with the players and stop pretending that it’s a game about saving the world or finding the meaning of life. It’s a fun game about finding secrets, pushing blocks and whacking enemies over the head.”

There are definitely games, books, movies and songs out there that are trying to make people emotional about a certain topic. There’s nothing wrong with wanting to do this because every artist has a different approach for how they want to identify (if at all) with their audience. But as Joel commented on earlier, Ittle Dew is just about having fun.

>>ITTLE DEW...UNTIL THEY CHANGE IT

When you play Ittle Dew, you will notice that the game is solid. The gameplay is straightforward, the artstyle is fun and whimsical, and the dialogue feels like you are joking around with your friends; i.e., there’s a point early in the game where you pick something up off the ground and your character calls out “Five second rule!”

But when something is this solid and timeless, there’s always the potential that the developer will expand on it in order to reach a broader audience, not to mention, expand the game to maintain the current players.

W2W: So with what you have been able to accomplish with Ittle Dew, is the game coming to mobile and what else do you have planned for the game in the future?

JN: “There’s a lot more to do with Ittle Dew – mobile, Wii U, adding a Level Editor, etc. Then we’re making more games set in the same universe, but in completely different genres. If we make a straight sequel, it’ll be some years down the road probably.”

What great news! We will all be able to play Ittle Dew on-the-go one day and there will be more games made in the same universe!!

W2W: One final question - do you have anything more to add that the readers may want to know about you, Ludosity or Ittle Dew?

JN: “I would like to become a really good drummer one day.”

Enough said. Ittle Dew is now available on Steam here.

Thanks for reading.