Sklaf

 

Interview with Guillaume Crouzille by Peter Ward



What is your first gaming experience?

My first gaming experience was with the Intellivision, though I can’t really remember the games I played back then because I was really young. My first memories of games are with the Master System with Wonderboy, Sonic, Double Dragon and a lot of others. Back in those days, I was waking up before anyone in the house so I could play for hours. 


What got you into programming games?

The first thing is my love for this media. As I said, I play games since I was a little child. And later, as I was finishing my studies in software engineering, I realized that what I really wanted to do was telling stories. Programming games was the link between my skills and my desires. I managed to get an Internship at Ankama, a french video game company, and then the dream started to realize 🙂


What development tools or coding did you use?

I started with Turbo Pascal at school, but that was’nt very useful. Later, I learned C and Java. On my first job, we were developing our game with Java and some internal tools.

Currently we’re using Unity as a game engine and GIT / Source Tree for the versionning. We’re also using some plugins for Unity like Ferr2D and GAF, and we’re planning to rework our animations using Spine


What hurdles did you have making your current game?

The first one was probably to gather the right people to develop the game. At first, we were only two, and none of us was a graphical artist. One of our friend helped us to get our first sprites, but the development really took off when we met Mathieu, our art director. After that, we had to set up tools that allow us to work from distance, because Mathieu is living in the South of France, and we are in the North, guarding the wall… Sorry I had to do it 🙂

But right now we’re facing one of the biggest hurdles that is: the lack of resources. Making a game costs a lot of time and money and we’re soon going to be out of both. That’s one of the reason we’re currently looking for a publisher. 


After the completion of the game what game will you make?

This is not decided yet. We want to continue making games in the universe we’re trying to create with Sklaf. But apart from this universe, it won’t be necessarly related to Sklaf. Our main goal is to make the games we want to play, so it can be anything from shoot’em’up to adventure game or whatever as long as the game has the level of quality we want.


What other games have you made?

Before foundind Fundation Studio, I used to work at Ankama, a french video game company. I worked on Dofus-Arena as a developer, and on Wakfu as a game designer. This was a great experience and a chance to meet a lot of talented people. 


My favourite computer was my Amiga and console the Megadrive do you have a favourite?

That’s a hard question 🙂 I have a lot of great memories with different computers or consoles. If I have to pick one, I would say my Amiga for the computer, because of the nostalgia it represent with games like Monkey Island or Civilisation. I used to play them along with my brother all night long. And for the console, I would say Playstation and Master System, they’re both on top of my list 🙂


What is your favourite retro game?

Once again, it’s hard to choose! On the Amiga, I would say Monkey Island 2. I loved the characters, the humour and and the look of this game. On the Master System, probably Wonderboy 3: The Dragon’s Trap. And on the Playstation, without a doubt, Final Fantasy VII. I redo this game once every 3 or 4 years and I never get bored.


Do you still game on the current consoles if so whats your favourite game?

Yes, i’m still playing on the current consoles. I can’t say I have a favourite game, but the last game that truly impressed me was Transistor. I loved every aspect of it! I can’t wait for the next game from Supergiant Games, Pyre, wich looks great again. And regularly, I’m playing GTA V and Rocket League with my friends. 


Whats the worst game you have ever played?

I can’t say it’s the worst, but Final Fantasy XIII is a painful memory to me. The combat system was great, Lighting was a great character, but what the hell has they done with the structure of their game! The fact is that I’m a huge Final Fantasy fan, so I had a lot of expectations on this one and I was terribly disappointed. I’m waiting with both fear and excitement for my copy of Final Fantasy XV at the moment, hoping this one will be better. 


Finally what game or feature would you like to see on Retrogamesmaster in the future?

I have some good memories playing Speedball at a friend’s home, but I can’t quite remember the game mechanics. I’d love to see some article about this “sport” 🙂