Tom Watts creator of The Blonde Knight

About this project

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/2091207238/the-blonde-knight

He’s the hero the internet needs, but not the one it deserves. A loud guardian, a problematic protector. A blonde knight.

The internet has leaked into the real world, trolls roam the dark streets of London. Only one man can stop them, The Blonde Knight.

The Blonde Knight is an unforgiving indie pixel art platformer. You take on the role of the Blonde Knight as you cruise the night time back alleys of London, cleaning up the city from the clutches of the trolls.

The Blonde Knight is an unforgiving indie pixel art platformer. You take on the role of the Blonde Knight as you cruise the night time streets of London, clearing the streets from the clutches of the trolls.

We are Manic Pixie Dream Labs. We are new indie game developers who are passionate about the gaming community and reflect this in our games. We realize that without gamers we wouldn’t be here to make games. We’re open to criticism and suggestions from the community but staunchly against censorship. We will make the games we want to make and you want to play and that is the bottom line.

The game fundamentals and core elements are complete and it is playable. We want to release the game initially on PC and Android.

With a successful kickstarter, we at Manic Pixie Dream Labs will be able to fully license GameMaker to release the Blonde Knight as well as fund some of the on going development costs.

 

Click here to support Kickstarter

Screen Shot 2015-12-30 at 14.04.14First of all Welcome to Retrogamesmaster.

Thanks for having me

What is your first gaming experience?

I used to go to an old dive bar with my dad when I was still knee-high to a grasshopper. They had an ancient space invaders table like arcade machine in the corner.

Screen Shot 2015-12-30 at 14.04.36Me and my sister would fight over who’s turn it was to play, usually spilling more drinks over the already sticky surface. A little while afterwards I got my own Master System with sonic for my birthday. I was always a Sega kid.

What got you into programming games?

I always just assumed it was something I couldn’t do until one day not too long ago I realized the only thing preventing me from doing it was my own attitude. When I was still in junior school me and one of my friends would make Sonic levels out of cut out bits of paper elaborately taped together to make impossible to play environments. I wanted to be a game developer then before I really knew what one was but that dream got lost somewhere along the road.

d9f7d9d59e4e0f313c10178b28bb7b0b_originalI’m a freelance film maker as my career during most of my adult life. A few months ago I was filming for Insomnia Games Festival. This involved interviewing some of the indie devs, most memorable amongst them being the guys from gang beast. They were having such a great time at the festival and developing their game that it just hit me, ‘that’s what I want to do’. ‘That’s what I’m going to do’

What development tools or coding did you use?

The Blonde Knight is being developed in GameMaker:Studio

Screen Shot 2015-12-30 at 14.05.24What hurdles did you have making your current game?

Being pretty new to game developing and coding, I’m having to teach myself to code at a pretty rapid rate to keep up with the game mechanics I want to include. It’s been a very steep learning curve but also very rewarding. I have a strong art and design background too so fortunately the backgrounds, sprites and animations have been relatively easy in comparison.

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

Once The Blonde Knight is finished I’ve got an idea for a rogue like RPG I want to make, inspired by the opening of ‘Devil Man’

Screen Shot 2015-12-30 at 14.05.44What other games have you made you made?

The only other game I have made is an android game I developed while learning some game coding called ‘save the standup’. It’s a really simple game where you have to stop guns which are being thrown at my comedian girlfriend’s head. It’s free on the google play store although I couldn’t recommend downloading it.

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

I loved my Megadrive but I think my playstaion 1 was my favourite. It had some great games and I’ve got a lot of good memories playing on it with friends.

What is your favourite retro game?

This is tough one, probably golden axe or streets of rage. As a 2 player experience they’re still hard to beat

Screen Shot 2015-12-30 at 14.05.33Do you still game on the current consoles if so whats your favourite game?

The last console I bought was an xbox 360 so I could play FFXIII which turned out to be a huge disappointment. After that it just got used exclusively to play 2 player black ops zombies with my house mate until I lost the whole thing in a house move. I now play all my games on my PC, a happy coincidence of having an editing rig is it’s also great for gaming.

Whats the worst game you have ever played?

That’s another tough one, I have bought some shockers in the past and stuck through them out of stubbornness. The most recent one was probably ‘Nail’d’. Took a punt on steam and it was awful, although apparently I racked up 52 minutes on it according to Gabe.

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

I’ve enjoyed reading the interviews and reading about peoples paths to the world of game development. I would like to see more of that in the future.