Congratulations to Dimsdale & Kreozot United Games Manufacture (DKUGM), developers of our May GameSalad Game of the Month, Get Fiquette.
Our May winner is an old-timey themed game where you have to use your expert timing to drop various things on master gentleman thief, Mr Fiquette, to stop him before he robs all the local inhabitants of 1920’s Bootleg city of every penny they have.
Extra! Extra! Exclusive interview with DKUGM for your reading pleasure!
GameSalad: Tell us a little about yourselves and your experiences as game developers.
DKUGM: We met working for a company that just scored one of the first PS2 Dev Kits in Australia, I was a level designer/3d modeller and Milenko was a concept artist. The game we worked on was a crappy little American kids TV show licence that no one was really excited about. We came up with aliases Louis Dimsdale and Ferdian Kreozot so we could work on something else to keep us sane (and not lose our jobs). Soon after Dimsdale & Kreozot United Games Manufactures was formed. Our first Published game was “Tito the Bouncing Alien” for the PC.
GS: With those artistic backgrounds it’s no surprise the art looks amazing! What brought you to GameSalad?
DKUGM: A Broken shoulder while dirt bike riding in the outback Australia left me bedridden for a good few weeks and homebound for months. I tried playing around with Unity and got nowhere fast with that. Then I heard some guy on a podcast bagging GameSalad games, and for some reason I just decided to check it out. I had something up and running in GameSalad in no time, it was awesome. Anyway, after a few weeks of Cabin Fever and against my Doctors better judgement, I decided to rent a MacBook and fly off to Cambodia, camped by the Great Mekong River and lived in a hammock for the next few weeks. Once there, I found out that I had to hire an old car battery to power the laptop and then travel 30min on an old motor bike taxi to the nearest town if I wanted wifi access. Loved It. Then after that I had issues getting back home because they said I couldn’t fly with a broken shoulder, something to do with getting blood clots (was ok to fly there in the first place??). Anyways, Mr Fiquette resulted from that adventure, we had a basic demo up and running on a old iPad, with all black and white placeholder graphics: Placeholder Graphics Video
GS: That’s quite an interesting story! How long have you been using GS?
DKUGM: 2 fun years now. But it drives me nuts, because I’m pretty dumb, I can’t really think things through that far ahead, it’s more an exercise in trial and error coding, but I love it. It’s been a love hate relationship. I still get goose bumps seeing things move on screen that we have created. It’s pretty awesome.
GS: It’s great to hear that you guys had fun working with GS. Is Get Fiquette DKUGM’s first GS game and about how long did it take you to develop Get Fiquette?
DKUGM: Yep, but it will not be the last. Neither of us have a coding background, so the game was a real challenge working out what we could and could not do in GS. It took two years part-time. My day job has me pretty busy half the year and then we are really quiet for the other half, so the game would sort of make good progress and then just stall. It’s great to have it finished now.
GS: What inspired you to go in the direction of Get Fiquette?
DKUGM: The original game concept was Milenko’s idea, I just tried to expand on it and build a bigger game around the idea. Milenko showed me some sketches of Mr. Fiquette and Bootleg City years ago, it’s something we have always wanted to make into a game.
Neither of us had never worked on a Touch Screen project before, we both personally hate those virtual controls many games have, as they just don’t work well in our opinion. So we just wanted to design a game that you can really only play on a touchscreen device.
GS: I like how you guys have balanced the simple controls of tapping to drop things and the skill of timing when you tap. Has the game met or exceeded your expectations?
DKUGM: I don’t think we had any real expectations. Just happy to find people seem to like playing it if they give it a chance. I’ve never played anything like it before. We had fun making it. In regards to the way it looks and core mechanic as we imagined it, we are really happy with it.
We’ve been making it and playing it for two years now, and it is still fun to pick up and run through. So, apart from the slow loading times, the game is all we wanted it to be. We still have a list of things we would like to add gameplay wise, but we left it for Fiquette 2.
GS: I’m sure Fiquette 2 will be just as fun, if not more so, than Get Fiquette! Have you been pleased with the final product?
DKUGM: Load times are a bit of a bummer. I could never work out if the TGA file format loaded faster and the wait for Sprite Sheets are taken forever. It was a big learning process. If we re-started the project from scratch, there are a few things I’d code differently to help load times. Other than that the answer is yes. The end result pleases us.
GS: We know that a large choice that most app developers face is whether to make their app free with in app purchases / ads or cost some money up front / no ads. Care to share why you guys went the route you did?
DKUGM: We made the game for our own amusement, but it would be cool if people had fun playing it. The game was designed to be bought at a fixed price, played and replayed. We added in a couple of IAP to help the players if they need them, but the game is fully playable without them. We hate in-game Ads and there really was nowhere to put them within this game if we wanted.
GS: I believe you guys went the right way for Get Fiquette. Any words of advice or tips to share with fellow GameSalad developers?
DKUGM: Hit the forums and ask questions, those YouTube Tutorials are awesome too. I had no idea what was going on most of the time 🙂
GS: Definitely two great tips! What’s next for DKUGM?
DKUGM: For the short term, we have more Fiquette games in the pipeline. We enjoy working with the little guy. After that, I have a hunger to do something Donut related.
GS: Thanks and congratulations again to DKUGM, the developers of our May Game of the Month Get Fiquette! We wish you the best of luck with your game and future games!
See the Get Fiquette Trailer/Gameplay video here: Get Fiquette Trailer
Get Fiquette is available on iTunes here: Get Fiquette
