After our review of the recent indie title A Sirius Game we couldn't help but hook up with developer Moumita Paul for a few words on her brilliant 3D roleplaying ship based game, its development, and the choices that she made.
Gamercast: So for those that don’t know, what is A Sirius Game?
Moumita Paul: A Sirius Game is 'siriusly' all about a spoiled brat, Sirius, and his adventures at sea. In order to seek revenge of getting thrown out from his house, he steals money from his father's vault and buys a ship and crew and starts escorting merchant ships and trading at sea. Gradually by secret and treacherous ways, he wishes to become the head of the merchant guild and overthrow his father.
GC: A Sirius Game makes a fantastic marriage of Ships and Magic, why have no 3D titles existed before now? Obviously a missed market.
MP: I am not sure, during testing, most of our testers reviewed it saying it reminded them of the 2D tradewinds series, except that it was in 3D.
GC: Sirius is not a very likeable guy, what’s that about?
MP: Yeah because I was bored of 'one man saving the world' concept. I thought of doing something new this time. I wanted to create a character who is most commonly found in our society, but nobody knows the truth about them because they are so successful in both their work and their lies. It is a sort of eye opener for people who don't recognize this character- he is everywhere, ambitiously pursuing what he wants irrespective of what others suffer from his deeds.
GC: What is your favorite feature of A Sirius Game that will make our readers buy it?
MP: Fantasy pirate ships like peacocks, ghost ships, underwater whales and shark ships mainly. Also the interesting side quests which are quite different from the main quests and the difficult-to-achieve trophies that will keep them engaged. Apart from that, our main character Sirius might make our players hope for some redemption till the end and ...well I will leave it to them for playing.
GC: How long was A Sirius Game in development for?
MP: It took us about 9 months of hardship and then we finally delivered the baby. It would have been faster than that if we didn't get delayed by a lot of other unforseen events.
GC: If you had an unlimited amount of development time and money would there have been any change you would have made to A Sirius Game, and what would it be?
MP: Not money may be, but time: yes! We could have made the game even better. I guess I am never satisfied no matter how much we polish the product.
GC: Who are Over Cloud 9?
MP: Over Cloud 9 is a small indie company single handed managed and owned by me. I have been making games for the past 2 years and helping other developers market their games, selling RPGs, find beta testers, etc.
GC: Your first game was a very traditional RPG? Why such a big change to a 3D ship-faring RPG?
MP: After my first game, I realized the shortcomings of the engine I was using and I wanted to do more which was not possible. Luckily at that time, I was offered a joint 3D project by Phantasm Studios and I thought that I should seriously learn and explore 3D if I have to keep up with the ever growing demand of good and polished games. Even though it might not have been asked, I think Phantasm games deserved credit more than I do for developing the game exactly the way we thought (overcoming all the development problems and delays that we faced).
GC: Do you currently have anything else in the works?
MP: 3D artwork takes a lot of time. Thats why I am thinking of starting another 2D project this time while creating the 3D assets of another project so that we can save some time of getting resources while still doing games.
Well there you have it, if you've yet to play A Sirius Game and love ship combat, trading or taking part in convoy missions it is a fun and challenging game all thanks to Moumita. We hope our interview has shed a little more light on the plight of indie gaming in all of it's forms including those like Over Cloud 9 that simply love games and strive to get other games noticed, as well as their own.