I recently interviewed James from Monster Finger Games, who is a developer of Alien Scumbags, which is currently out as an early access title on Steam. I found many interesting things about Indie Game Development and many things about Monster Finger Games; please read the interview below:
1.Are you planning to port Alien Scumbags to more platforms?
Currently, we have no plans to go to other platforms unless we are able to secure a publisher who can port it. I feel like Alien Scumbags would fit great on the Switch and the Evercade.
2.What kind of accessibility options are there in Alien Scumbags, and do you plan to add more in future updates? Accessibility has always been important to me; for example, we added subtitles to the intro scenes because of feedback from a streamer that was hard of hearing; more recently, we found some people were offended by some of the content, and as such, after a Twitter poll optional censorship was added.
3.What was the budget of Alien Scumbags?
Alien Scumbags was created on a shoestring budget of under £200
4.For how much time have you been working on Alien Scumbags?
3 years and 3 months roughly, it actually started out as a 48-hour game jam, but I really wanted to make it into a much larger, so I carried on after the game jam had finished.
5.How many people were involved in the development?
Monster Finger Games is officially a 2 person team, myself and Stu; however, we also had people that wanted to get involved in the project giving voice acting; those people were Tristabytes, Steven J Soucy, Corey Roveri and First World Brat. My partner is also a big part of the development process.
6.Are you guys working on a new game currently?
The development of Alien Scumbags is nearly finished, and we do have another project in mind; however, we are not actively working on it right now.
7.What engine was used in the development of Alien Scumbags?
Alien Scumbags was created using Clickteam Fusion 2.5
8.I saw that Alien Scumbags is a self-published game, and I know that there are many struggles while self-publishing a game. Did you experience any?
Yes, the main thing was not having anyone to stop me from making rookie errors; for example, I accidentally released the game as a finished title instead of releasing it in Early Access, I made mistakes, but I have learnt from those now.
The other main issue I found was getting Alien Scumbags seen.
9.What are some tips you would give on Game Development?
The main tip is to enjoy the journey and take it to step by step. Even if you have a day where you can’t be bothered, it’s still worth taking a small bite out of the project, so you are still making progress.
What do you think? Please let us know in the comments below.
