The Killers once sang “Indie rock ‘n’ roll is what I need, it’s in my soul”. When push comes to shove independent gaming is in my soul and what I need. With this in mind, imagine my delight when I saw Introversion Software’s Chris Delay recently at the Eurogamer Expo.
The creative, artistic and design direction of Introversion can be primarily attributed to the inspirational Chris Delay and fortunately for us, we managed to grab him for an interview.
Q. For gamers that do not know too much about Darwinia, tell us briefly about the history and why they should buy it upon release.
“Darwinia originally came out on PC in 2005, and won the IGF (Independent game festival) Grand Prize in 2006, along with two other awards. It received crazy rave reviews when the game was first launched, and (in my opinion) is still Introversion’s best ever game.
During 2008 we released a Multiplayer sequel called Multiwinia. It’s set in the same world but plays quite differently; Darwinia is slow and cerebral and spiritual, and very story driven. Multiwinia is all about fast action and war, with a quirky and slightly masochistic sense of humour.
Darwinia+ is the combination of both games, coming to Xbox Live Arcade early next year. It’s the very best version of Darwinia we’ve ever done, the Directors Cut, if you will.”
Q. Darwinia has been described as Cannon-Fodder meets Lemmings, did Sensible Software inspire you in anyway to develop games.
“Oh yes, of course Cannon Fodder was a big inspiration to us, and forms one part of the core mechanic of Darwinia; i.e. controlling a squad of five guys, using the mouse to move and shoot. Cannon Fodder is one of the best games of all time, and we’ve no shame in taking that control mechanic and re-using it.”
I love playing Call of Duty and Forza 3 as much as the next man, but sometimes, just like after eating at a certain fast food restaurant, you are left with a slightly empty, unfulfilled feeling. Gaming has been accused of becoming too corporate and I can see where people are coming from so I decided to have a look at the independent games market and the logical place to start for me was the award winning developers of the game Darwinia. Introversion Software remind me in many ways of my cult heroes Sensible Software from the nineties.
Neil Hughes 