Crash Co. Interview

I never would have said that since they most certainly did (only a bit more colorful)! Naturally creating a successor to Blast Corps, I’m going to take cues from the original that made people who played it love it; much like Yooka-Laylee to Banjo-Kazooie. Blast Corps is still a game I can go back to now and have just as much fun playing it as I ever did. It seems as though a number of fans did, but with no sequel or comparable game in sight, I decided to undertake that challenge. I want to keep the same general feel of the original while not just being a clone. This is not a remake by any means since everything is new; with the exception of the bulldozer (which let’s face it, is fairly iconic when you think about demolition). In essence, the sequel we all wanted for Blast Corps back in the late 90’s but with modern improvements.

I was, but with the way that ‘Corps’ is pronounced it already sounds a little too similar to ‘Co’. I spent a good amount of time going through a thesaurus to find alternatives to ‘Blast’ and ‘Corps’ and mentally playing with different ways to spin it as to not upset Microsoft (Blast Corps rights holders) and still draw a correlation to the original.

You are talking to someone who used to love demo discs on the PlayStation, so absolutely! In-fact I was trying to think of a way to bring that experience back in a way that made sense in the present internet-wired, on-demand world. I discovered so many games I never would have if not for their demos available on a single compilation. I do, however, see the drawback in putting out a beta demo at this stage in development since people judge it as if it were the final game. I didn’t do a lot of polish on things like lighting and animations for example and people won’t hesitate to point that out.

There are actually two reasons. First, thinking back to Blast Corps and their Pac-Man mini game, we knew it was a game that didn’t take itself too serious and I wanted to embrace that mentality. Second, the fact that I love to try new gameplay implementations. Many of them are built around “I want to see if I can do it” but they don’t hold enough weight to warrant their own dedicated game. I am however still trying to tie them into the main game. For example with the sidescrolling runner, you are collecting bundles of TNT and for the shoot ‘em up you are defending the runaway carrier. No doubt that demolition is fun, but some of my fondest memories of games are when you get a side quest/mission to do something entirely different.

Other styles of games that I enjoy playing, such as Demolition Derby, Gradius, and “tap to jump” sidescrolling rhythm runners on mobile phones held the most influence. Part of their inclusion was to feel out how far I could go with them before they stopped making sense in the spirit of the game.

The simple fact that we can’t do it in real life. The sound and visuals also play a large part in that. Pairing the right sound effects to the explosion itself makes for a very satisfying overall feeling. With demolitions so strictly controlled in real life, being given free rein to do them as you please is a freedom anyone can appreciate.

The destruction. Blast Corps really hit a sweet spot in a satisfying demolition. Building on that with debris, collapsing pieces of taller buildings, and more elaborate, larger explosions (that don’t despawn due to limited resources), I feel as though I have improved on it.

A more elaborate destruction system, where structural integrity plays a role in bringing a building down (Red Faction Guerrilla style). Given the number of buildings that can be knocked down in a small amount of time, managing the physics behind a true structural system would be a major task. Also, being a solo developer I would need to spend a massive amount of time modeling all of that. Perhaps if Crash Co. is a success, a sequel could be planned (with someone brought on specifically to handle art) to implement that. :)