Developer's Q&A With Mikael Forslind!

Hello everyone! Monday's going to be a big day as one of the masterminds behind the upcoming indie title Alwa's Awakening will be answering some of your questions in this very thread! So if you have any questions you want to ask about the game or about developing games in general ask away!

Will Alwa's Awakening come to the Wii U?

When should development of Alwa's Awakening be finished lol?

What made you decide to become a developer?

Keep the questions coming! Today is the big day!

What was your inspiration for Alwa's Awakening?

Does your development team have a name yet? I know that this isn't the same team that works at Zoink.

What is the first step of developing a video game?

How hard is it to develop a good game with a limited budget?

Will Alwa's Awakening come to the Wii U?

We would love to release on Nintendo Wii U! We are developing Alwa's Awakening with Wii U as our target platform. But it's up to Nintendo if we can release on Wii U and we haven't started talking to them yet.

Aqua Cherry Blossom wrote:When should development of Alwa's Awakening be finished lol?

Really hard to say but we just announced the game and we still have a lot more of development time left. I can't say a release day at the moment but if you go to our website there's a progress bar at the bottom where you can see how far we've come in the development process.

FM_Alchemist wrote:What made you decide to become a developer?

Actually my day job is a marketing manager for a gaming company so I'm already involved in game development but I felt I wanted to create something for myself where I get to be more involved in the production and the design of the game. I think it's fun and rewarding to challenge yourself by learning new things and creating a retro game is really fun. I've always been a huge fan of retro games!

Kain wrote:What was your inspiration for Alwa's Awakening?

Alwa's Awakening draws inspiration from a plethora of games, mostly retro games from the NES era but also newer games, although most of them have a retro look as well If I could sum Alwa's Awakening up in a (long) sentence I would say that - “Take the mood and setting from Solstice, mixed with the mechanics and design of Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest and the gameplay from Battle Kid and then you get Alwa's Awakening"

Tsubasa wrote:Does your development team have a name yet? I know that this isn't the same team that works at Zoink.

Actually we don't have a team name at the moment. But it's coming! It's really hard to come up with names though - any suggestions?

How many levels will Alwa's Awakening have?

Clαππαd wrote:What is the first step of developing a video game?

I'm not an expert but I would say one should draft up a Design Document that explains everything in the game. The core mechanic, basic plot, what makes the game unique and how the game will be good/successful or whatever your goal is. Then either start working alone or present the document to people you want to work it.

ToughGamer wrote:How hard is it to develop a good game with a limited budget?

The development part isn't that expensive. You need a decent computer and some programs. If you can't afford to buy programs there are always programs that are free or has demo versions you can use. Getting the game out on consoles you do need some money because you need ratings and things like that. You also need basic stuff like a webpage etc.

But what you really spend on a game is the amount of time it takes to actually create a game

DigiDestined wrote:How many levels will Alwa's Awakening have?

It'll have 5-6 unique worlds/levels. Each world will take a couple of hours to finish. You have to travel across the different worlds every now and then in order to progress.

What's your favorite game genre?

Someone on our Twitter feed asked ~ Why is Kragen the best enemy in the game?

Rukiafan wrote:What's your favorite game genre?

The game we're making Aventure games where you're out in this mysterious world, alone and you need to find items to progress. In recent years Dark Souls is one of my all-time favourites

Clαππαd wrote:Someone on our Twitter feed asked ~ Why is Kragen the best enemy in the game?

Because they're evil

Will there be any power ups in Alwa's Awakening?

Trinity33 wrote:Will there be any power ups in Alwa's Awakening?

Yeah. You'll find different objects throughout the journey that'll help you in the quest.

Thank you everybody for all your questions!

Make sure you follow us on Twitter or Facebook. We're called AlwasAwakening there

Thanks

// Mikael Forslind
@MikaelForslind

I can't wait for your game!

Will there be an article covering this Q&A lol?