Interview With Casey Sillito, Developer Of Sector 7-4-9er.
We have something very interesting for you today, an interview that we had conducted with the developer Casey Sillito about his first game, Sector 7-4-9er. If you are unsure of Casey Sillito’s backstory, or the game, be sure to check out my Indie Exposure article, which sums it up nicely. So go ahead, and read that first if you haven’t, then come back here…
Now, one thing I would like to report on before we start, is that the game is unfortunately not performing up to Mr. Casey’s standard. However, by the end, I will let you know why this isn’t necessarily a bad news.
Back? Alright, our interview was conducted through Email, where Mr. Casey was kind enough to answer for us. Here are the questions that were asked and their following responses.
PushStartPlay: Would you like to tell us more about yourself?
PushStartPlay: What inspired you to make the game?
PushStartPlay: What do you think your strengths and weaknesses were in dealing with the project?
In terms of strengths, I think tenacity comes in high on the list. Making a game can be a lot of fun, but it’s hard to see it through to the end, especially near the end when you’re dealing with a seemingly never-ending list of little things that need doing. Also I have a tendency to want to learn all kinds of different things, which is a great way to be if you are making a game by yourself and you have to do the design and the coding and the artwork.
PushStartPlay: What is your selling goal for this game, especially considering that the Xbox Live Indie Games don’t get much coverage on Microsoft’s online platform?
PushStartPlay: Did someone support you through the development process?
PushStartPlay: As you have said yourself, Sector 7-4-9er supports a very silver age comic style, where did the inspiration come for that?
Also, I think the vibrant colors of old comics are a great analog to the colorfulness that we see when we look at classic games. They both existed because of the technical limitations of having a handful of basic colors to choose from. Now we have millions of colors to choose from but, as its been observed many times, designers have a tendency to just use greys and browns, which is kind of ironic.
PushStartPlay: Was the music for your game created by yourself as well?
Casey Sillito: No, and this is a mistake I made in the credits! I forget to credit the excellent Kevin Macleod, who has a whole library of fantastic music that he makes available for free commercial use under the creative commons license, which is amazingly generous. I’ve always worried that one day I would fail to mention someone whose work I used under Creative Commons so, of course, I forgot the one who made the greatest contribution to the game. So, I’ll be fixing that in an upcoming patch and I’ve sent an email apology to Mr. Macleod.
Incidentally, if you are getting into indie game development and don’t know what Creative Commons is, take it upon yourself to find out. Also, get a working knowledge of regular copyright. The things you are learning from your friends or the people who come to your school to talk about it are probably not entirely true. “Free Culture” by Lawrence Lessig is a great book on the topic.
PushStartPlay: What are your favourite retro games?
Casey Sillito: Well, Asteroids, and games like it have always intrigued me. I think the way the ships control makes those game more interesting than more recent games with simpler controls, so I put a ship like that in my game. I added the Saucer ship as a sort of “Kiddie Mode”, but gave it weaker bullets to encourage people to use the more interesting ship, but people just complained that it was too weak, so I beefed it up a bit in the patch.
I also really like the Monster Land series by Sega. I was amazed when that was re-released recently; I never thought Wonderboy in Monsterland would see the light of day again. It’s amazing what’s getting dug up now that digital downloads are a thing. Rogue-likes are making a huge comeback as well, which is cool. I think Sector 7-4-9er is, in many ways, a rogue-like where you dig your own corridors.
PushStartPlay: As you know, the next gen consoles are right around the corner, what are your thoughts on it? Specifically for Xbox One, as it won’t have a dedicated indie feature.
Casey Sillito: Its really hard to tell right now. Their rhetoric is mostly focused on the grand unifying of game channels than about how exactly they are going to support indie developers. They are going to support them, obviously. Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) as we know it will be gone for sure. I’m not terribly concerned. One of the reasons I chose XBLIG was because it uses XNA and C#, which can also be used to make native Windows games and games for Windows Phone and, with some work, can be adapted to other platforms.
To be honest, I haven’t been really impressed by the XBLIG community or Microsoft’s support of it. The writing has been on the wall for a while. I keep getting emails from Microsoft that refer to me as a “WP7 Developer”, as if XBLIG didn’t exist. I chose XBLIG because the barrier to entry is almost none but I’m already feeling like moving on. I hope that Microsoft still supports the kind of very small developers that have made good games on XBLIG, but with more curating maybe. I think whatever Microsoft does will probably be for the better.
PushStartPlay: We have many interesting games coming out this year, any games that you are personally looking forward to?
PushStartPlay: What would you like to work on next, any hints for the readers?
Casey Sillito: Sector 7-4-9er was a real change of pace from the more turn-based and board game-style games I was making before, and I think I’d like to get back to those games. There seems to be a trend of really literal, skeumorphic board game translations right now, so it seems like a good time.
I’m thinking of reviving an old free game that I made in Gamemaker called Loot, which was very boardgame-ish. It had mechanics that depended a lot on the player’s memory, so I thought it would be an interesting platform to explore themes of memory and how fallible and tricky our memories are. I like the idea of game mechanics that are in line with the theme of the game, rather than the theme being tacked on as an afterthought. Ultimately, I’d like to make a game where the mechanics inherently model something interesting about the human experience.
But I put a lot of work into the engine for 7-4-9er, so I’ll probably revisit that style of game at some point.
PushStartPlay: Also, as you know there are many young developers, who want to get their feet in the industry, any words of encouragement you’d like to give?
PushStartPlay: Lastly, is there anything else you would like to tell us about your game, or its development?
So that was it, ladies and gentleman, an in depth interview with Mr. Casey Sillito where he talked more about his game. As you know, it is already out on the XBox Live Indie Store, so be sure to check it out, as it definitely looks interesting. Furthermore, special thanks to Ms. Serena, who is a writer here, and Mr. Tom Collins for helping with the questions. As I have said before, the game’s sales aren’t up to Mr. Casey’s expectations, but it is still a very inspirational process as Mr. Casey stuck with what he believed in and managed to finish the game entirely by himself. That, in my opinion definitely deserves a nod. Also, this is just the beginning of Mr. Casey’s new and interesting career, so we wish him all the best!
So, this is it for now, be sure to stay tuned, as we hope to interview many more indie and leading developers in the months to come.
Note: The patch that is mentioned in this interview has not yet been released, and is currently going through the certification system from Microsoft.