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Hot Potato Online is available on Xbox LIVE Indie Games, and it's creators from Potato Entertainment are trying something new: all of their games' proceeds will be donated to Child's Play Charity. Learn more about their game, using XNA Game Studio, and what's next.
Could you describe Hot Potato Online for anyone who hasn’t seen or played it, yet?
In Hot Potato Online, players try to explode the opposition with a potato bomb, while attempting to avoid a similar fate themselves. It's an overhead view, where you move with the left stick and aim with the right. Face the bomb when it's thrown at you, and you can catch it. Try and hit your opponents off guard, or indirectly by hitting or bouncing environment objects. Up to four players or AIs can face off in any combination of local or Xbox LIVE players. There are different match settings and modes as well as multiple map themes which affect the gameplay. Official maps are also available and were created using the same map editor available to the players buying the full game.
What made you want to make Hot Potato Online?
The project idea came about in 2003 when we (Jean-François Pérusse and Thiéry Adam) met on a summer job. After seeing our individual projects, we realized that we could combine our competencies to create a complete and professional game from scratch. We had some game ideas, so we discussed different possibilities and started designing what would eventually become Hot Potato Online. A few minutes after deciding what type of game we would create, Thiéry already had an idea for the characters. He took a piece of paper, and quickly drew a cool character concept which was kept for the final game. In 2005, we released our first version of the game, which was for PC and Mac. The game was solely developed in the evening or over the weekend while we were both still in school.
Later, the game was ported to the PSP as well as the DS consoles using homebrew libraries. Since the DS offered an interesting control scheme with the stylus and the graphics fit well with the platform, we decided to put more effort on this version, somewhat adapting the art and presented it at an International Game Developers Association demo night. However, both portable versions remained personal projects and were not released to the public. When XNA Game Studio became available, we started porting to the Xbox 360. The big challenge was to translate C++ code to C# and adapt any code that was using pointers. Other than that, the port went well and we had an initial version within a week or two. The two joysticks also offered interesting controls for the game where the left one is used for movement, and the right one for aiming.
What games influenced or inspired Hot Potato Online?
When we were first designing the game, we were playing Bomberman with a bunch of colleagues on most lunch hours. We wanted to develop a game that would create that same kind of frantic feel, where you would win, lose and laugh all in the blink of an instant. Real life dodgeball gave us the basic structure of the game rules, where one player is in a position of power while the others are completely focused on surviving the very next moment. Super Smash Brothers Melee was another inspiration regarding the level of match rule flexibility and how it can help address different types of players.
What games are you playing now (other than your game!)?
Thiéry Adam is especially into portable gaming and LAN gaming. Age of Mythologies currently sits in his DS while every lunch hour at work is still dedicated to Warcraft III with his colleagues. Jean-François Pérusse likes adventure games and puzzle games the most and is currently playing Professor Layton for the DS. He's also spending some time with his girlfriend on the Xbox Indie game Storage Inc. which he finds quite addictive.
Is this the first game you’ve made? If not, can you tell us more about the other things you’ve worked on?
Thiéry Adam started his professional production career at Ubisoft Montreal, where he was a level designer on Far Cry Instincts (Xbox), a game designer on Star Wars : Lethal Alliance (PSP) and a lead multiplayer designer on Splinter Cell : ConViction (Xbox360). He now works for Ludia as Game Director for the Hell's Kitchen, American Idol and The Bachelor & The Bachelorette video game franchises.
Jean-François Pérusse started his professional production career at EA Montreal, where he has worked on Medal of Honor : European Assault (Xbox, PS2, NGC), SSX On Tour (PSP) and the Army of Two franchise (Xbox360, PS3). He is currently working on Army of Two : The Fortieth Day.
However, Hot Potato Online is the first project Thiéry and Jean-François have worked on together. It is also their first Xbox LIVE Indie Game.
What made you want to use XNA Game Studio to make your game?
We felt that the Xbox360 and its strong connected gaming components were the ideal platform for the Hot Potato Online experience. XNA Game Studio allowed us to pursue that goal with enough ease and comfort to remain a healthy hobby project.
What other tools/programs do you use to help you make your games?
The game art is hand drawn, inked, scanned on traditional paper, then coloured and edited in Adobe Photoshop, Tortoise SVN was our version control tool, Mantis was used for bug and task tracking and development was accomplished in the Express version of C#.
How many people are on your team?
The project was mainly designed and developed by the two of us, but we got some help near the end of the project for both development and testing. Wave Generation has also generously contributed the sounds for this version of Hot Potato Online.
How long did it take you to make this game?
Since we've never really been working on the project full-time, it's difficult to tell how many hours we spent on it. We've been working on the XNA version on and off since the platform has been available, but most of the XNA version development happened in the last few months.
Can you walk us through a usual day for you and your team?
We might come home from our day jobs, settle in, and fire up our computers around 8pm. We worked pretty much apart, only interconnected via messenger, e-mail and the version control tool. Every once in a while we would organise a full week-end day dedicated to working together in person, where we would rapidly iterate elements that required constant back and forth. Other than that, we can't really say we had much of a regular schedule for the whole project.
Do you have any ideas, wishes, hopes, and/or dreams for anything XNA Creators Club could do or provide to be even better?
Xbox LIVE Indie Games is a great initiative in console game development and it's getting better and better with every update. We were at first disappointed by the decision to not be able to publish free games. We would still like to see that possibility, perhaps sorted apart from the other games. However, giving to charity is a very good option for indie games developers who would normally release their games for free.
What’s next for Potato Entertainment?
It really depends on how well Hot Potato Online does. For example, if we see that there's a strong community reaction to the project, we might consider adding to the current game in hopes of maintaining continued interest. Features that hadn't made in for launch then make it in time for another Child's Play Charity drive, for example.
Download Hot Potato Online today in the Xbox LIVE Indie Games channel on Xbox.com or through the Xbox LIVE Marketplace on your Xbox 360!
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