Post by wafflerevolution on Sept 7, 2013 21:53:46 GMT
Developing and publishing a video game is a difficult, challenging and usually unsuccessful venture. A small company by the name of Super Fighter Team, headed by Brandon Cobb, found a way to add a level of complexity to that task; developing and publishing a game for a system that has not been on store shelves for over 11 years, the Sega Genesis / Mega Drive.
With Beggar Prince soon to be re-released I sat down with Cobb to discuss his highly enjoyable, and collectible game.
You are the public face of Super Fighter Team, but are there others that work with you at developing and promoting your games?
Of course, I could never do all of this fantastic work on my own. For every game product that we develop, produce and publish, there's a small but dedicated team of people assigned to the tasks they're best suited for. In my case, those tasks generally include management, public relations, customer service, sales, order processing, product testing, product design, etc. Then, tasks such as artwork design, programming, hardware design and engineering, etc. are undertaken by the other members of a specific game's team, under my direct supervision.
When you look at the full-color manual, the clam case, the full color label and the time it must have taken to localize the game it's hard to imagine that you could turn a profit on Beggar Prince. Has your labor of love turned into a money-maker yet?
If you decide to venture into a market like this, you have to be doing it purely for the love of the project. If you expect to make back a profit that's worth even one tenth of the effort you put in, you're bound to be sorely disappointed. Instead, you should think about how much joy you'll be giving to people who, like you, just want to see a new game come out for their favorite vintage system.
With Beggar Prince, we were able to make back our production costs and retain a small budget for future projects. That, combined with the positive customer response and warm gratitude from C&E, is more than enough. In this, the experience has been great and rewarding.
What sort of game development were you involved in before Beggar Prince?
As a child, I started out with an Apple IIc (still my favorite computer of all-time), for which I programmed many dry, boring text adventures, very simplistic RPGs and the occasional murder mystery adventure (a series of games entitled, "Who Killed the Old Guy Under The Sink?"). From there, I went on to the IBM-PC where I fell head-over-heels in love with DOS and the AdLib sound card (two passionate affairs which continue to this very day!). Super Fighter, a fighting game from Taiwan, soon became my obsession. I tinkered with all sorts of games and game engines, always inserting at least one small resource or reference to Super Fighter into my little projects. Though I've never been much of a programmer, I always had the feeling in the back of my mind that one day, I would be involved in the development of videogames. Thankfully, my confidence in this belief conquered the extensive amount of criticism I received from naysayers.
How involved was the original developer with the localization process?
I came to C&E on my own, with the dream of translating the game into English, and releasing it for the first time to countries outside of Taiwan. Little did I know at the time, how massive of a project that dream would turn out to be. Super Fighter Team handled all work done to the original game in order to localize, bug fix and otherwise prepare it for a proper English release, without direction or technical assistance from C&E. The president of C&E gave us his blessing to do the work and to release the product commercially. He stood behind the effort throughout the entire process, even when we hit snags. His faith in me was a great encouragement. When we did finally ship the product, and on time, he was very moved when he received his copy.
What kind of balance did you make between a faithful conversion and artistic licence?
The original game was, in itself, a work of digital art. However, that isn't to say it didn't have its rough spots. For one, I wasn't pleased with a good-sized portion of the script, especially in regard to character development. However, even in my extensive editing and rewriting of the script, I don't believe that any part of the game's original message was lost or compromised.
Being much smaller than commercial localizing firms, did you run into any unique problems?
For the most part, any problems we encountered were not because of the small size of our team, but rather, due to the complexity of the game's programming and the confusion that often stemmed from trying to work closely with it. When it shipped in Taiwan, the game had a host of bugs and quirky behaviors. As I wouldn't allow our English version to ship until these bad habits were properly curtailed, it certainly introduced headaches for all of us. However, the end goal was a nice product for everyone to enjoy, and I'm glad we were able to accomplish that despite our team's small size.
In the manual you mentioned that you made some new art for the game -- what are some of those new art assets?
A great artist and friend of mine from Norway, Tom Henrik Aaberg, produced some brilliant-looking pixel drawings of the main characters, Prince Steven and Tom the beggar, using the original hand-drawn artworks as a guideline. These were used extensively to promote the game both online and in magazine articles, as well as being printed onto the back cover of the game's instruction manual. The actual localization process did not call for any new in-game graphics to be produced, aside from the obvious: the title screen and copyright messages.
Favorite art asset in the game?
The extensive array of unique animations for the prince.
Favorite enemy?
I have several, categorized accordingly... Overall: The Evil Cat Minister. 'Nuff said. Taunting: The Demonic Emperor, who upon seeing the prince exclaims, "Hey, you aren't one of my slave workers." That line of dialogue wasn't originally intended to appear as such in the final release version of the game. However, after I published it in an early screenshot to help advertise the game, the response of some fans was outrageous. Thus, I decided to keep the quote as-is in the final cut of the game. Every time I see it, it makes me laugh. Battle behavior: The Cactus Fiend within the Garden of Wonder, who enjoys nailing the prince in the head with his quick-hitting spines. The attack looks very funny to me, which is exactly why it is displayed on the back of the game box, in one of the screenshots.
Did you ever feel the need to change aspects of the game, or the literal translation, to make it a better game or to fix problems with the original game?
As I mentioned earlier, the original game didn't have what I considered to be solid character development, so I worked hard to remedy this. In addition, I chose to introduce more elements of humor, opting sometimes for pop culture references, to lighten the mood in certain places where I felt it was appropriate.
Did you insert any Easter Eggs in the game that you would be willing to share with our readers?
Upon entering the tomb located in the desert, the prince runs into an injured adventurer who later succumbs to his injuries. If the prince returns to the adventurer's side after defeating the tomb's final boss, he'll receive an interesting revelation about the true nature of the adventurer's afflictions.
What surprised you most about the actual physical production of the game, be it the cartridges, the manual etc...?
Probably the fact that I had to discuss the situation with so many different factories before one of them actually wanted to do things right. You'd be surprised by what some production houses try to pass off as 'quality'.
Technically, why does Beggar Prince not save when using a 32X? Did SEGA put some kind of lock-out for non-licensed games with the 32X?
It's a fault of the game's original programming. Since I haven't spoken to the original programmer directly, I can't be certain why the save routine was programmed the way it was.
How long did it take to localize Beggar Prince (once you had the game in-hand)?
From start to finish, it took us a little over two and a half years to get everything done. Upon its completion, I needed a couple of antacids and some steady sleep.
After having so much contact with the game through development, including testing, have you actually gone back and played the game through after production? I could imagine that would be somewhat difficult to do.
During development, I easily played the game through from start to finish around 25 to 30 times. Admittedly, I did take a break for a while (who wouldn't?), but recently I've been back at it again, and enjoying it just the same as before. Beggar Prince is an awesome game. People all over the place would have been going ape spit over this game, had it been released in English back in 1996.
No Inns? And no items from enemies - what gives? It made for a very difficult first few hours until I discovered the magic of the Milk Candy.
There was no room at the inn, especially for a beggar - and where exactly would you expect a fire mantis or a carrion eater to store their items?
You obviously enjoyed the 16-bit era of SEGA, what were some of the games that inspired you from that period?
Generally, my inspiration comes from my skill in creative writing. Working with an RPG can be an awesome experience if you're a writer. (That, and no one wants to read three pages of dialogue before fighting a stage boss in a shoot'em up game.) While the Sega Genesis was on the market, I had little time to play and enjoy games on it. You see, most of my friends had the Super Nintendo (in other words, they made the wrong choice), and I just had my Apple IIc and a PC. When I was able to get my hands on a Genesis, however, I was extremely impressed with the high-energy put into a good number of its games. I also warmed to the system's sound chip very quickly, as its sound reminded me of my precious AdLib card for the PC. If any games on the Genesis have really jumped out at me over the years, making me strive for that extra level of quality in my company's own products for the system, they would be as follows (in no particular order): Sonic the Hedgehog, Sonic the Hedgehog 2, Shining Force II and Comix Zone.
Do you find yourself gaming much on newer systems? If so, what games stand out to you in the last two gaming generations?
I don't care much for the newer systems and their games, because in general they don't interest me. About the only time I bother with them is when I visit my nephew. Together, along with my older brother, we play and enjoy games such as Mario Kart: Double Dash for the Gamecube, and Halo 2 and Darkwatch for the Xbox. Soon, we will start up with Halo 3, which I'm sure will also be an enjoyable experience. The Halo games have their problems, and they seem to capitalize on many features that earlier PC shooters introduced many years ago (such as dual-wielding weapons), but they have staying power because their gameplay, level design and health system simply "work". Graphics, sound and ambience aside - they are fun to play, again and again.
You've sold out of Beggar Prince twice and now you are getting ready for a third pressing, so obviously the game has been well accepted by gamers. What did you make of the critical response?
It's an honor. It brings a fond feeling to my heart that nothing else has.
I've read that you are working on Super Fighter Block Battle for the mobile platform. With development tools like XNA providing a pathway for small developers for online sales have you considered that avenue of development?
No, I haven't.
I've heard from many other gaming fans who have their own favorites that were never released in the US, like Romance of the Three Kingdoms V. I imagine there is a wealth of games that could be localized that are sitting on shelves at foreign publishers, but they are reluctant to hand over localization rights. What confluence of happenstance leads to a developer willing to grant or sell their IP for localization?
That is completely different situation from company to company, though it usually boils down the same basic questions: "Is there a market for this product?", "How much money will this potential market bring in?", and "Will these guys do proper justice to our original product?". All of these questions make perfect sense, because this is business we're talking about here. In the case of Super Fighter Team, our goal is to introduce new game products to otherwise unsupported machines. The smaller companies understand our goal, even though most of them certainly question it in silence - but the larger companies? It doesn't make sense to them, because they are generally looking at the financial aspect of the whole thing, rather than from the standpoint of just trying to put out a great product, if even for an extremely small market. In other words, their thought process is much like this: "They want to make a game for the Genesis? Not for the Virtual Console, but for the actual Genesis?! Why put so much time and money into that, with no guarantee of a good-sized profit?" Why, indeed.
Here are some previous Beggar Prince threads from the Candid Collectors' Union