[Exclusive interview] Shoot and rotate in the fast-paced bullet hell shooter Roto Force!
Roto Force, the pixel-style bullet hell shooter, has officially released this week on mobile and PC. Developed by an indie solo dev and published by specialized indie game publisher PID Games, Roto Force has gone through multiple stages starting from a game jam entry at the very beginning. This time, we're super happy to have Anton Klinger, the dev of Roto Force, for an exclusive interview, to talk about the game and the story behind it.
33563435Q1: Nice to meet you! For those TapTap players who don’t know much about Roto Force, could you please briefly introduce the game? What can be expected from Roto Force?
🙋♂️Anton Klinger: Hi, nice to meet you too! Roto Force is a fast-paced bullet hell shooter set in a rotating world. The player moves along the edge of the stages, which rotate according to the player's movement. It's about fighting lots of bosses while dodging hundreds of bullets.
It's meant to be challenging and short and to the point. One will unlock various weapons that provide different playstyles to give more options when approaching each boss fight. There also is a dash move that allows you to quickly jump around and dodge attacks.
Q2: The very prototype of Roto Force actually came from a game jam, with the name Pixel Soldier. Could you share with us more about that particular experience? How was the original idea born in the first place?
🙋♂️Anton Klinger: The original game jam version was made within a week, for the GameBoy Jam #5 in 2016. The constraints were to make a game with the resolution of the original Gameboy (160x144 pixels) and using only 4 colors. I personally also restricted myself to the GameBoy control scheme, so a d-pad and two primary buttons.
At the time I had watched the very inspirational game design talk "The art of screenshake" by JW (Jan Willem Nijman), and my goal was to use this project as a practice, to apply all the tips and tricks he shared in that talk. So I started from a plain side-scrolling run & gun design, but instead of having a jump button, I decided to have the player jump across the screen, sticking to the ceiling and walls, inspired by the game Alien Soldier on the Mega Drive (which also inspired the initial name).
And I knew I wanted it to be about boss fights from the very beginning.
The music for the jam version was actually made in a single night, after I messaged Florian a few hours before the deadline, asking him if he would like to compose some music for the game.
I would love to say we are now better at time management and project management, but I'm not so sure about that.
Q3: From Pixel Soldier to Roto Force, it’s really been a long way. What’s the thing about Pixel Soldier that made you decide to upgrade it to Roto Force, a full game?
🙋♂️Anton Klinger: At first it was just meant to be a slight update to the jam game. Then some people suggested I should try to sell the game, and I thought that would be a nice practice, because I've only made free games before that. But if I'm gonna charge for it, the game should be larger, I thought, so the scope expanded. At one point I added the rotating camera mode, and I just knew that was how the game was meant to be played. The name change just happened naturally at one point, when it became apparent that the old name was a bit too generic and didn't fit what it had become anymore.
There were a few features that I initially didn't want to include, to keep the scope manageable, like e.g. multiple weapons. But then, despite knowing better, I added them as an experiment, and as expected it turned out to be a lot of fun to play around with but I couldn't bring myself to remove them again.
Each new feature addition opens up many more possibilities and it is very tempting to explore all those possibilities.
It's very easy to come up with ideas, but it can be hard to say "no" to implementing them.
I was usually thinking in terms of, "What do I still need to add to make this feel complete" rather than "What half-finished features should I cut, so that what I already have is a well-rounded package". This caused development to spiral a bit out of control, but eventually, I did manage to cut stuff so that I was finally able to bring it to the finish line.
Q4: From the trailer and the gameplay videos, the drum 'n' bass music in the game is really impressive (which to me, fits perfectly with the game’s fast-paced vibe). Anything interesting to share on this specific topic?
🙋♂️Anton Klinger: The music was made by my good friend Florian Kager (who goes by DJ Cpt. Rudy), who had a lot of freedom in composing the soundtrack. He likes to experiment with various styles and I think that's neat.
Sometimes he just nails a track on his first attempt and it's magical. Other tracks have had many iterations and it can feel exhausting to never get them just right, but I guess that's just how it is sometimes.
Not the whole game has fast-paced tracks, the music during stages is usually just a bit more chill and relaxed, which gives the boss tracks more impact.
Q5: On the Steam page of Roto Force, you say that in terms of “what’s not in the game”, there will not be “more than 4 colors at a time”, which was partly due to the restrictions of that Game Boy Jam (the number of colors is limited to 4) back in the old days. In the official version of Roto Force, what kind of changes and improvements have been made from the jam version in terms of graphic style and visuals?
🙋♂️Anton Klinger: Well, I've tried to stick true to that constraint throughout development, and almost managed that, but there is a tiny exception in the mobile version (to allow the half-transparent input overlay). The biggest change is certainly the dynamic colors, while the game always only shows 4 colors at a time, the colors change constantly depending on the player's health, strong boss attacks, and what stage you are on (This of course can be disabled in the options too).
All the sprites and animations are massively improved, the original barely had any, so this is not really a big surprise. While I did all the art initially myself, I commissioned some talented pixel art freelancers over the years to help with the more intricate and complex stuff and I think that was really worth it.
The addition of outlines to almost everything was a very recent decision to improve visibility throughout the game, as keeping track of all threats is very important of course.
Q6: Roto Force is a bullet hell twin-stick shooter. What do you think is the most attractive point in terms of gameplay that makes the game stand out from others in the same bullet hell genre?
🙋♂️Anton Klinger: Uhm ... this is actually hard for me to answer because I don't really play many games in that genre. Twin-Stick bullet hell shooters often tend to be roguelikes it seems, which Roto Force is not. I like to think of it as a run & gun with bullet hell elements that happen to be twin-stick.
The obvious answer to the question would of course be the unique movement mechanics that arise from the rotating gameplay. Another thing to highlight is the generous accessibility options, allowing players to customize various parameters directly, like game speed and damage multipliers. These can make it easier for newcomers to get into it.
Q7: Thanks for taking this interview. Any additional suggestions for players that are gonna try Roto Force?
🙋♂️Anton Klinger: Not really, just enjoy the game the way you want. Make sure to look into the options and explore the settings that are available. There even is an option to disable the rotating camera and have the level stay fixed, with various options to configure how the controls work in that mode. I'm happy to add more options if anyone is missing something.
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