Interview: Chris Johnson on Expand - [INDIEGAMING]

Expand, due out later this month, is a unique game. The only game I can think of to compare it to is Antichamber. Though the two look dissimilar, they both sport a series of challenges in a minimal environment peppered with occasional bits of text. Where Antichamber uses puzzles in a familiar FPS environment, though, Expand has the player moving through danger in an unfamiliar circular environment, dodging death in the attempt to reach the goal. It's a bit hard to describe, but Expand shows itself well in motion. This interview with Expand developer Chris Johnson is peppered with gifs and a trailer of the game, so make sure to check them out while reading what he has to say about creating it.

Please tell us a bit about yourself and your game development history.

I'm a game designer based in Australia. My interest is in creating short games that explore interesting ideas. I'm currently the game designer and programmer on Expand with composer Chris Larkin and writer Catherine Moore. Your readers might have played some of the previous games I've worked on such as Moirai or The Cave of Atman.

What is your elevator pitch for Expand? How do you explain it to someone when you can't show them the game?

We usually describe the feeling of playing Expand as a mix between meditating and solving a sudoku puzzle at the same time. When pressed for pitch though we usually say that "Expand is a meditative video game in which you explore a circular labyrinth that constantly twists, stretches and expands underneath you."

It's the sort of game that is difficult to describe but once people play then they understand what it's about. That kind of statement is usually an excuse from developers who can't create a decent pitch. Maybe we're in that boat. Last year at PAX Australia we asked people who played Expand to describe the game in one word on a post it note. We posted what everyone wrote online so maybe their choice of words is better than ours.

Why sudoku? I see sudoku as a pure logic puzzle, but Expand's challenges are usually movement based.

When showing Expand at conventions we receive a lot of feedback from people saying that it feels like a puzzle game. When we inquire further people often draw out associations with sudoku. Personally I don't feel that Expand is a puzzle game. It has much more in common with dancing in that you have a series of steps to move through. In dancing you have to wrap your head around the movements before performing them so in that sense it's kind of like a puzzle game.

On what technologies is Expand built?

Expand is written in C++ and some game behaviour is scripted using Lua. We use SDL2 for window management and input, OpenGL for rendering, pugi-xml for XML processing, FTGL for text rendering, FMOD Designer for music and a slew of open source libraries for smaller bits and pieces.

I know Expand got its start at a game jam in 2010, but which one? What was the theme?

It was for a small game jam that I was involved in organising for a game development club at the university I was studying at. The theme for the jam was "Everything shall come to an end."

Were you working on it by yourself at the time, or was composer Chris Larkin with you from the very beginning? If not, how did the two of you come together for this project?

The game started as a solo project for the jam. A year later I was involved in organising an event in Australia called the Indie Games Room where developer showcase their games to the public. Since I was involved I couldn't not also show a game so I decided to revisit the game jam version of Expand and build upon it.

While exhibiting I met Chris Larkin, he really enjoyed the game and asked if he could possibly help out with the music. Over the next six months we regularly met up and really cultivated a vision for what the game would be. From there he started working on the game and has been doing so since.

And how did Catherine Moore come to be involved in Expand?

Catherine is my partner and she's been involved since I continued working on the game after the jam. She's been heavily involved in the different variations of the game's script and has helped out a lot with exhibiting and PR. She's also fantastic with giving direct and critical feedback.

How do you go about approaching level design for a game where levels are circular and can shift and change at any moment?

We started by throwing ideas at the wall and then seeing what worked. Levels in Expand take quite a while to develop which isn't great but it does give you the benefit of time to think of over what you're doing and figure out why exactly a level should exist. We think this reflected in the game, it's a short game but is very dense with level ideas and variations.

Once we became familiar with the design language we then focused on creating levels that explored the ideas inherent in the gameplay system. From there we burrowed down and figured out what was interesting in the concept and then draw those ideas out to the player.

Sometimes we'd just stumble upon cool ideas when mucking around in the editor. Other times we'd think about how we could adapt ideas from other games that would have a completely different representation in Expand. For example, in the platformer games the camera can follow the player as they move both vertically and horizontally. We then asked ourselves how that would look in a circular world.

Speaking of the editor, you're planning to release that with the game, right? Do you have plans to help players share their levels, and if so what are they?

The level editor will be made available for free shortly after launch. Our intention is to release a beta version to gauge interest. We've had a bit of interest around how we make levels and releasing the level editor will give people insight into that. It's a very esoteric tool that requires more effort to learn upfront than most other tools so we want to see the response first before pouring all our resources into it. If there is significant interest then we'll definitely explore sharing levels through the game and releasing community level packs.

What has been your biggest challenge during the development of Expand?

In terms of development figuring out the collision system and creating levels has definitely been a massive challenge. More generally though it's been very difficult for us to convey how it feels to play the game. Almost everyone who has played the game at trade shows says that it feels completely to what they expected it to feel like based on trailers or screenshots. On the flipside that also verifies to us that the ideas behind the game work first as a game since they're hard to describe in any other way.

Is there anything else you'd like to tell our readers?

We're releasing Expand towards the very of September on Steam, Humble and itch.io. So if this looks like a game that might interest you then definitely keep an eye out for us then. We also have a website if you'd like to keep track of the game before then.

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