Guest Blog: Evan Miller, Creator of Dragon Age Legends: Remix 01
Tuesday, May 17, 2011 at 2:59PM Hello everyone! My name is Evan Miller of Pixelante Game Studios, and I’m the lead developer on Dragon Age Legends: Remix 01.
Someone at EA must have been a little crazy when they approached me to repurpose the assets of their Facebook RPG Dragon Age Legends. A remix of a video game? An indie developer collaborating with one of the biggest forces in the industry? Creative freedom with an amazing IP in my grubby little hands?
Madness.
Luckily, I’m the "madpixelante," so it was right down my alley.
I was ecstatic about being able to make my own contribution to the Dragon Age universe (see also: terrified). This was a chance to not only bring Dragon Age to a new audience in a new style but also help establish an entire genre: game remixing.
No pressure.
We started with a simple direction in mind: a fast-paced brawler where you tore through crowds of Darkspawn and fought toe-to-toe with huge bosses -- something quick, fun, and awesome.
And easy to play. Not content to only break ground as a game remix and industry collaboration, our biggest ambition may have been in planning a movement, combat, combo, and skill system that worked solely with a mouse. The goal was to create gestural combat that was visceral, responsive, fluid, satisfying, and wholly designed for a mouse instead of a gamepad.
It has always been a goal of Pixelante (http://pixelante.com) to translate the innovations of modern 3D action games back into 2D games in the browser. EA gave me the freedom and support to do it better than ever before. It took many prototypes -- oh so many prototypes -- but finally a system evolved that gave simplicity and accessibility without a major loss of depth or control.
You can run and jump, dash and dodge, and link together two types of combos and powerful skills with four different combat styles. You’ll face everything from hordes of weak Genlocks to a powerful High Dragon during Ravi’s quest to free the city of Kaiten from a demon-possessed viscount. You can mash through monsters like a badass in Easy mode or crank things up to to Insane and skilfully weave through every attack, dodging and parrying with nothing but corpses in your wake and the ever-elusive S-Rank as proof of your mastery in the end.
It’s been awesome to work on DAL: Remix 01 alongside the great people at EA2D. They stuck with me in times of trouble and supported every crazy idea from start to finish. They understand that a remix needs to have its own stamp of originality on it -- that it needs to feel different, reach new people, and carry the style of its creator. Remixing provides smaller developers with the resources to push their own work further and broadens the amount of people who can enjoy the captivating mythos of a place like Thedas. It ties together the biggest of the industry with the smallest of auteurs, and gamers reap the benefits.
We can undoubtedly expect greater and greater things from game remixing as time goes on. It’s a concept that has limitless potential, and I can’t wait to see what happens. I’m honored to be a part in such early efforts and hope that everyone has fun with the end result.
Play Dragon Age Legends: Remix 01 now at http://www.ign.com/free2play/.
Reader Comments (5)
This game is (Dragon) Ages better than DA Legends. The sheer kickassery cannot be put into words.
Problem is that it was way too much clicking. I seriously aggravated my RSI playing through this.
That's true. I kinda wish there were WASD controls or something, but maybe that's part of what makes this game unique.
Thumbs up Evan Miller, never heard of you but nevertheless whoever you are, Thumbs up!
i really enjoyed playing this game. good work