Interview: Peter Sjöstrand – The Man Behind Megaman 2.5D

So if you keep your ear to the ground the way we here at OLC’s Virtual Office do, then you’ve probably seen Megaman 2.5D by now. Is it a game or just a dream too good to be real? Well we have the answers straight from the man who made it.

For those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about, click play and be educated. Then continue down for some back-and-forth with Peter, who put the video together.

Austin Walker: I think the big question on everyone’s mind is: Is there a release date?

Peter Sjörstrand: First, I should mention that right now Mega Man 2.5D only exists in animation form. I am mainly an animator and so I am not very good at programming, I am hoping to use this video to get in contact with a programmer who would be interested in working on this project and most of it has already been planned in terms of level design, modes and so on. However if you are still interested in an interview despite it currently now being a playable game then I will definitely answer your questions to the best of my ability. Providing that I could get in touch with a programmer then I believe that the game could be done in about a year from now. If I can get to work with making the concept into an actual game then yeah it will be a free PC game.

AW: So, what inspired you to do the 2.5d approach?

PS: A couple of months ago I happened to find myself in a situation where my only source of amusement while waiting for a friend was to build with lego bricks. I tried to use lego blocks to recreate the 8-bit version of Mega Man that we all know from the classic nes games. While doing this I was suprised of how fun it was to try build the character piece by piece, so when I eventually got home I started up the 3D software Maya where I used a similar approach. Using small cubes I built the character and so I eventually ended up with the classic Mega Man sprite in my 3D enviroment. After that I thought it might be cool to also make some enviroment, so I modeled a couple of basic walkways.. Once that was finished I wanted to see how it would look if he moved around in the enviroment, so I animatied him. For each thing I finished another idea popped up. I kept adding stuff to it, then a couple of weeks later I finally finished the concept that is now out on the net.

AW: Has Capcom shown any response?
PS: Well I do know that the link to the video has been posted on a blog that can be found on Capcom’s website. I’m really glad that Capcom hasn’t decided to have the video removed yet, since they could if they wanted to.

AW: What has been the most difficult part of the project so far?

PS: So far the most difficult part has been trying to find some kind of balance between the 2D and the 3D. It’s been harder than I expected trying to make good use of the 3D elements while at the same time trying not to stray too far from the classic Mega Man gameplay.

AW: If the game goes into production, will the boss fights incorporate the 2.5 philosophy?

PS: The bosses will definitely include some of the 2.5 philosophy. Although my approach with the bosses so far has been to keep them pretty similar to the original boss fights in terms of attack patterns. However to mix it up a bit, each boss has been given a new type of attack that makes use of the different perspective.

AW: So, why Megaman?

PS: Well Mega Man has always been one of my absolute favourite game series so I really wanted to try and make kind of a tribute to it.

AW: As a fan then, I’m curious: What did you think of Megaman 9?

PS: I was really suprised of just how solid it turned out to be. Its not up to par with Megaman 2 and 3 but then again not many games are. I thought it was a really great design choice to remove the Mega Buster and to a lesser extent the slide move.

AW: What did you think of previous 3d Megaman games, like Megaman Legends and Megaman X 7?
PS: I haven’t played Legends, but I thought MMX7 was a pretty big insult to the series. MMX8 was definitely an improvement but still felt like a pretty forgettable experience. Though I do think that a lot of the problems with the X series stem from the fact that the games became too cluttered with abilities, half-assed stories and more which meant that less time was spent on things like Level design and game balance. The original series in comparison was a much more streamlined and focused experience.

AW: What do you see the purpose of the indie game designer as?
PS: Well I guess that Indie game designers can afford to be more experimental compared to bigger developers whom are less likely to take risks seeing how much money is involved. I think that Braid is a really good example of this.
So for me the purpose of the indie game designer is pretty much to take those risks that the big developers won’t and to hopefully come up with some fun interesting ideas.

 

What other games, if any, have you worked on?
None basically.. Well a couple of years back I was making a small 2D game but it didn’t turn as I had hoped so in the end I dropped it. The closest i’ve come to development has probably been modding already existing games. I used to do quite a lot of level design for older titles like Quake, Half-Life, Duke Nukem 3D and Doom, so level design is definitely something that I’ve always been very interested in.

So, other than Megman 9, what else are you playing these days?
Well lately i’ve been spending a surprising amount of time playing mods of old NES games. Super Mario Bros 3, for example has some incredible custom levels that people have come up with. But if we’re talking about more recent games then I’ve
been spending a lot of time with the Resident Evil 5 demo to prepare for the full game. So I’m really excited about getting my hands on that since RE4 is one of my all-time favourite games.

OLC would like to wish Peter good luck. We can’t wait to see the final product. Capcom, give this guy a team and let him go crazy!