Article d'origine

Marek Okon :: Nibris Game Designer/Art Director

Nibris are one of a few independent developers that’ve stepped out of the shadows in the past year with hopes to create games for Nintendo titles. With two titles currently in development - Sadness on Wii and Raid Over The River on DS - the company are hoping to make a big splash when their games finally come out. What sets them apart from others, though? Cubed³ chatted to Nibris’ Marek Okon, game designer behind Raid Over The River, to try and shed some more light on the Polish company.
Cubed³: Please introduce yourself to our readers and describe your role within the team.

Marek Okon: Hi, my name is Marek Okon and I am a game designer and Art Director at Nibris. I'm responsible for creating game mechanics, concept designs and overall game looks.


C3: How was Nibris founded and when did you realise that you wanted to make games? Where does the name “Nibris” come from?
MO: Nibris was founded by former movie makers and marketing specialists who were brought together by their passion for video games. That's why all of our products are unique and special in their categories and we keep trying to make all our IPs something that gamers look forward to.
As far as the name “Nibris” is concerned – the question should be asked to the founders of Nibris - I just work there!

C3: Your goal for the Raid Over The River is to create 'the best shooter ever'. What makes you so confident that you can achieve this goal?
MO: First of all, we have some great new ideas to introduce to people. We’re gonna use some intuitive controls, that will be easy to learn yet deep enough to provide fun from using them. There’re gonna be some new approaches to boss fights, where you’ll have to use your ships special abilities - not only fire power. And finally there's gonna be a story mode, connected strictly to the onscreen action to allow players to identify more with the characters and the game itself.

C3: Regarding Raid Over The River, what made you decide to create such an elaborate storyline for a scrolling shoot 'em up, a genre that traditionally doesn't place a huge emphasis on story?
MO: I remember the times when FPS games didn't have any plot, and we must agree that adding a storyline to those was a good job! But seriously - most of the modern shooters are extremely hard games focusing only on scoring more points and trying to survive in the rain of the enemies’ bullets. And we want our game to be all that - but also to have something for more common players. Story mode at easy level will be a challenging, yet not frustrating, experience. There will be a lot of action, a few plot twists and spectacular air battles - for everyone who wants to play it. On the other hand if you don't care about the story much - you can play arcade mode at extreme level – it’s all about scoring points and scraping enemy bullets without any interruptions whatsoever.

C3: Are there any particular influences you and the team have drawn upon, either from games, other media or life in general, to create Raid Over The River?
MO: My personal favorite is the Don Pachi series. It’s amazing, full of action, difficult but a lot of fun to play. And there is of course Ikaruga with its various gameplay modes that never get you bored. I think we somehow try to combine action from the first game with more advanced gameplay from the second one. Though I have to point out that our gameplay model for RotR is quite unique and I hope it will be a lot fun for all the players.
As for units design, we took a lot of inspiration from historic designs. For the first mission we’re gonna use bunch of German airplanes designs from the time of the second World War that have no chance to be created in our times - but in other timeline things apparently go in a different way.

C3: The Polish games development scene is relatively small in comparison to the rest of the world, with many companies focusing upon mobile phone games and a few fair independent studios. Why is this so? How is games development as a whole, perceived in Poland?
MO: Well, I think that here in Poland there is no deep tradition of creating entertaining products. Sometimes the problem is the lack of manpower, sometimes simply money issues. There are a lot of ideas in Polish young minds but we don't have enough development teams to blossom. Hopefully that's gonna change soon.

C3: How are your relations with other Polish developers, such as The Farm 51 (who are currently developing two Nintendo DS games)?
MO: We don't know The Farm 51 in particular but we have good relationships with some of other developers - like Polish-American Frontline Studio or one of the best digital graphics and animation studio in Poland - Digital Amigos.

C3: Given the chance, which of Nintendo's IPs would Nibris want to work with?
MO: I think it would be Pikmin – because of loads of creativity.

C3: Thank you for finding the time to speak with us. Would you like to add anything more?
MO: Thank you very much, and stay tuned for more news from the Nibris team. We are making games for the players - their satisfaction is most important for us.

The team at Cubed³, and myself personally, would like to thank Marek for his time. We hope to be able to bring you more interviews from Nibris in the near future, so keep your eyes peeled!