Une interview pas le site Ctrl-2-Crouch des créateurs de Blocks That Matter. Ils reviennent sur le développement du jeu, son principe, les difficultés rencontrées... et évoque leur prochain projet.



How would you explain ‘Blocks That Matter’ to someone who has not yet heard of it?

William: I’ll probably say that ‘Blocks That Matter’ is a game in which you play a little driller-robot that has to save its creators. In term of gameplay, you can collect blocks of matter one by one and recycle them into new shapes of four. And I’d say to this “someone” that everything in this game is about blocks and games made of blocks.


What were the inspirations behind the game?

William: Well, if you’ve seen some screenshots of Blocks That Matter you have probably noticed that we took our main inspiration from games like ‘Boulder Dash’, ‘Tetris’ and ‘Minecraft’. These are three games made of blocks that we love and we respect their creators a lot. We thought that these games, that share some block DNA, could create something new if you mixed them up. So that’s what we did.


The trailer shows you building blocks in different ways to help you through the level, can you explain this mechanic in more detail?

William: First, it’s important to know that if you can collect blocks of matter one by one, you can only recycle them into new shapes of four. It means that if you have only three blocks, you can’t build anything. And that’s the basics of ‘Blocks That Matter’. Now, there are additional rules like “a block has to be connected with another one” and “blocks have different behaviours depending on their matter”. Some fall, some don’t, and sometimes you can pose blocks you’ll not be able to re-collect after. Yes, ‘Blocks That Matter’ is a game that can be quite challenging for your brain sometimes.


Were there any problems you ran into with development?

William: We made a lot of different prototypes of the “destroy lines” feature. Our first playtesters didn’t understand how it had to work, so we tried many different things, from automatic destruction to a “select your destruction area” cursor, but at the end I think we managed to find the simplest way to do that. Another big problem has been the real destruction of the stairs of my apartment that forces us to stop making the game for almost a month. That was pretty harsh.


Can you tell us about the level editor you will be releasing with the game?

William: This is the same editor we used to create the game, so even if I think it’s a pretty comfortable editor, you can see it, as a player, like a tool that can crash sometimes, But not a lot. If you’ve seen something in the game, you can reproduce it, except dialogs and cinematics. You can create puzzles, chase sequence, upgrade levels etc… And I have to say that Guillaume, our programmer, had added some tools for players, tools that I hadn’t during the development process like choosing the spawn direction of slimes. I’m a little bit jealous…


As a game developer do you prefer distribution by digital download, what are your thoughts on this transition?

William: Without digital distribution, we would have never played so many great indie games and we would have never made ‘Blocks That Matter’. This is great to see that today, everyone can make a game and distribute it, and it means players today have plenty of different games to play. So, ok, it’s sad not to have game boxes like in the good old times. But I prefer to have no boxes than to have no games.


Can you give us any news on your other title your working on ‘Seasons after Fall’?

William: ‘Seasons after Fall’ is a game in which you have the power to change seasons at anytime, anywhere. It’s a puzzle/platform game, just like ‘Blocks That Matter’, but it has a more poetical background. We worked on ‘Seasons after Fall’ for a year before ‘Blocks That Matter’, and we found out that it was a project to big for us. I think we need to gain experiences in making games before coming back to ‘Seasons after Fall’. That’s why our next creation will be a different game, but I can’t say anything about it right now. The only thing I can tell you is that it will not be a mash up, and it will be a game with a little bit more action than puzzles. Stay tuned….



Ce qu'on retiendra donc c'est que le jeu Seasons after Fall est encore une fois mis en pause ; l'équipe jugeant le projet trop gros pour eux, pour le moment, ils préfèrent se faire la main sur un autre jeu. Le prochain titre sera davantage orienté "action", mais c'est tout ce que l'on sait pour le moment.