Metagaming.tv To Interview ConcernedApe (Saturday 2nd March @ 8pm CET)

On Saturday 2 March 2013 at 8pm CET (7pm GMT/2pm EST/11am PST)
Metagaming.TV will be interviewing ConcernedApe, the creator of Stardew Valley!

During the interview we will be excited to hear how ConcernedApe came to be making his dream game, the inspirations behind it, the highs and lows of developing a game all by himself, as well as questions from the community!

Want to ask ConcernedApe a question? Please post your questions to him in this thread and I will do my best to ask him!

Catch the interview at http://twitch.tv/metagamingtv

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Well holy crap, that's awesome

 

CA is usually good about answering most questions anyone asks him, so I'm not too sure what to ask him exclusively for the interview... but I'll try to think up some potentially interesting ones to choose from.

1. What got you into the world of independant game design, and what made you stick with it long enough to get where you are now?

2. Did you experience any bumps in the road along the development process, or has developing Stardew Valley been more of a hobby than a job?

3. Do you ever regret choosing to work on Stardew Valley as a one-man indie team, or does that make it more enjoyable for you? The coding, the art, the music, the writing and everything else involved seems overwhelming for just one person.

4. What convinced you to sign on with Chucklefish as your publisher, and do you get anything out of the partnership beyond free marketing and web support?

5. What games are you most looking forward to the release of in the near future, aside from your own of course?

6. What would you say the most significant differences are between your game and the average Harvest Moon game?

7. Practically every single game in this genre strictly only allows heterosexual relationships. What made you decide to buck the trend? Have you received any crticism for allowing homosexual relationships?

8. What games would you most say inspired Stardew Valley, aside from Harvest Moon? It seems to have some Animal Crossing elements to it, for example.

9. What are some ideas for Stardew Valley that you axed early on, or things you want to do but seem impossible to impliment well?

10. Do you have any ideas for what sort of game you would like to make after Stardew Valley? A sequel for it with the team from Chucklefish perhaps, or something entirely different?

11. Will the singleplayer experience at all be diminished as a result of adding in co-op functionality? Mechanics that will be too difficult to impliment with multiplayer in mind, for example.

12. What's the first thing you're going to do once Stardew Valley is complete and any major bugs are worked out, once the money starts rolling in? Large house, new car, exotic vacation, or finally devote some time to all the games you missed out on while working on your game?

 

Wow, such an amazing list of questions And well thought out ones as well! Thanks!

 

I'd like to ask...

1. Since you named Sim City, Harvest Moon, Terraria, and Minecraft as your influences, I'd like to know separately what are your favorite parts about each of those games?

2. I am totally enamored with the idea of Harvest Sprites and the Harvest Goddess from HM. I know that would be pretty much plagiarism to include in your game, but I'm wondering if you are planning any minor "magic" themes in your game?

3. What is your programming background? Is this your day job?

peace

 

My question would be...

You've taken on the epic task of creating a game by yourself, what advice would you give to a person who like you, wants to create their dream game, but has little experience as a developer?

 

Questions:

• Can you give us any details at this point on how modding will be done (tools, API, config modifications)?
• What can be modded and which things can't be modded?
• Is piracy a concern for you?
• Are there any sizable monsters in the game, or just the small monsters we've seen so far? What about bosses?

 

Just to remind everyone, this happens tomorrow!

So put those reminders on and dont miss out!

Also great questions guys! Will make sure to get them into the show! It seems Hollow has the whole interview worked out for us, thanks!

 

Does that mean only Hollow's questions will be asked? Nobody else's? :/

peace

 

No definitely not! Many of his questions are such that they will be asked in one form or another during the interview. The show will be divided into, lets say 3 segments. First we get to know him, then we talk about the game, then we ask the community questions.

The idea behind our interviews, is for them to feel more relaxed and laid back. So that you, the viewers and fans, get to know the guy behind the game a bit more. While also finding out some interesting stuff about the game you are waiting for to play.

Im hoping you will enjoy it. And I hope this answered your question.

 

I had some questions I prepared in hope I would be able to do an interview for my website, but as I'm putting my website down, so the questions may finish their lives here :

- How many kind of crops do you have so far in the game ? How many kinds do you expect there will be at release (approximatly of course).

- Same question with farming animals ?

- The game has many aspects, farming, building, gathering, NPC social interactions, cave exploring and fighting, fishing, etc... is one aspect the core game while others are "a bonus", or you would say the game is all those aspects at the game ? (in short is farming for example more developed than the others

- The game feels like you could build a whole village with many players, having 4 players CO-OP is already awesome, but why stop there and not have whole dedicated servers available with more players ? If it's only a technical aspect would you consider go in this direction after release if the game does well ? (and we know how servers in this kind of games can help the success of a game)

- Do you already have ideas that won't make it for release, but you would like to see in later upgrades ?

- Following the first question / almost the same, do you already know how you want to follow up with updates for the game ? (monthly updates / mostly fixes / dlc / else ..).

- the limitation of Terraria or Minecraft (which influenced this game from what I read in one other interview) came from their lack of goals and lack of "high end content" (Terraria half fixed this with 1.1 but there is nothing to do once you completed it). What is your take on this.

 

We are live now

 

So suppose we suck and completely missed the livestream... is there going to be a video uploaded somewhere?

 

You dont suck because you missed it! Things happen and sometimes it hard to catch something on a certain time.

Youtube is currently processing the video, and once its done it will be available on our channel! Subscribe to it and youll get notified each time we upload something new

youtube.com/metagamingtv

 

Cool!

 

And here it is, up on youtube!

 

Thank you for the interview ConcernedApe and thank you Scream112 for doing it. A little feedback for next time, Scream112: Don't interrupt so much There were quite a few times that CA started into a long answer and you would interrupt and/or change the subject, leaving that question unanswered. That will hopefully become more natural as you do more of this type of stuff

peace

 

Great show! I agree with DJ, though. Let the person talk as long as they need, and feel free to take a moment to think about what you want to ask the person before you do. Sometimes you got a little flustered and stuttered a bit with 'um's and 'uh's, but it wasn't too bad. Nice job, and good work from both ConcernedApe and Scream.

 

Great show. Glad all the questions where asked, this is rare, so it's really awesome. Will be sure to follow this show again.

 

Thanks for all the feedback guys! Im looking through it all again as it is easier then to see what I did wrong and what needs improvements. This was our 2nd time doing it, and it sure does feel a whole lot different having that camera on, compared to when I did web radio. But at the same time its very exciting. And I hope we can deliver more fantastic people from the indie-sceen.

Glad you liked it and that we got through all of your questions.