Role-playing games have been around for the longest time, and have become some of the most popular games with their dark and humid dungeons and crazy character personalizations. And Izle falls into that category… somewhat.
Area Effect, or more specifically developer Alexis Bacot, has spoken to us about Izle, an action-adventure RPG not like many others. Not only do you have your own character to build as you wish and level up with Terraforming powers, but you also have the choice to build islands and save the world (or not).
A Kickstarter campaign is going on until May 1st to help with the game’s funding. Interested about learning more about Izle? Alexis Bacot answered our questions.
GameSkinny: Where did the idea for Izle come from, is there a story behind the creation of the game?
Alexis Bacot: Izle was born from incremental design, it started by the idea of making an online Zelda, and along the way a lot of things happened. We added the island concept, the voxels, and we changed the story probably 3 times. And then I realized that I wouldn’t have the time to complete an online game on my own (I’m the only developer), so I decided to make it single player for now, and work from there.
GS: Is your vision of the game today still the same as it was upon its creation, in the very beginning?
AB: Not at all. And looking at the recent Let’s Play videos, and comments from the demo, I’m trying to see new things that must be changed. We’re still in that process of trying things out.
GS: What kind of feedback are you getting from the demo?
AB: Most of the feedback we’ve gotten were things that we expected. We still have a lot of features that are a work-in-progress, and usually feedback comes from those areas. Combat, world building, interface, animations, performances… lots of things we need to improve there.
GS: Any inspirations that helped in the development of the storyline?
AB: I think the story is simple, it’s what you could call a Nintendo-like story. It’s mostly inspired from Greek Mythology, with a lot of mixed video game pop culture classics. I like to make the story to match the gameplay, not the other way around.
GS: The French video-gaming website Begeek.fr described Izle as a mix between Minecraft and Zelda, what do you think about that?
AB: It’s one way to look at it. The experience of Minecraft and Zelda are very different, mixing both of them doesn’t make much sense in itself, but we do have a RPG where you can dig and build, so I guess there is a bit of both. We’re trying to make something new, and I think we still have a long way to go, and for example, our Minecraft features currently don’t really help the gameplay that much. We still have a lot of design choices to make, it really is not a finished product yet.
GS: Have you encountered any main issues in the development? Added or removed things that were or weren’t originally planned?
AB: Removing or adding things to a game like Izle can’t be considered as an issue, really, it’s by nature something that evolves over the years. Of course, you don’t want to spend too many resources on trying things that will get removed, but sometimes you have to.
GS: What sets Izle apart from other RPGs?
AB: Our item system, which is the core of the gameplay, the world building aspect and procedural islands, the fact that Izle can be destroyed by the shadows, all of these things are unique to Izle. On top of that, we’re trying to give it its own style with the atmosphere, the visuals, the music… I think it’s very different from any RPGs I’ve ever played.
GS: How do you feel about your $90,000 goal on Kickstarter, do you think it will be reached by May 1st? If not, do you believe you’ll still have enough to work on projects you would like to add on to the game before its release?
AB: We won’t reach our goal, no. I’m not sure what will become of Izle with our failed Kickstarter, we’ll see. It’s too soon to tell.
For those of you who feel most curious about Izle, you can check it out on its Kickstarter page, on Area Effect’s official page, on Twitter or on Facebook.
Much work and thought has been put into Izle, and for those of you who are interested in more than simply getting information on the game, the demo is available for Windows and Mac.
When asked, Alexis Bacot admitted that: “Currently, it’s quite fun to watch the Shadows destroy Izle, so I think I would go with the shadows.” So gamers, get into that demo and choose your path, see how fun the Shadows can be, or if you can become the hero Izle needs.
We thank Alexis Bacot for taking the time to answer our questions.
