Interview with Indie Developer White Elephant Games

Talking with the developers of the RIP (Rest in Peace) top-down shooter series of games.


Thanks for giving-up some of your valuable time for a Q & A session.

1. Could you tell me about White Elephant Games? (who is the team, when, what, where, and why)

The company "White Elephant" has been developing computer games since 2003.The main body of the company consists of 10 people. The company founders - Andrey Pahmutov (project manager) and Peter Efimov (game designer) initially were in the board games business for a long period of time. Then they founded a small PC game developing company.
Now in our team we also have 3 programmers, 2 artists, 2 designers and the marketer, who helps to get the products to market.
Our programmers developed PC games since they were students. Even the degree work of one of them was a 3D arcade game. The artists have dealt with computer graphics for more than 6 years. They were the artists for GBA games, mobile games, and have also done webdesign.
Now at the end of 2006, I can say that we got success not only in PC games (both on-line and retail), our games are also very popular on Mac; and our next goal is getting the titles on consoles.

2. What makes a good game- moreover, what makes a good independently developed game?

FUN:
Flight of fancy
Unicity
Non-standard
a
Actually, it relates to both independent and commercial games, otherwise the game cannot be considered a good one.

3. What do you think differentiates independent games from their commercial counterparts?

Independent games are

For publishers – the way to save money on development and get a complete game at once
For Developers – their dearest kids
For reviewers – “the air-hole” from the daily routine.

Commercial games are:
For publishers and developers – the way to earn the money (though, they can be inspired by emotions).
For reviewers – their usual work, I suppose?

4. As an independent developer, what are the biggest challenges you face?

The search of proper partners. We try to be very careful when choosing the publishers, and work with only decent ones. For example, now we are seeking for the partner to get our newest game on consoles. We are absolutely sure, that only the publisher will manage to promote the game well and give it good exposure. But now we are facing a great problem of finding a good partner. So I am addressing the publishers:
If you are interested in partnering with our company, please, contact me: sales@elephant-games.com I will certainly consider all the offers.

5. White Elephant has enjoyed some success- what was your inspiration in creating RIP and it's sequels and were there any other games that inspired everyone during the development phase?

You might have noticed, that both RIP and RIP: Strike Back have nostalgia for early consoles. When developing those games, all our team kept in mind “Gauntlet” and “Cannon folder”. We dreamt of also making such great games one day. May be that’s why lots of our fans would like to see RIPs on consoles. And RIP2: The Last Hero – is the first step to our goal.

6. As a top-down shooter game, what sets the RIP apart from other similar titles?

We get lots of e-mails from our fans every day. Most of them feature easy control system, gaming world, the heroes and much FUN. To my mind, RIP is a very specific game.
You can either love it or not care. Those, who like the theme and idea, become fans; those, who not – simply pass it. We are happy that the first category is much more numerous.

7. While I'm sure readers are well aware of the RIP series, White Elephant games also has published other titles as well. What inspired Jungle Heart, Avalon, and Road Rush? What can a gamer expect from these titles?

We believe that games are a mass phenomenon. People play games for all their life. So we tried to make games for all the audiences: kids, women, young men and adults on the whole. New is always attractive, and we want to try all the fields – that’s what Jungle Heart, Avalon and Road Rush were inspired by. We will certainly continue this work, and very soon the gamers should expect our new games: Dragon Heart (a beautiful arcade, Jungle Heart’s “baby”) and Road Rush 2 (a new thrilling racer).

8. Both RIP and RIP: Strike Back have been released- what's next for the RIP series and what can the gaming community keep an eye open for?

The community should look forward to the next RIP! RIP 2: The Last Hero is
- a dark fantasy world of mysticism and hi-tech. Along with beautiful graphics,
It will feature easy controls, new heroes (including female), multiplayer and hot-seat.
The game will be released on November, 30. The demo is already available on our site.

9. Finally, is there anything else you'd like to say to the gaming public?

We are very grateful to you all for your help and support. All our team are always excited
to communicate with you via e-mail or on our forum. Let’s make games together, because
gaming must go on!


Thank-you for this interview and for allowing the Independent Community to become familiar with the team at White Elephant.