CACTUS/GAMES

That's right folks, got the chance to interview the cactus_squid. holyyy shit.

handsome lamb: So, first things first, introduce yourself to those who might be reading and have absolutely no clue who you are!

cactus_squid: Okay, my name's Jonatan Söderström and I'm twenty two years old. I live in Gothenburg, which is a city in Sweden. I've been creating games for five years or so, and right now I'm working as one half of a newly started development studio called Lo-Fi Minds (lofiminds.com).



HL: Cool, so how did you get started? When did you decide, "man...I want to make some cool fucking games" and actually learn the stuff to do it?

CS: I'd tried to do some other creative things, like music, movies and comic books, but I wasn't really talented enough to make anything decent. So I decided to see if there was any easy ways about making games, and happened to stumble upon Game Maker. Since then I've been playing around with different ideas on and off. It wasn't until about eighteen months ago that I started taking it seriously.



HL: So what inspires you to keep making games? Is there a company that you really like that inspires you, or possibly a game series, or just a person, the feedback and knowing that people enjoy them, or...?

CS: Actually, the biggest inspiration is that it's relatively easy to make something unique and special when you create a game. There's so many different books and movies out there, but when you look at games the spectrum of genres is a lot smaller. The possibillity of bringing something new to the table really motivates me to keep going. Of course, I do find some games inspiring, but I usually get more inspired by movies or non-game related things I happen to come across in my everyday life. Just an image can be enough to spark an idea in my mind. I usually like anything that's a bit weird and obscure, whether it be games, movies, books or comics.



HL: Cool cool. So, what's your design process?

CS: Well, it varies a bit from project to project. It's almost always either a graphical style or a concept that I start with. Then I just build from that and let things evolve quite naturally. I want to finish my games as soon as possible so I don't really try to perfect them nor pursue any of the ideas I'm using as far as I can. I like to keep the design process as fun as possible, and it often becomes a chore if I let it drag on for too long.

HL: I think that's pretty cool you see a lot of people who get caught up on making the PERFECT game and the end result always seems to be that they keep adding and adding and adding to the concept, until its so big its unfinishable

Ad Nauseam 2 seemed to be a pretty big hit on GamingW compared to your other games and a lot of people have said good things about it, what was the concept and idea behind it?

CS: Well, first I started out wanting to make a game with powerful explosions. A shoot em up felt like the easiest way to do it. Technical limitations pretty much excluded most other genres anyway. So I decided to make as many enemies as I could before I got bored, and ended up with three levels worth. I wanted the game to have a theme so I designed it after the game's title. I used the internet as the point of focus. The first level in the game is about my hate for emoticons. Unfortunately I've started to use them myself. It seems to be really hard to avoid them. The next bit was about text, which there really seems to be no limit to how much there is on the net. And most of it is a waste of bandwidth, it seems. The final bit is about spam. Here we got porn, viagra, drugs and money, which seems to be the kind of e-mails I usually get that end up in the junk folder. I think the version released on gamingw is the censored one, which kind of ruins the whole theme, as I couldn't think of a good replacement theme for the naughty bits.



HL: Rad. I got an ANONYMOUS QUESTION (whoahhh) "Where the fuck is my sequel to Mondo Agency?"

CS: It's gonna be a while before I release another Mondo title. I've got some things planned but nothing that I have the time to work on right now. I really like to make these games, though.



HL: Your games are always very small sized, which is something that is definitely not a trend in the gaming industry. Everyone keeps going for bigger and bigger things, I heard stuff like Age of Conan is like 20 GBs or something now, it’s ridiculous. Even freeware/indie games are hugeee, stuff like Trackmania, and shit are in the couple hundred MBs. The small filesizes of your games let even 56k people play, plus it really stands out, especially with homemade graphics and stuff. Do you feel like it seems like the industry as a whole is forgetting that sometimes bigger doesn’t always equal better? Are people too jaded, to where we just want bigger and bigger things or else it isn't "good enough"? Do you think the idea and novelty behind small, short, simple games will eventually be confined to just java and stuff like that?

CS: I'm not sure, really. I wouldn't mind making games with huge filesizes, the problem is that I can't, and wouldn't benefit from it given the tools I'm using to create my games. I think it's not really necessary for games to look more and more advanced. A simplistic style can often be prettier than more realistic graphics. I think there should be games of all kinds and sizes. I would certainly miss all the big games if they disappeared.



HL: You say that you can't make games with huge filesizes, why?

CS: I'm still using Game Maker, which is known for having problems with larger filesizes. I also don't have the discipline to make a game that would require more diskspace.


HL: What programs do you use to make the graphics in your games?

CS: MS Paint, or GM's built-in graphics editor which is practically the same as MS Paint

HL: What are some of your favorite indie games?

CS: I have quite a few favourites. Punishment, Cave Story, Flywrench, Poyo, Warning Forever and... Well there's many more, but I can't seem to remember them right now.

HL: Out of every game you've made, if you had to pick just 1 as your favorite of them all, which one would you pick, and why?

CS: Well, I was really happy with the concepts in Mondo Medicals and Psychosomnium. The games are a bit short and lacks slightly in execution but overall, those are probably my favourites.



HL: And finally, what games are you working on now and do you have any sneak peak pictures/video of them?

CS: I'm working on a "sequel" to Psychosomnium. It will be my largest and most polished game to date, as I plan to sell it eventually. We've got a blog detailing some of the progress at http://lofiminds.com/ where we've posted screenshots and two gameplay videos.



HL: That looks really really good.

CS: Haha, thanks

HL: Thanks for the interview, you were really awesome!

CS: No problem. Thank you too as well ;)

External Links:
cactus_squid's website: http://www.cactus-soft.co.nr/
Lo-Fi Minds website: lofiminds.com
Ad Nauseam 2 Topic on GW: http://www.gamingw.net/forums/index.php?topic=70985.0
Shotgun Ninja's Topic on GW: http://www.gamingw.net/forums/index.php?topic=68701
Seizure Dome's Topic on GW: http://www.gamingw.net/forums/index.php?topic=68440
Psychosomnium's Topic on GW: http://www.gamingw.net/forums/index.php?topic=67995
Mondo Agency's Topic on GW: http://www.gamingw.net/forums/index.php?topic=67634

If you like the above games, make sure to support cactus_squid, and post! Make sure its constructive and not just "YEAH THIS GAME RULES" tho. Thanks.