PAX East 2012: The Man Behind Dust: An Elysian Tail

Looks cool, except... this guy's dream game is about furries? Eww.

Good god Dean Dodrill, take a HUGE holiday after releasing this!

This game looks awesome and I want it.

The visuals are great, and the gameplay sounds right up my alley.

Not a fan of the character design but i'll definetly be supporting this guy. Amazing that he did this by himself.

Hey thanks for posting this interview. Obviously it's way to early to pass judgment on this game either way, but thanks for talking to Dean and putting his game on our radar. Definitely will be following this one.

It's amazing that one guy managed to pull off something that looks so polished, I guess that's why it took him 4 years though. It's cool that he was able to do this but surely it would have been better career wise for him to get some help along the way, he could have been underway on a follow up by now if he had.

@gunslingerNZ said:

It's amazing that one guy managed to pull off something that looks so polished, I guess that's why it took him 4 years though. It's cool that he was able to do this but surely it would have been better career wise for him to get some help along the way, he could have been underway on a follow up by now if he had.

But if this game is a success all eyes are on him as he is the one making it possibly opening up many doors.

great interview

that guys sprite animations are RIDICULOUS! so many frames! so smooth!

I still can't believe one dude could make a game that looks so polished.

Now this is a true "indie" game.

Shit yeah! Jazz Jackrabbit sequel...make it so, Cliff!

First I've seen of the game in action. Good god is it so damn smoooootthhh. Looks fun.

I can't believe how gorgeous this game looks.

For some reason, it made me laugh how quiet and meek this guy is and how Brad just sounds like he's screaming at this guy for the entire interview. Maybe it's just me.

I have never seen 2d art that looks that good and runs at what looks like a high frame rate. I need to check this out.

This guy is amazing ! If it comes on xbla i will get it ,even if it is just to support this guy . The game looks great and fun to play !

It was amazing up until the furry popped up on the screen. Damn furries ruin everything.

@gunslingerNZ said:

It's amazing that one guy managed to pull off something that looks so polished, I guess that's why it took him 4 years though. It's cool that he was able to do this but surely it would have been better career wise for him to get some help along the way, he could have been underway on a follow up by now if he had.

what is this I don't even....

There are studios with HUNDREDS of people that can't finish a game in 4 years.

@fzzywarbals said:

It was amazing up until the furry popped up on the screen. Damn furries ruin everything.

You don't have to play it you know? How is it ruining anything? It's that dudes vision, not yours.

This game is crazy beautiful.

As someone who is currently looking into XNA stuff and reading C# books, his whole story is very inspiring. It gives me hope that persistence can pay off, and that's kinda awesome. I really want for him to find a lot of success with this.

Skipping portions of the video works again :) But using space to pause the video still doesn't.

This guys story is super inspiring and I wish him the best as, wow, he deserves it!

Furries ain't my cup of tea, but the rest of the game looks very pretty.

Not my thing, but this guy certainly has my respect.

With all this exposure, he could easily find some people that want to help him out, right?

It's nice to see an indie developer who's actually a completely affable guy who is entirely capable of doing PR for his game in a relaxed fashion. A lot of other indie developers come off as eccentric savants who make a cool game but do a poor job of explaining themselves or the game very well, and don't give a particularly informative demo as a result.

Example:

http://www.giantbomb.com/pax-east-2011-battleblock-theater-interview/17-3917/

@pancakehumper said:

@gunslingerNZ said:

It's amazing that one guy managed to pull off something that looks so polished, I guess that's why it took him 4 years though. It's cool that he was able to do this but surely it would have been better career wise for him to get some help along the way, he could have been underway on a follow up by now if he had.

what is this I don't even....

There are studios with HUNDREDS of people that can't finish a game in 4 years.

This.

It looks fantastic, and from the polish on it makes sense why it took 4 years.

@North6 said:

@pancakehumper said:

@gunslingerNZ said:

It's amazing that one guy managed to pull off something that looks so polished, I guess that's why it took him 4 years though. It's cool that he was able to do this but surely it would have been better career wise for him to get some help along the way, he could have been underway on a follow up by now if he had.

what is this I don't even....

There are studios with HUNDREDS of people that can't finish a game in 4 years.

This.

It looks fantastic, and from the polish on it makes sense why it took 4 years.

AND the fact that he had to learn C# and XNA

Are people really questioning whether this game will be successful? Go and look at how many views the XBLA announce trailer has. This will do 200k easy and probably a lot more, and that's ten dollars a pop to Humble Hearts. Do the math.

I cannot wait for this, it's by far my most anticipated game. If it isn't in Summer of Arcade, ideally it would be the free game given away fro buying all SoA titles. Realistically though, I just want to play it this year and I'll be happy.

Great work Dean!

Brad can't even get his own saying right. It is said event rages on not rages

I don't understand all the furry hate and the "furries ruin everything" mentality. You guys realize things like bugs bunny and crash bandicoot are considered "furry" too right? This guy isn't making a yiff game, it's just anthropomorphic animals. Just like thousands of other games, movies, tv shows, anime, etc out there. Are they all invalid because they have something that could be considered furry?

Interview Brad is best Brad.

@MosaicM80 said:

I don't understand all the furry hate and the "furries ruin everything" mentality. You guys realize things like bugs bunny and crash bandicoot are considered "furry" too right? This guy isn't making a yiff game, it's just anthropomorphic animals. Just like thousands of other games, movies, tv shows, anime, etc out there. Are they all invalid because they have something that could be considered furry?

Well, it's all about what bothers people. I'm not going to condemn the man for making a game with talking animal people because that's existed since the original star fox, but it has the potential to be really creepy if handled poorly, ie creating things like the fanbase that erupts around characters like the bat girl from sonic the hedgehog or that one girl from star fox adventures. Game looks really fun though and I'll definitely look into it when it comes out.

I kinda equate it to how I can't bring myself to play games like Hyperdimension Neptunia or games made by Gust or Compile Heart. They look like fun RPGs, but the moe 'sexy kids' angle scares the hell out of me, especially when I had the unfortunate experience of hanging out with my one buddy working at gamestop when a duder came in wanting to buy, Record of Agarest War, the 'super naughty edition.' And then opened it to go through the contents to make sure it was all there, including the pillowcase and the boob mousepad with what looked like an 8 year old girl who was probably a 5000 year old vampire or whatever the hell those games say to give an excuse for pedophilia. Your opinion on these things kinda change when it's there, hitting you full in the face. Furries may be totally weird and mindboggling, but at least they don't go after kids so thats one for them I guess.

Awesome, much respect. Hope it works out well for the guy.

I played this while I was there. The combat is fantastic and I have no idea how the game runs so smoothly. Also, the guy asked absolutely everyone what they thought of it and seemed genuinely interested in what they had to say. I can't wait to buy this.

This guy's a goddamn inspiration.

Anyone who can say they worked on Jazz Jackrabbit is cool in my books.

Super inspirational. Maybe that'll be me one day. :)

@drewbert said:

@DSale said:

Guessing this got lost in the shuffle of the site-move.

Vinny: "Hey, what's this on this hard drive? Oh man, hey Brad, you still want to post this?"

Brad: "Yeah! That guy was really badass, let's give him some props!"

It has more to do with the fact that I left for North Korea the day after PAX East and Vinny was on leave. I edited the panel video on the plane back from Boston, but anything after that had to wait until we both got back in the office and had time to work PAX stuff into our production schedule.

So does this mean there is MORE?

Hopefully we'll see a Steam release not too long after the XBLA one.

There's something extremely satisfying about seeing a very nerdy guy get to live out his fantasy of making video games. I hope he gets ALL the moneys.

Fantastic, very inspirational.

Respect for this guy, game's definitely looking beautiful. Also grizzled Brad is my fave

The game still looks a bit too much like a furries' wet dream to me but the combat seems really fluid and cool.

I hope there's a switch to turn the UI down a bit. I don't really want numbers all over the screen covering all the beautiful artwork I'm killing.

Game looks great. I remember following the development a bit when it was still planned for XBLIG. Looks so different now.

This man is an inspiration.

jajajajaja

That's bananas. I wanna buy this game just to support that guy. Also it looks great.

@Winternet said:

How did he get paid for 4 years?

It was given a contract by Microsoft so my guess is they funded his project which also means he split some into his own personal finance?

@Dezztroy said:

Hopefully we'll see a Steam release not too long after the XBLA one.

Amen to that

Is it crazy for me to call this guy my hero?