Do you wish you could play God with the galaxy? Do you lack the skills necessary to adsorb asteroids and fling around planets? Well, then, my indie gaming friend, Jay Watts has made Solar 2 which may be just the game for you.

"Instead of seeing stars in the background, shooting asteroids or living on planets, Solar 2 has you actually playing as stars, planets and asteroids," Watts explained. "It puts you into a vast physics sandbox universe with no boundaries where you can smash about or grow or whatever."

Solar 2 is the sequel to Watts' Solar (2009, Xbox Live Indie Channel), which was, as he describes, "a huge hit."

"I could write a novel on how the Solar concept has evolved," Watts explained. "The simple, streamlined, addictive gameplay took dozens of design iterations to get to. I played with many, many ideas before finally settling on what I have now."

There, he had to go and mention evolution. That means we now need to go back and find out about his past.

His Past

"Like any respectable developer these days I certainly grew up with games," Watts said. "I played RTS (real-time strategy) games on my computer like Age of Empires and Stronghold. And I had a Nintendo 64 where I played all the popular games like Super Mario 64, Ocarina of Time, Goldeneye 007, Perfect Dark and more. But, I didn't get into the development side until much later in life. I really enjoyed science and it was what I entirely focused on in High School."

"I went to University (in Australia) to get a degree in Biotechnology - think genetic engineering" continued Watts. "It was only after I was well into my degree that I picked up Flash programming on the side and found I really enjoyed it. I kept teaching myself and I got better and better. I discovered Microsoft XNA, developed Solar 1 and it was a huge hit. I decided after I finished (college) to continue with making games since I enjoyed it so much and I've done so well it's now my full-time career. I've never been educated or trained in programming or game development, I've never worked in the industry or anything and I've only been making games for a few years. You wouldn't believe that seeing where I am today, indie game dev is just the perfect fit for me."

And, naturally, a game developer has to start somewhere.


"First game I made was well before I properly got into game dev, it was a little school project in Grade 10," recounted Watts. "I made a basic little shooter where you played as a maggot shooting a boot, anvil and brick to protect lots of little maggots. Made with HTML and JavaScript. I have a few more little games I made in Flash but none of these were ever finished. The first game I ever released was Solar 1."

Watts also tried his hand at a few more oddball games including Unplugged (Xbox Live), a game where you shoot food to prevent it from going down a drain.

"That game was a reality check. Players might not like these weird ideas as much as I do," said Watts. "My future games will be much more careful to be interesting to players as well as weird and unusual."

His Present

His current project, Solar 2 (PC) will be available later this month (mid June 2011) on Steam, then later Xbox Live Arcade and online. The game was also a semi-finalist in indiePub's 2011 Independent Propeller Awards.

"Solar 2 is virtually complete at this point," Watts said. "I'm mainly just fixing bugs, doing minor tweaks and adding secrets and other cool things that I think of. Also getting ready to do some marketing."

The game is primarily a solo project with the exception of the music by JP Neufeld, which Watts said he commissioned because, as he put it, there was "no way I could do music as good as he can." As for the look of the game, Watts balanced his skills and abilities to find a happy medium.

"I carefully designed Solar 2 to make the most of my limited graphical skills," said Watts. "That was actually how the idea was first conceived, because I could draw a nice planet. Working on my own has allowed me to make all aspects of the game seamlessly work together and be greater than the sum of its parts. However for future games I will probably work with an artist, as there are many game ideas I'd like to make that I just can't do myself."

His Future

Speaking of future projects, Watts said he's primarily concentrating on Solar 2 but does have a yet-to-be-released game called Mind Over Metal he'd like to finish, a few Flash games and some ideas he'd like to "play with." I'm guessing he'll avoid cheese as primary game characters (at least for a while).

"The way I think about game design is creating worlds," Watts quite appropriately said. "Create a complex world with rules that people can think about and apply to the gameplay. Create background stories, create reasons for everything to be like it is, it'll make the world far more believable and immersive. I like to think of an original idea or gameplay mechanic, build a world around it, then merge the gameplay into that world as seamlessly as possible to create something very immersive that people can really latch onto and think about."

That mentality may be what is keeping Watts in the indie game scene instead of pursuing a career with a larger game company.

"...I am an ideas man and I want to see my ideas made into games," Watts said. "I wouldn't mind working for a studio but I couldn't do it as just a basic programmer. It would be a huge waste of my talents and I'd just get frustrated and quit. If I could somehow through some witchcraft or black-magic get a more management position in a talented studio - without going through the lower ranks where I'd just quit because I wouldn't be able to stand not having any control over the project - then I could make some truly stunning games."

Jay Watts' Advice for Developers

"Simple. Find what you enjoy doing and keep doing it! If you enjoy it then you'll do it more. If you do it more you'll get better at it.

Doesn't matter what it is, you could enjoy doing design, character modeling, a specific part of programming, whatever.

Don't try and force yourself to do something you don't enjoy, because you wouldn't be good at it and your game will suffer because of it.

Either limit your game design to things you do enjoy doing (like I did) or get on a team where you can contribute just the part you enjoy and can do well.

All to often do I see games with very obvious weaknesses that just ruin it, no matter how good the rest of it is. If you can't do it, design your game so you don't have to do it or get someone on your team to do it for you instead."

SEE: Solar 2 @ indiePub
SITE: Murudai