There were many developers featured at PAX East’s Indie Megabooth. One of them, Renegade Kid, was there to promote the Wii U version of Mutant Mudds, Mutant Mudds Deluxe, and the new ATV Wild Ride 3D. After playing a race or two, Jools Watsham let me play what he called an “atmospheric demo” of his new first-person shooter Cult County.
It seemed like I was in a desert, with sand constantly pushing into my face. I could walk around an enclosed area that kept me close to a house surrounded by tombstones. It did a good job to get the atmosphere down, but I wanted to know more about the newly announced game.
Jared: How’s your time been here at PAX East?
Watsham: It’s been awesome. We’ve been very, very busy. We’ve had a really good response to Mutant Mudds, ATV, and Cult County.
J: Mutant Mudds is supposed to be featured in that 3DS sale, right? Is that happening right now?
W: Yes, actually! Yesterday [March 22, 2013] is when it started, and it’s down to $5.99 [USD].
J: So yesterday, Cult County was announced. What’s the premise of that?
W: Well, it’s a first-person survival horror game. It is based in a west Texas town, and as the name suggests, there might be a cult. You get there, you learn things about what’s going on. Honestly, there’s a fair share of you dying and you killing things with various melee and projectile weaponry.
J: I was able to take a guess with walking around holding a wrench.
W: Yes, you can bludgeon people. Yes, absolutely.
J: And there were some words written on the doors?
W: There are some questionable things going on in town. The way we’re approaching it—which is really exciting for us because of the way the eShop allows us to release it as episodes—the first episode will be a four-ish-hour experience. Each episode will vary in length and end with a cliffhanger. It’s like a TV show where you tune in where each chapter will continue the story over as many episodes as we can. We have the first two seasons figured out, which is three episodes per season, so that’s six that we have planned out in terms of story.
J: Now, there’s also another title in development. Is there any information you can give us here at PAX East about Treasurenauts?
W: It’s going to be for the 3DS, potentially for the Wii U, and from what I can say right now is that it’s 2D, and it’s using Mudd‘s engine.
J: How has your overall experience been with developing for Nintendo consoles?
W: It’s been wonderful, it really has. I really enjoy working with everyone there. Because honestly, everyone is happy there. Mutant Mudds was our first experience with that, working with Nintendo as a “publisher” for say [sic].
J: It looks like you guys are switching it up. Mutant Mudds obviously has its own look. ATV Wild Ride 3D is completely different. Cult County looks like it’s switching it up again. Is this just trying to get as much as you can out there, or are you trying to provide different experiences for players? What’s your overall goal with each game that you’re coming out with?
W: It’s as simple as we really like to play different types of games, so we like to make different types of games. It’s really as simple as that. Some developers might fit into one genre and they focus and keep going and that’s awesome. But for us maybe we’re just a little more ADD, we like to do different games.
We started off doing Dementium on the DS, and that was the first FPS that we ever made from scratch. And then, the same thing with Mutant Mudds—we’d never done that before, but we really wanted to. Same thing with ATV. I loved playing Pure on the [Xbox] 360. Why doesn’t it exist in my hands? It’s our personal desire to play those types of games, and if they don’t exist, then let’s do that!
And we like challenge. It’s nice to challenge ourselves to do something that is difficult and new. And hopefully, we’ve been doing a good job with that.
Are you excited for Cult County and Treasurenauts? Let us know in the comments!
