Conga Master, the game where you build a conga line to blow your opponent away, is causing big ripples in the indie scene and if my memory serves me well, was greenlit on Steam in around three days! Our friend David Jaumandreu of Undercoders is part of the Bubsy Poochies so we caught up with him to find out more about the project!
David – great to have you here again at Arcade Attack!
We’re obviously big fans of yours and your new project Conga Master seems to have caught the imagination of indie gamers. Can you tell us a little bit about how the idea came about and also Ludum Dare?
Ludum Dare is a competition which consists on making a video game in 72 hours and it’s held every 4 months. During the month leading to the Ludum Dare, users submit themes and, after a long voting period, a game theme is selected and announced the minute the competition starts. The Ludum Dare number 34 was special, since 2 themes got a tie in votes: “Growing” and “2 button game”. Participants could choose either of those, but we decided to use both of them, since it would be more of a challenge. And that’s basically how conga master was born: a 2 button game with a growing mechanic!
How many of you are there in the Bubsy Poochies and who does what? Also, how did you come up with the name for your group? Needless to say we’re not big Bubsy fans here!
Bubsy Poochies is a team of four: two game designers, one of which acts also as a producer and the other one as an artist, and two programmers. The name comes from a recurring joke among us: we had Bubsy when we were kids and never liked it…. but we played it to completion regardless of its horrible gameplay since we didn’t have many games back then. We thought it was the Poochie of video games (in reference to the Simpsons character) and since we didn’t have a team member for the Ludum Dare, we found that one to be funny enough. The music in Bubsy was incredibly catchy though! (it is! – Ed)
I’m glad to say I was there when the game was greenlit on Steam – it’s obvious what sets it apart from other games – what have you been working on this year to make it a more complete package?
With Conga Master there were a lot of ideas we had to cut off from the Ludum Dare version, in order to make it to the deadline. Fortunately, the greenlight campaign went very well and we had the chance to add all those to the complete game, together with a few new ones based on the feedback.
In terms of Gameplay, players can now run by holding both buttons simultaneously, temporarily extending the conga and effectively broadening its influence over dancers. Running can also help to flee from other players in multiplayer and enable you to crash into obstacles, which help to take quick U turns and get power ups. Power ups are also a fun new feature, enhancing each player’s attributes. In the original version only two characters were available, but in the complete version we have over 30 characters, each one with their own speed, influence, steering and attractiveness.
Multiplayer is also a big new feature, with 6 different modes for up to 4 players, including the co-op command and conga and the competitive modes cut the conga, mortal konga or grand theft conga (what??? – Ed). Seven stages to unlock too!
I thoroughly enjoyed playing the game at the recent EGX in Birmingham (England) – what was the other feedback from the event like?
The EGX demo was purely aimed at showing the multiplayer mode, since it offers quick and fun gameplay sessions. It worked really well, since many groups of friends could give it a try and have a good laugh trying to cut off each others conga line. The feedback was really good too. It’s very hard to show the value of multiplayer modes, since many reviewers only have the chance to play it alone, and EGX was a great place to make them visible!
Do you think the game would work as well with current generation graphics instead of the 8-bit style used?
Yeah, why not! We were looking for a comical style and felt that pixel art was perfect for a colourful and varied game, but I guess it could work with any other graphical style that could capture the fun and delightful silliness of conga dancing 😉
What’s next in the pipeline for the Bubsy Poochies and Undercoders?
Conga Master has to see the light on Playstation 4 and Xbox One early next year. Apart from that, we’re on early prototyping stages of a new game, but we still haven’t closed the core of it. It probably won’t have congas in it this time, though… or will it? 😉
We know you like burgers – what’s your favourite one and what toppings do you choose?
I absolutely love trying as many different burger restaurants as I can and, for the sake of comparison, I always ask for the same: cheeseburger with bacon. It’s probably as simple as it gets, but it’s usually in all menus and I can get a good idea of how good/bad the restaurant is! When repeating, I’d probably add some egg, tomato, onion rings, lettuce and, if available, avocado!
Which video game character do you think would make the best burger and why?
Peter Pepper from Burger Time would be the obvious choice, but I don’t appreciate him walking over the ingredients to prepare the burger… so I’d go with Cooking Mama. She keeps her kitchen clean! 😛
Won’t argue with you there! Thanks again for your time David and all the best with this and your future projects! Readers, you can buy Conga Master on Steam here and also follow the Bubsy Poochies on twitter @BubsyPoochies
Dylan
