5 questions to... Roger Barr

If You overslept the last few months or You were completely disconnected from Internet, I've got news for You - Abobo's Big Adventure is out and it's super awesome. Really. And if You don't know what the heck it is? Ok, so ABA is a flash game which is also a NES games tribute, based on pixels from original games, but with lots of new and fun content. You play as Abobo  - mean dude from Double Dragon. His son was kidnapped and it's payback/rescue time! You will kill, decapitate, eat heads and pretty much anything else, splatter the piixelland with gore bit and... have a lots of fun with spreading humorous mayhem through several NES game lands (from Mario to Baloon Fight - recreated both visually and in the terms of gameplay mechanic) and killing lots, lots and lots of beloved NES characters.

So why You're still here? Go and play!

And when You're done, go back here and read the interview, because today we have Roger Barr, representing Team Bobo and answering some interesting questions. Enjoy!

The image belongs to Team Bobo.

Hello and welcome to Net is Nerdy guest zone. First question will be rather obvious, but essential - why Abobo? Sure, he's a mean lookin' dude from absolutely top tier cult game, but NES games are full of secondary characters, bosses and enemies who also could act as a center character of tribute/parody game.

Abobo was always my favorite bad guy from the NES. He had a huge head and the angriest face I had ever seen. He was simply too awesome to be a bad guy that people barely ever thought about, so I decided to make a game where you would have a chance to play as him. Now he's the ultimate antihero.

There are lots and lots and lots of famous NES characters in Your game to beat up. In only first level we got so much of well-known pixelated guys standing on our way. But in all this madness, have You left something behind? Is there a character You wanted to have in the game, but at the end he/she wasn't included for some reason.

No not really. For every game we loved we found a way to make a reference to them in the game in some way or another. Sure, I would've loved to do even more levels based on certain games such as Castlevania and Metroid, but we still included plenty of references to them in the game. We really did our homework when we set out to make this huge tribute to the NES, and that meant making sure we covered tons of games, both popular and obscure.

Quick question about game mechanics. They're true to simplistic, two button + direction keys style of NES games, but fighting is pretty much based on fast, well-timed combos, which fill Your rage meter, which is a little bit hard to achieve with NES-like controls and characters movement - and yet You succeeded. How You ensured the balance of oldschool controls and environment with a little more complicated fighting system? 

I don't think it's hard to fill up your Rage-o-meter in the game at all really. Once a person gets used to those classic NES controls, they can often execute a rage move several times on any given level. Sure, you may have to brush up on your old school gaming skills first, but it's not that hard. We added in the custom rage moves to each level because we wanted to add in an additional feature to the game that would make it that much more entertaining for people. The rage moves may be grandiose at times, but it's still simple in terms of the fighting system. The rage moves just damage everybody on the screen instead of the one character you happen to be fighting, and Nick really made it feel like a natural part of the game. The most important thing was making sure it felt like it was still an old NES game visually, and Pox did a great job ensuring the rage moves had that classic 8-bit quality.

You've worked hard on Your game for years. You created complex world, lengthy gameplay and lot's of new content added to material from old NES productions. You've made lots of fan, got lots of attention from gaming and nerdy media online. And it's still a flash game. I'm using “still”, because many people consider flash productions lesser than “real” games - small distraction, things to kill time in the office with, funny internet freebies, smaller and poorer than true games. They're wrong and we know it, Your game and lots of other creations prove our point. But do You think we live in a era where flash games became full fluedged genre of games or is this only a first phase, beginnings of public recognition as excellent products for them?

We've been making Flash games for a long time, and so have our peers. Just because a game is done in Flash, doesn't make it any less legitimate. It's still a game and it can still be great. All that matters is the game concept and the effort that was put into producing it. A game on the Intellivision would be considered old and outdated by today's standards, but that doesn't mean it's no longer a game. It's absolutely a game, and chances are, it was great when it was released. There may come a day when Flash is outdated, but for now, developers are still making some truly great Flash games.

And now about future. You've all worked on lots of great stuff and now, while Abobo's Big Adventure is doing very well, it's probably time to think what's next. You have plans for new stuff, new projects? SNES tribute maybe :D? 
 
We're certainly not done making games. This is what we love to do, so you can expect to see much more from us. You can follow us on facebook at http://www.facebook.com/abobosbigadventure and at abobosbigadventure.com for updates on any new projects from Team Bobo.

Thanks for the interview and may Abobo's awesomeness spread worldwide!

Thanks for the interview!

You can find Abobo and it's creators at:

STRONA OFICJALNA

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