The folks at RockPaperShotgun recently posted a stirring post-mortem with Mark Venturelli and Gabriel Texeira of Critical Games, the studio behind DungeonLand. It's a surprisingly meaningful tale that, with the right spin, could be a movie of the week: deep in the heart of Brazil, a group of freelance illustrators band together with the stubborn goal of making a video game. The odds are stacked against them in a country sparse with indie game creators. But they fight, they persevere, and they emerge on the other side with the shining gem that is DungeonLand.
Ok, so maybe not, but the interview gives a lot of great background info on the development and publishing processes. One notable point is how strong of an emphasis Critical Games placed on co-op play. When responding to the question "What aspect of Dungeonland do you think works best?", the team answered with the following:
The first thing has been with us since day one: it’s just an amazing local co-op experience! This was our first goal, and we built everything in the game to support it. None of our decisions were random: from the structure of the game and the limited way you can customize each individual character, to the way the challenge is presented and the tension spikes, everything in Dungeonland is there to support it. We wanted it to be the ultimate geek party game, and we believe we succeeded.
Head over to RockPaperShotgun for the full article, complete with character diary videos and some teasers for upcoming DungeonLand content. Also check out our full DungeonLand co-op review.