The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Baams Away

Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Colin Krausnick started a mobile-gaming company called Bearded Eye with his brother, Zach, and together they made Baams Away, a game about blowing up sheep. Because that's what the brothers Krausnick do.

What's your game called and what's it about?

Baams Away! Our game is about blowing up an assortment of sheep in the most bombastic ways possible. Big bombs, little bombs, rocket sheep, explosive sheep, firework sheep, airstrikes, napalm, we got it all. There are 15 unique sheep in the game right now with plans to add more. We also have 45 levels that last from 30 seconds to a minute, plus randomized arcade modes that continually get more difficult. Our latest addition was the upgrade shop which allows you to spend your hard earned Woolians (in-game currency) on a smattering of enhancements, for example, bigger and more powerful airstrikes, throwing more shurikens, increased size of your primary Baam, and more. We are, of course, planning on adding a few more items to the shop, such as more unlockable secondary bombs.

Why sheep?

Birds are so 2010.

What are the pros and cons of developing and running a company with your brother?

Pros: When you need to release pent-up frustration, wrestling someone is an option. Our minds can be strangely in sync making concepts easier to describe.

Cons: Lack of a "professional" atmosphere. Maybe not a con but undeniably it changes the work environment.

What inspired you to make Baams Away?

Well, we wanted to start our own business and we wanted to start it with a simple game in order to learn all of the ins and outs of cross-platform mobile development. We have also been creating games together as long as either of us can remember -- mostly card and board games -- this is just the next logical step. There is also the ingrained human desire to throw bombs at sheep.

What's the coolest aspect of Baams Away?

The organic nature of combos as well as the potentially ridiculous explosive capacity they can create. All of the levels are crafted so that they will play out mostly the same each time; both the random element and carefully shaped sections can lead to huge fields of chainable combos. As people play more and become more skilled they can guide these combos themselves to get the big points. There is also a lot of re-playability through the star system (one through three and then platinum once you have three-starred everything) and arcade modes.

Why develop independently, rather than work for an established company?

There are many pros and cons of each but two big reasons are being able to maintain complete control over the contents of our games and to take risks that explore uncharted gaming frontiers and concepts that large studios might be afraid to approach. Also, between the two of us we have the capacity to cover all the bases (programming, design, art, sound effects and music, advertising and PR) and since we work closely together through the whole process we learn a lot from the other person. Perhaps the largest challenge would be the lack of a steady paycheck and subsequently living in a shack subsisting on Ramen noodles and carrots for the past few months.

Do you see yourself as part of a larger indie movement?

The whole indie movement is growing so quickly. IGF entries tripled this last year and will only continue to expand. Mobile is an easily accessible new frontier for the indie studio and probably one of the largest factors leading to this growth. Arguably, every indie studio is part of this larger movement simply by virtue of creating games and art. Reaching out to the indie community and developers is definitely recommended. They are all incredibly helpful and every one of them wants to help others learn and hopefully succeed in some manner.

Sell Baams Away in one sentence:

With unlimited explosive action, constant introduction to new mechanics, and relentless never-ending sheep destruction, Baams Away will always leave a maniacal grin on your face.

What's next?

So many things. Short term involves updating Baams Away and porting to iOS. Medium term is another game we have in the works using the Baams Away engine (spoiler, it involves zombie sheep) but with drastically different gameplay. Long term is up in the air. We have tons of ideas for games we want to create next.

There are a few particular studios that we would like to give a shout out to: The guys at www.BeyondTheStarsGame.com for invaluable game design feedback, Rampant Mango Collective for helping us out in the initial steps of release, Mario Zechner of Libgdx fame, as well as Pagoda West Studios and the other Portland-area indie-game devs.

Baams Away is free on the Android Market, so get out some of that rage -- and don't be sheepish about it (sorry, we had to). Stay tuned to Bearded Eye for updates!

If you'd like to have your own shot at converting our readers into fans, email jess [at] joystiq [dawt] com, subject line "The Joystiq Indie Pitch." Still haven't had enough? Check out the Pitch archives.