IndieCade 2013 Preview: Matt Thorson Interview TowerFall

Here's a Q and A with TowerFall's creator Matt Thorson, who does not take any of my questions with a grain of salt and takes them very seriously.

Pleasure Matt, wanted to thank you for Planet Punch, which you did for Adult Swim Games. It was fun to gain worlds as fists. Let's get into TowerFall though.

Why the Ouya first? How is it working with them, was there really any working with them? Why are all games now $14.99?

The Ouya launch lined up nicely with where the game was at the time. I felt like I was ready to get an early version of TowerFall out to get feedback and start building buzz. The porting process was pretty smooth.

Where did archery and the love of hating friends come about in creating this game? Archery in real life is hard. My damn archery teacher was a real bitch, did you even try archery in real life?

Archery was chosen purely for the arrow mechanics, I've never tried it in real life myself but I bet it is a lot harder! In TowerFall it's almost comically easy, you don't even have to charge your shots or anything.

Playing against friends is central to the game, but it wasn't always the focus. The game began as a single player prototype, but multiplayer became the focus when I tried adding it and it was just so much fun. We've held countless TowerFall parties at our house since.

I have yet to play the game and look forward to trying it at IndieCade and on PC in 2014. From the videos it looks like I'll be hating on my friends just like when they beat me at Rayman Legends version of soccer the other day. What kind of friendship spite have you seen when people play your game? Do people get angry, so much so the cops must be called or just simple moments of breaking up as friends?

The atmosphere around TowerFall tends to be pretty friendly. It's definitely a competitive game, but I haven't seen any bad blood emerge from it beyond playful banter. I think this is partially because you're learning a lot from each other as you play.

Any special items in the version coming to IndieCade or the PC version? William Tell mode?

Yep! We've been working on the game nonstop since the Ouya release, and we'll be showing off a bunch of the new stuff at IndieCade. The main additions are 3 new levelsets, 3 new powerups, and a new playable character.

What's it like coming to IndieCade? Are you afraid Phil Fish might take out his vengeance on us and by that I mean tweeting negatively at the event, he DJ'd last year at the event.

This will actually be my first IndieCade! I'm really excited to check it out - I've heard amazing things. I'm really blown away that we're nominated, it's going to be my first award show too.