E3 '10: A Chit-Chat With Hudson's Peter Dassenko

So after I got some time to play a bit of Hudson's Bonk: Brink of Extinction, I had a little bit of time to sit down with the game's producer, Peter Dassenko, to talk about Bonk, the future of downloadable games, and the unique challenges of bringing Japanese games into the west.

We first chatted about the how the folks at Hudson go about producing downloadable games and what considerations have to be made especially for these titles. While it's running on the same hardware as retail releases, downloadable titles face a number of hurdles fully packaged titles don't. The biggest challenge that Dassenko mentioned was determining a game's scale. Starting with pie in the sky concepts, the teams at Hudson slowly bring the project into reality by knocking off things that could get in the way of delivering the core game experience on-time and within the relatively smaller budgets that downloadable games are often afforded. His example for the latest Bonk title was determining how "3D" the game needed to be. Inspired by platforming classics like Klonoa, the team initially wanted to have Bonk weave in and out through levels. While remarking that it was a shame that it couldn't be included for Brink of Extinction, he was quick to mention that something like that gets put on a shortlist of discussion points if and when talks of a sequel to the title come up.

Bringing distinctly Japanese games such as Bonk into the homes of North American gamers can be a pretty big challenge, but having western developers like create new titles based on the quirky work of preexisting series is something else. Dassenko mentioned that one of his former bosses would describe their company's Japanese wing as being heavily focused in on the details, likening it to creating a game by starting with one pixel on the screen and building their way out until it is complete. This is certainly a change of pace from most developers here in the states experience, where an extremely detailed design is put together often before even the most basic functions have been programmed. Dassenko said that while getting both sides to see eye-to-eye can be a bit of a challenge from time to time, it's the combination of these unique viewpoints that help their titles gain international appeal.

When reviving a retro game series a lot of developers feel the need to add a plethora of new features. In some cases a series might not have been active in decades and a particular project may present developers with the opportunity to update characters and interactions in dramatically different ways. When asked about how he and his team on Brink of Extinction found the balance between new gameplay and staying true to the series roots, Dassenko commented that the core experience, the things that people distinctly remember about the previous entries, always comes first. If the team wanted to add something new into the game's design, the new mechanic or design would have to complement these core principles of the original game's design in some way.

Series consistency also plays a big factor. Pointing to Hudson's Bomberman series, Dassenko gave a brief description of a "series bible" that documents everything from how Bomberman takes corners to exactly how swiftly fire spreads across any given level. With this series bible in hand, Hudson's teams can quickly determine if a new feature has the possibility of clashing with central design of the game and create a signature "Bomberman experience" across individual titles and unique platforms. In the case of Bonk: Brink of Extinction, the team felt the core of bonk was the motion of jumping and the character's unique head-butting attacks. Translating these aspects into 3D in a way that is consistent with the classic titles was base requirement for the new title. New features, such as new elemental power-ups, could not distract from that experience in order for it to be truly part of the series.

So with many of Hudson's signature titles such as Bonk, Bomberman, and the underrated Military Madness already available on various online platforms, what's next? While he wouldn't go into details, Dassenko gave me a few hints when I asked about a few specific series. Thankfully some titles were ones that have "already part of these discussions" like the animalistic fighting series Bloody Roar. Sadly others, like the obscure Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom, will likely remain single entry retro-oddities in the history of gaming. Dassenko emphasized that when revisiting a series Hudson tries to rediscover gameplay that can be improved by today's console's features, so as long as new consoles keep coming nothing is ever truly ruled out. "Even Cho Aniki?" I asked. Dassenko laughed and said that he'd love to see guys come back to US gamers.