Good afternoon you beautiful people, today we’re joined by Paul Norris, the creative director of Mad Fellows, the development team behind SineWave, Aaero and the recently announced Aaero 2.
Incase you missed it, you can download the Aaero 2 demo and play right now!
Welcome Paul, its a honour to have you with us today, I was a big fan of the original Aaero so I’m over the moon to hear a sequel is well under way.
Tell us, when did you decide there would be a sequel and how long have you been working on it.
Paul:
Hi Lee, it’s a pleasure to be here, I think we knew there would be a sequel as we were winding up the first game, we had so much we wanted to do but we were up against it for time.
We’ve worked on Aaero 2, full time, since the DLC for Aaero released… so it’s… uh… a long time.
Aaero was made out of sheer determination. It sticks in my mind that an artist we considered hiring, a very experienced one, said he liked the project but said it’d need 12+ people to even stand a chance of finishing it in time.
We worked as close to 24 hours a day, 7 days a week as was humanly possible. This time round, we wanted to restore at least some kind of work/life balance.
Not having anyone to answer to and no deadlines has kind of worked against us as we seem to work much better when stressed.
We need to find the happy medium. It’s probably near intolerable stress but strictly limited to 9-5 for 5 days a week. I’m going to pitch that idea to Dan. 😀
While you’re handing it well, surely there must be a lot of stress building knowing the expectations of a sequel for one of the top indie games in the Xbox One era.
With the original game hitting 80% on Metacritic, did that exceed expectations and at what point did you realise you were creating something really special. During development, or did it really hit home when fans got hold of it.
Paul:
It was a bit of a rollercoaster. When we left Activision we just got down to making the game we wanted to make. It wasn’t until I was standing at EGX 2015 with our first ever demo stand, waiting for the doors to open to the public that I started to panic.
I realised I had no idea what we’d made, no objective view of it and suddenly worried that because I thought it was fun, it didn’t necessarily mean anyone else would.
It was overwhelming when people did enjoy it. People would come back dragging their friends along to play it. It then came 3rd in the exit poll vote for best indie game (after Vermintide and Gang Beasts).
The review scores were generally great. The people that ‘get it’ really seem to love it, which is the best you can hope for with a fairly niche title like Aaero.
In terms of expectations for the sequel, the negative points in the reviews were pretty much the same across all the reviews so we decided that listing those and eliminating them from Aaero2 would be a good start. That and reviving the wish-list we didn’t have time for in the first game.
Considering the niche genre, and standing against titles like Vermintide and Gang Beasts, Aaero still managed to stand out as a really unique and fun title.
Are there areas you want to address to make the sequel more accessible to a wider audience, or is your priority to deliver a sequel that’s more likely to please existing fans.
Paul:
Considering Aaero is still pretty much unheard of, it’s important to us to make the sequel accessible to new players.
We want to fix the things that put some players off before (looking at you ‘shoot one 16th before the beat’ mechanic), but also to make sure the people that have supported Aaero get the game they want/deserve. There wouldn’t be a sequel without them.
Okay, moving on to the demo, and my first impressions Certainly match your ambitions, The move to aim-based shooting and not so much beat-based, seems a positive one, which actually feels more challenging, but less reliant on detecting that perfect beat.
Was this a change you wanted to make or felt obliged to make?
Paul:
We noticed people getting frustrated with the shooting in Aaero. If they didn’t understand the timing, and let’s be honest – it wasn’t obvious, then they’d feel cheated when the heat-seekers obliterated them.
In Aaero2, the missiles are designated by holding the left trigger and scored on the release timing. There’s a timing bar, much like a golf game or the Gears of War reload system. The missiles will still work whenever you fire them but they’ll score more if timed well.
The new addition is the cannon on the right trigger. We felt this needed to be immediate and very intuitive while still being in time with the music.
This weapon is scored on how much you rely on its auto-targeting. If the middle of the reticule is directly over the enemy when you fire, you score higher.
That all sounds great and definitely positive steps, I found the cannon a very welcome addition, but it’s good to know timing is still a factor…
Onto the music – on the demo and the music choice, the DLC for Aaero 1 started to mix up the sub-genre styles whilst maintaining the EDM backbone, and the second track Salvation seems to follow suit. Can we expect a wider variety of sub-genres in the full release.
Paul:
Working with Monstercat has been awesome. I’ve worked with pretty much every major label over the last 15 years and Monstercat have set the gold standard for understanding video games, indie teams, streaming and all the other things you traditionally have to carefully guide the older labels through.
Their catalogue is immense and varied. There are a few tracks that are collabs with rock/metal bands in there. The gameplay works really well given the right sort of guitar track.
The band that worked with MUZZ on the track in the demo are a UK based band called ‘Bloodhounds’. I’m now a big fan. They’re (compared to me, at least) young musicians that are influenced by all my favourite bands from the 90s. Alice in Chains, Soundgarden etc.
The soundtrack definitely includes more genres and styles this time. We’ll always put gameplay first. It has to be fun to play before anything else. There were some very well-known songs on the table but, if they didn’t make for great gameplay, we wouldn’t put them in.
Time to put you on the spot a little bit, I’m sure you knew these questions where coming..
Firstly, Flux Pavillion provided some MASSIVE tracks for the first game, (my favourite 2, which I often return to play far louder than my aging eardrums can manage)
Have you got that Bass Canon -esque banger” lined up that’s going to wow people as soon as they hear and play it.
Paul:
Bass Cannon worked really well as an initial introduction to the game.
Iconic as it is, it polarises people. More than one user review slammed us for the awful noise it made when you followed the ribbon… they’d missed that it was a licensed song.
I’m not sure there’s an obvious track that is Aaero2’s Bass Cannon, because there’s more variety now, they each have their own unique reasons for being included in the game.
Okay a couple of quick-fire questions…
When can we expect Aaero 2. Specific date would be amazing, but a vague idea would be fine.
Paul: My best guess is Q3 2023.
Have you got a vague idea of price, obviously with the industry standards rising and Aaero 1 already proving great value, can we expect Aaero 2 to fall around £10-£15
Paul:
Yeah, I think it was a fair price before and we’ll aim along the same lines with Aaero2.
Can you give us one exclusive piece of news, a track, feature or something you can share at this early stage.
Paul:
There’s a giant enemy crab!
…in terms of an exclusive track reveal, I’d say you had a good chance but didn’t say much. Left it too late now to apologize. 😉
Will Aaero 2 be released on “all” platforms.
Paul:
We’ve not talked about platforms yet.
We’re definitely not going to attempt an all-formats simultaneous release like the first time. It was super stressful.
We’re concentrating on Xbox as they were really good to us before, we like working with them and it was the most successful platform for the first Aaero. Once that’s out, I imagine we’ll immediately start the job of porting to other platforms, what platforms that is or what order they’ll be in, I really don’t know.
Would you consider release on Xbox Gamepass and is it a service you support overall.
Paul:
We’d definitely weigh up Game Pass as a release option. Personally, as a gamer, I love Game Pass. It’s incredibly good value for money.
Thankyou very much for joining us for the interview, and with Aaero being one of only a handful of indie games I keep going back to time and time again (especially 5 years later), I can honestly say I wish you and Dan the absolute best for Aaero 2.
If it’s okay, I’d love to ask you a few questions about Activision, and the potential Xbox acquisition… Would you be happy to answer just a few questions on that front???
Paul:
Thankyou, it’s really a pleasure and we look forward to revealing more about Aaero 2 in 2023.
as for Activision, I’m happy to answer any questions you have.
You can catch Paul’s open opinions on Activision and the Xbox acquisition here soon
About Author
1 thought on “Aaero 2: Exclusive Developer Interview”
Comments are closed.