@MattThorson

Matt Thorson

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hello, what tool do you use to develop games? is it unity 3d or something else?

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Matt Thorson
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I use C# and XNA for my games. MonoGame is a cross-platform port of XNA that was used for TowerFall on PS4, Mac, and Linux. I write my code in Visual Studio, and make my levels in Ogmo Editor (an open-source generic 2D level editor I created). For version control I use Mercurial. When I make music, I use Reason :)

Latest answers from Matt Thorson

Hey Matt, will AUS 2 ever happen?

Realistically, probably not. I don't feel like a sequel would work well with that world. There is, however, a lot of the *spirit* of AUS in my next game :)

I love love love towerfall ascension! just came here to tell you you're awesome and your games are awesome! :D

Thank you! You're the best :) thanks for playing

What soundfont did you use for An Untitled Story?

I have no idea haha. All the music was made using a program called Guitar Pro and exported as MIDI. I liked Guitar Pro because I only really understood music as guitar tabs at that point.

When did you make the switch from Game Maker to XNA, and what prompted you to do so? Also did XNA have a tough learning curve for you?

I actually switched from Game Maker to Flash back around 2008. At the time, the developers of Game Maker had made a few very bad decisions and I lost confidence in GM's future. I also needed money, and Flash sponsorships were a thing back then.
Flash is pretty much dead now, but I ended up learning a lot making contract games for Adult Swim. Their rates were calibrated for entire small studios, so as a solo dev (or collab-ing with a single friend) they paid very well.
I moved to XNA and Unity around 2011, but I preferred XNA and dropped Unity pretty quickly. My plan was always to stop doing contract work and go back to making downloadable games, selling them directly to players. XNA seemed like the best way to do that. I had savings built up from my Flash games and had now finished my degree so I had no distractions.
It took me more than a year of prototyping to find my next game: TowerFall. That was a frustrating, scary time, but it worked out!
I found C# and XNA pretty natural. There were a few hiccups at first- for example I'd never worked with atlases or shaders for graphics before! But I was able to build a game engine and toolset that made the workflow resemble and improve on Game Maker and Flashpunk for me.

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Hey Matt, do you plan on releasing the 8 player version for towerfall? its my favourite game and i would go crazy for it.

Hiken17’s Profile PhotoHiken Kayle
I'm going to release it soon! I'll probably just put it up on itch.io for a few bucks.
Also, that's really sweet and I'm glad you like it :D
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How did you get the outline on the characters? They aren't like that on the sheets

I actually just draw them 8 times blended black, at one-pixel offsets around the sprite's actual position. Then draw the normal sprite over those. Super hacky but it works!

How often do you play towerfall? Dont you get bored with all the testing while developing it?

I don't really play anymore, unless I go to a party and people are playing. I went through a period of depression where I really hated it after Dark World's release, but I'm proud of it now. I was never really sick of the game while we were working on it, and we played a LOT of TowerFall.
I remember at our first PAX, we crammed most of the team plus some friends into a single hotel room. After a long day of playing TowerFall with strangers at the show we came back to the hotel and... played more TowerFall.
Diving into local multiplayer design for the first time was magical. Creating a game from the ground up to be a shared experience opened this door to a place where possibilities seemed limitless and everything was exciting. Making TowerFall taught me so much. It was fascinating, and I was obsessed.

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How did kpulv get so gud at the falling tower game? You gave him ze cheat code???

When Kyle won his 3rd world championship in a row, I ran up to congratulate him. The first thing he said to me was "I don't know who was playing TowerFall just now, but it wasn't me."
So I guess the answer is he was possessed by some crazy esports demon.
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Why dont you make unlimited amount of players per match? I mean, wouldnt it be simple to implement? Just add a couple more characters to the scene.

8-player was actually a ton of work! Some of the work is UI stuff - the character select, match results, and team select screens had to be recoded and lots of graphics recropped.
But I'm also concerned about whether it's actually fun to play with 5+ players. For 8-player TowerFall I changed the game to widescreen resolution and adapted all the level designs by hand. It's a lot of work, but it's necessary to make sure the game works with that many players!

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