Today we sit down with Steve Taylor from Developer NinjaBee. You might remember them better as the creators of XBLA and PC games such as Cloning Clyde and Outpost Kaloki.

ATC 1982: How and when was NinjaBee formed and what were your expectations when starting?

Steve: We formed NinjaBee in 2004 as an independent branch of our contract-work-only company, Wahoo Studios. We were hitting serious roadblocks trying to get someone to publish Outpost Kaloki, so we formed NinjaBee so we could publish it on our own. We knew it would be exciting and challenging to run our own self-publishing studio, and it has definitely been all that and more!


ATC 1982: What has been your favorite project to work on so far and why?

Steve: All our projects have been fun in their own way. Our most recent game, A Kingdom for Keflings, incorporates a ton of things we’ve learned from the previous games, so it has the most advanced technology, but at the same time it’s got some new gameplay ideas we’ve had a great time experimenting with.

ATC 1982: With having hit titles that are easy to pick up and play, what would you say gives y’all the ideas for these great games?

Steve: A lot of talented and creative people are behind the creation of every game we make. We have design meetings every few weeks where anyone in the company—programmers, designers, artists, even our CFO—can come and toss around ideas for games we’re working on and games we’d like to make in the future. We’ve had meetings where we’re laughing non-stop, exchanging crazy ideas, and someone still manages to come out with a giant light bulb over his head and goes on to add something really cool to a game the next day.

ATC 1982: When making these games which engine are you using or did you make your own to better suit your needs?

Steve: We have been developing our internal engine for more than 6 years. It has been used on a variety of projects ranging from small downloadable titles to full retail projects. The engine has been the basis for internal projects, such as our PC and LIVE Arcade titles, as well as traditional contract work for publishers.


ATC 1982: Going from PC gaming to XBLA, what are some of the challenges or advantages do you have by doing this?

Steve: We come from such a console-heavy background, the PC was actually the “new” area we had to work hard to understand, and honestly we’re still trying to understand it. But we’ll keep doing it - I believe there’s a lot of potential for these games and for NinjaBee in general on the PC. Of course XBLA projects have their own challenges. It’s a much more demanding format, with a lot of strict requirements, but I’m thrilled with the feature set and final experience for each of our Live Arcade games.

ATC 1982: Seeing how everyone is into Down Load Content, is there any plans to make games for the PS3 Network?

Steve: We definitely haven’t ignored PSN or WiiWare, but we don’t have anything specific to announce right now.

ATC 1982: Other than your latest showing of “A Kingdom for Keflings” do you have any other games in the works? If so could you hint or tell us about one of them?

Steve: Sure. We’re also working on the Doritos Unlock Xbox project, which is public. This is technically a contract job for us, but it’s a big collaborative effort between us, Microsoft, Doritos, and Mike, the contest winning designer. This is going well and has been a pretty interesting project. I’m confident people will be happy with the way it turns out. We’ve got other projects in various stages of planning and prototyping, but nothing we can talk about today.

ATC 1982: Will we be able to see in the future a console video game or in episode format style game be made by NinjaBee?

Steve: Well, nothing’s announced as of yet, but we’ve definitely explored the idea of doing an episodic game.


ATC 1982: One last question what is it that you are currently playing?

Steve: Civilization Revolution! I’m completely addicted, as are a few other people at NinjaBee.

Thank you for your time and look forward to your future achievements in this industry.

Thanks very much for the chance to do the interview! Please let me know if you need anything else.

Posted by Brian Edey (Falelorn)

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