Old Chests, Forgotten Maps, and the Frozen North — Author Joshua E. Turcotte discusses Orb: The Derelict Planet

Some while back I conducted several interviews for an indie game blog. That blog has now vanished from the Web, so here I present the interviews in their original format. There will be small edits, in recognition of their new context.

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Thrown into an alien environment, you wander vast caverns, collect upgrades, and traverse hidden passages to deactivate an ancient, killer computer. As one of the most fleshed-out Game-Maker games, Orb has always been a mystery. It seemed to have been developed in a vacuum, and with an unusual amount of planning. It then appeared out of nowhere on the Game-Maker 3.0 CD-ROM, the only known game by its author. After a bit of detective work I managed to track him down.  

September 27, 2010

Hey, shot in the dark. There seem to be several Joshua Turcottes in Maine, curiously enough. Are you the guy behind Orb: The Derelict Planet?

Yeah, actually… we’re talking about the little glass-encased eyeball dude bouncing around a dozen or so sidescroller levels, no?

Right. Metroid-style level design. Very effuse text files.

Hah, not sure how to take that; I made that when I was in 10th grade, and rather quickly lost all my files after the shareware CD makers I submitted it to vanished off the face of the earth (trying to call them got me a college dorm room instead.) My mind would explode a little bit to discover there was a working copy floating around out there somewhere.

Well, cracka-boom.

Your game was on the v3.0 CD-ROM, in the shareware directory. For what it’s worth, considering we’re all quite different people now, I think it’s one of the best Game-Maker games I’ve played. I don’t suppose you’ve any remaining artifacts of the time?

That’s something to see; I’m almost mortified at the ‘aaalriiight’ and ‘theres another one’ sound effects, but still I’d say its not bad for a teen’s work. And no, I wish I still had stuff remaining… I’ve lost entire 3DCG shorts from my college days, too.

I know, right? There was a time when the mere presence of digitized sound seemed impressive. “ELF NEEDS FOOD BADLY” and all. I know it was ages ago, but do you have any recollection of your experience with Game-Maker? How you came across it, if you had any contact with other users, and so on?

You know, I’m not sure… I recall they were based out of New Hampshire, though I don’t know if that had much to do with how I found them. I don’t even remember how the program worked, anymore. (memory is not my best strong suit.) I know I used a lot of graph paper to map out the entire project, even down to goals, benchmarks, etc, and used these to deliver the product in pretty much exactly 10 months. Thereafter I started working on a sequel which I abandoned after the first level in favor of ‘another world’ of fiction which I STILL tinker with to this day.

There is an ancient chest at my parent’s house that may contain mythical remains of productions past (including ORB, perhaps) but I did just find an oaktag folder here (work’s yanked be down to D.C. against my better judgement.) that contains another complete mapping out of an unrelated game concept called Cube; some 25 or 50 4-room levels inside of each of which is a puzzle to be solved given objects available. I may have even detailed that before ORB, and yet here it is.

Old design sketches and diagrams are good stuff. For my part, I found Game-Maker in an ad in the back of VideoGames & Computer Entertainment.

I suppose it is possible that I saw it PCM, but they might have gone out of business before then, I cannot recall for sure. It’s also possible that I saw some other demo/half-game made using Game-Maker on those old night-owl shareware CDs that I tried to get ORB put out on in turn. I recall seeing another game on the shelves once called O.R.B., though it really had nothing at all to do with mine. Made me think of it, though.

I think something just clicked, that I didn’t pick up on before. You’re saying that Orb is set within what is now a sort of larger mythos? Also, you were surprised that the game was still bouncing around out there. Were you aware that the game was included on the Game-Maker 3.0 CD?

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Actually no to both counts; ORB predated the new mythos, I’ve just been working on the new mythos ever since; it kinda takes various human mythologies and weaves out a plausible history to given then their ‘kernels of truth’ before extrapolating forward into our future, etc…  With Earth In Mind and To Gather Stars are set in this “universe”, but one might not know that, since they are set so far apart from one another.

With Earth In Mind got written but is in dire need of real editing (before I add more by way of sequel) and TGS needs a new design doc something fierce. It takes hints from ye olde Starflight, and I see it being delivered via flash or HTML5 such that it can be plugged into Facebook or updated casually smart phones and the like (while being secretly educational and being the first real product in the setting that’s been on the back burner since ORB.)

I recall [RSD] asking if they could use my game, I just did not know how that turned out. Better than I thought, it seems… I sorta wish now that I’d handed the whole thing over to them as freeware instead.

Okay, I see. This Cube game — did you ever get around to inputting that, or did it only ever exist on paper? And how did the RSD thing come about? Did they contact you? Were you already in contact with them?

Nope, never got around to inputting; it’s just miraculous to me that I still have all the designs for it kicking around in an oaktag folder, especially after so many moves… there it is, intact. Looking back I’d probably find many of the ‘puzzles’ to be more or less, you know, young-teen level, but even so.

As for [RSD], I don’t recall; I know they asked, but I’m not sure if it was after I’d contacted them about something else, or maybe even submitted it unsolicited or based on a general printed invite (if you’d like to ____ send it to ____ sort of thing.)

That’s interesting. Now that you mention it, I may recall a leaflet or letter suggesting that users send in their work if they’d like RSD to eyeball it. That would clarify some things. How extensive is the Cube documentation?

Cube‘s documentation details a grid of 20×20 rooms, with 4 rooms per ‘level’ (looking a bit like Tetris pieces on the map.) Each level has a puzzle, some items, etc… and some of those carry over from level to level. So there’s a map, there’s a handwritten page for every level, every object is detailed, there’s even lists of graphics and animations needed. I’m not entirely sure this was designed with Game-Maker in mind, though it might have been.

That sounds pretty detailed, then. If you remember, was the design process for Orb at all similar? Orb's design especially reminds of Metroid II for the Game Boy, where you spend a huge amount of time rolling around confined spaces with the spider-ball power-up. Do you recall what games, if any, may have influenced the design?

Orb was similar, yes… minus embellishment and maybe corrections along the way, I had the whole thing laid out and a series of goals that I met in about 10 months. Worked out rather well. And yes, I did have Metroid for the Game Boy (I don’t recall if it was II or not, but the opening scene with the ship on the ground seems awfully familiar to me. I do also recall the music for the ending sequence of the game was kind of haunting… wish I had it kicking around.) Other than that, I don’t identify with Metroid really… The influence had to be rather immediate. My strongest influence comes from ye olde 1986 game, Starflight, really.

When you say it had to be rather immediate, you mean you must have just played Metroid recently for it to have stuck in your head?

Yeah, I had to have played that game somewhere in the same ballpark of time… or maybe not. I seem to recall having bought the Game Boy back when I still lived in the Bangor area, which would be 1991 or previous. But ORB would have gone underway in 1993.

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I think the amount of planning comes through in the finished game. There are a few oddities that I’ve always wondered about, though. Why the eyball in a glass orb? And what’s the deal with the plant roots that the player can climb on, with a little difficulty? It’s almost like a secret solution to vertical navigation.

I don’t recall why the eyeball; Probably came from frustration with the size of sprites in the game. Roots may have been either planned for in some spots or added later when the game physics just wouldn’t allow someone to make a crucial jump. I recall somewhere in the later levels there was one spot that really gave me a haaaard time when playing it. It was possible, but it took a lot of tries to get the jump just right.

From what you say, it sounds like you did in fact finish the full game, beyond the shareware demo. Did anyone ever register?

Yeah, the whole thing was made. Pretty sure it ended up with 12 levels. The last boss was some giant computer thing with conveyors pulling the character one way or another, and clamps and spikes and such so that you had to concentrate as much on staying alive as you did on having to hit just the right part of the machine that would set off my little ‘chain-reaction’ large-(multisprite)-monster solution.

That sounds pretty great. Muti-sprite monsters were a fun kind of headache. It’s always neat to see how different people get around a system’s limitations. Aside from the demo games, did you have exposure to any other Game-Maker games besides your own?

The one with the guy swimming around shipwrecks came with GM when I got it.

Barracuda, right. That one came with early versions of Game-Maker, on a separate disk. I take it you didn’t make use of the Frontline BBS? It was based in Kennebunkport, so it probably would have been a long-distance call. The guy behind that game was also in charge of the BBS.

Nope; I was net-ignorant back then. No, to answer an earlier question, I never got anything back from the game. I set off a copy to [RSD] and a copy to what was then called ‘Night Owl,’ a shareware CD maker… that was the last I heard about ORB till you. Like I said, I’d almost rather have sent the whole package off as freeware.

Hey, I might as well ask — before I dredged all this up again, when’s the last time that you thought about Game-Maker, or Orb?

I don’t think I’d thought about Game-Maker since I got into my new ‘universe’ really; though I probably thought about ORB maybe once or twice a year since then. I saw another game hit the shelves once with a similar name, so I couldn’t help but think of it then… Early 2000s, I’d have to guess.

Have you looked at any other design tools, like Mark Overmars’ Game Maker (now GameMaker Studio)? That’s a kind of hot thing in the indie development scene these days.

I’ve really not spent any time looking at any game design engines lately. In some ways, probably because I expect my requirements to be so different that no engine is up to it. TGS 1st draft I doubt will be all that amazing LOOKING, but if one thing has become evident in recent years, game mechanics trump graphics. If it takes off an earns its own revenue, then I can worry about making it look like EVE Online or something like that. First, gameplay.

We do seem to be passing a threshold where people are finally getting over the visuals, even adopting low-tech presentations to affect a certain style. Have you been paying attention to the sort of deconstructionist designs that have been popping up lately, like Pac-Man Championship Edition and Braid?

Granted, I do like visuals… EVE for example is very pretty… but it also has good game mechanics. I keep going back to things like Civ3, though, due to mechanics more than visuals. Game’s gotta be fun, first. And no, I’ve really not paid anywhere near enough attention to anything related to my aspirations, largely because the day job takes its toll. If I ever want to wrest myself of it and do this stuff full time, though, I probably should delve more, rather than just daydream, doodle, and occasionally tinker. TGS, for example, needs the ORB/CUBE treatment in terms of design documentation.

Portrait provided by Katherine Morgan. You can browse some of Joshua Turcotte’s portfolio at Deviantart.