Feature: 'Road To The IGF: Professor Fizzwizzle'

As part of a new feature profiling and interviewing each of the finalists in the 2006 Independent Games Festival main competition, Gamasutra talks to Grubby Games' Ryan Clark, the co-developer of 2006 IGF Seumas McNally Grand Prize finalist Professor Fizzwizzle. When asked about influences on his game, Clark comments: "The game's design was certainly inspired by [classic puzzle game] The Incredible Machine, but also by the indie game Dweep, and even by the classic NES game, The Adventures of Lolo. We wanted to make the game because we are fans of the puzzle genre and don't see enough modern puzzle games on the market. We hoped other gamers out there would agree!" In addition, when asked to talk about the smartest and dumbest things he and his colleague did in the game's development, Clark suggests the following: "The smartest thing we did was to create multiple prototypes. There were three different incarnations of the game prior to the final product you now see. Each prototype helped us to uncover design and coding flaws that would've seriously impacted the development of the game, and the final product. The dumbest thing was to underestimate the mental energy required to design puzzles. It took a long time to create all 236 levels! Far longer than we budgeted for. It's quite easy to think of puzzle ideas when you first start out, but when the imagination runs dry it's nearly impossible to force your brain to come up with yet another clever idea!" You can now read the full Gamasutra feature on the subject, including more from Clark on the process of creating his IGF finalist game (no registration required, please feel free to link to the article from external websites).