Alessandro Pezzetti Interview

Alessandro Pezzetti is one of our favorite indy game developers. He is the founder of Havana24 & we have licensed many games from him to help build out our site & worked with him to create a fun game named Electricity Bill in honor of recent energy price spikes. Some of our favorite games of his include Heatwave Antartica, Lifespan Candle, No Duck’s Sky, Plug Me,

What were your favorite games to play as a child? Did you ever think you would make games professionally?

I loved each Super Mario game I played, In particular Super Mario 64 reserves a spot in my heart. I also really liked the first Pokemon game (blue version).

As for the PlayStation I really loved the Final Fantasy series, in particular 8 and 10.

No, I never thought about making games as a child because I didn’t know how them were made. I think at the time I thought them were made through some sort of magic. 🙂

What are your favorite games to play today?

At the moment I don’t play too much (I prefer making games instead of play :)), the only game that I never stop playing is Rocket League.

In the last few years I really liked on my Switch: Super Mario Odissey, Celeste and the Binding of Isaac.

How did you get into game development?

I think everything started with Final Fantasy 8 and the love I had with RPGs.

I don’t know how but one day I landed on a tool for making games called RPGMaker 2000 and from there I started making little RPG games with this tool.

If a person wanted to get into game development but was fairly new to it, where would you suggest they start? Should people perfect graphic design before getting into designing games, or can people build great games using some of the open source art & sprite packs?

I don’t think graphic design is a must have in game development, but it will help for sure. The important thing to me is to have an unique and consistent style that can be recognized by people. Also, If you are not a good artist, now there are plenty of sites where you can buy good assets or even free ones (like opengameart.org for example).

If you want to start game development pick a game engine of your choice (Godot, Stencyl or Game Maker) and start searching YouTube tutorials online, today making a game is within everyone’s reach!

How important is engine selection? If you are good at designing in one engine is it easy to transition across to another engine? What engines are easiest to learn for beginners?

I think that once you know the basic principles of programming you can develop a game with any engine, it is just a matter of time understanding the new tool and the code differences.

The easiest game engines are the “drag and drop” ones, where you don’t need to write lines of codes. With these kind of tools you deal with “blocks” and, brick after brick, you build your game.

The first tool like this that come in to my mind is Stencyl (you can only make 2D games with this). Another tool I would like to recommend is Godot, a game engine that is really easy to use and powerful (and you can make both 2D and 3D games).

What made you jump into doing indy development?

My love toward video games and the needs to create something to express my creativity.

What have been your biggest struggles & the hardest parts of being an indy game dev?

I think the most struggles come when I release a mobile game and I need to port it on the AppStore.
There is something about the developing on Apple devices that is unnecessarily complicated.

Was there a point you crossed where you knew you would be successful with indy game development?

I don’t know if I can consider myself successful but certainly when I was called by Cartoon Network to work on some games for them I realized that I could do this for a living.

When you build games do you have a rule of thumb for how big to make the game & when you consider a game to be complete?

My rule of thumb is to make a mechanic and try to make as many different level as possible with it.
While making levels if I notice I’m starting to repeat myself with this mechanic I can either add a new mechanics or call the game complete.

It seems like games would be easier for the developer who coded it than for an ordinary gamer. Some of your games are quite easy to pick up and play until completed in one quick burst, whereas some other games like Plug Me have tight jumping timing precision required. What makes you decide how easy or hard to make a game?

My first video games were harder than the last ones I created. I think started making them easier after the release of Plug Me, where I noticed more and more people struggled with it.

Basically I decide based on the target audience that I have in mind. Sometimes you want your game to be played by as many people as possible, and sometimes you just want to make a rage game to see proplayer struggle with it!

I saw many of your games were created during game jams, many of which you won. Did you immediately place in or win the game jams, or did it take time to get to the top? Do you have any secrets for how you were able to do so well at many recent game jams?

It took definetly some time! You become better at game jams when you figure out how to make good use of your limited time:

• Create right away a prototype without graphics, see if the mechanics are strong or start over.
• If the prototype is ok start adding graphics, a few levels and a lot of polishing.
• A game jam game should be short (maximum 5 or 6 levels), few mechanics but well refined and in theme with the restriction.
• And never underestimate sound: good sound effects completely change the game feel and the perception of the final product.

How would you compare desktop games vs mobile games?  Do you see the game types merging heavily over time, or do you believe they will remain largely distinct and separate?

I think they will remain largely distinct and separate: mobile games will be always more casual then the desktop counterpart.

Personally I love more desktop games because I can make more complex things, but I recognize that mobile games have been very useful in bringing people who had never played before in the gaming world.

Many of your games really lean into a specific concept like dialating time, changing how lighting impacts stages, and so on. Do game jams help you draw off a key concept that really gives the game it’s flavor or focus? How do you come up with these ideas outside of some of the limitations or concepts tied to game jams?

Yes, themes of game jams heavily “guided” what I’ve made in the last few years. That’s because restrictions helped me as a developer to think outside of the box, finding cool and fresh mechanics that could fit the theme.

I know it seems counter intuitive, but it’s true.

Thank you Alessandro!

Players can check out some of Alessandro’s great games over here.

CardGames.pro published this on January 16, 2023