HOMEBREW HEROES Patrick Nevian’s Amiga games set in the world of Gorluth have previously been RPGS, but the next one, Heroes Of Gorluth, is going to be a platformer. We went on a fetch quest with him to find out why
What have been the inspirations for Heroes Of Gorluth?
I have to admit that at first I didn’t want to develop another action RPG for the Amiga. Tales Of Gorluth I and its sequel required a lot of work and patience due to the Zelda-style gameplay. But I still had some ideas in mind for a third part.
In December 2017 I stumbled over some cool platformer tilesets and they gave the final inspiration for the Gorluth spin-off.
How many people are involved in the game’s development?
It’s basically only me. I licensed the tilesets and sprites and converted them carefully via Paint for my Amiga game.
So, of course, I am also responsible for the game design, the soundtrack/sound effects, additional graphics and the storyline.
Recently, I contacted Ozan from the demoscene group Desire. He will contribute some cutscene pictures. And roughly how long does something like Heroes Of Gorluth take to create?
I set a personal schedule for one year. So the final game will be finished in December 2018. I’m well within the time schedule and hopefully there are no major bugs encountered in the future.
I’m currently working on a town level and an underground section below this village. After that there are three worlds left – forest, winter, stronghold – and each world consists of three to four levels.
The gameplay has changed from previous instalments, where did the idea for that come from?
Well, Tales Of Gorluth I and Tales Of Gorluth II heavily focused on complex storytelling and lots of text.
I love games like Cadash on the Mega Drive, though, and I think this kind of gameplay also fits into the Gorluth universe. So I decided to come along with a more actionoriented approach.
Another reason: platformers are much easier to develop and so I’ll combine riddles and conversations from RPG’S and adventure games with traditional side-scrolling action.
And finally, do you have any future games our readers would be interested in?
I’m also working on a game called Oh No! More Aliens! for Ares Computer. It is progressing slowly though, due to real life things as the production of the new album of my band Blue May Rose. But I for sure won’t stop producing Amiga games in the near future.