IAMA full time Indie games developer, head of Chucklefish Games. Lead dev on Starbound + previously artist on Terraria. AMA

I love you.

I love you too

It's you! I love you. I just want you to know I can't wait to start on your new game! Thanks for taking away endless hours away from me due to Terraria!

You're welcome! I'll make sure Starbound is awesome for you.

is there even the slightest hint on when the game will be out? Also i love you.

We're aiming for the end of the year. I love you too

I have 200 hours on Terraria. Please, I'm dying. I need this game man, I need it. My friends need it, we all want it. Please. Make it good.

I'll make it good!

Also on the Terraria website you once mentioned that pets may be coming soon. Do you think pets will be added to Starbound?

It's going to be possible to capture almost any monster in Starbound and have them fight by your side.

Well, will you actually control and fly spaceships in Starbound? And what is your motivation for making games? Have you started thinking of your next project? Any idea on the genre it would be? What indie project are you following right now? What's the most complex spriting work you've ever done?

Right now spaceships are more of a planet link, though you will be able to get inside them and play with the controls. A lot of people are saying they desire actual space travel gameplay, so we're looking at adding it to our post release update schedule. But right now we're focusing on the planet driven gameplay.

We've not really discussed a next project yet but I've wanted to do a multiplayer harvest moon/rune factory style game for a while.

I'm following secrets of grindea a lot at the moment, the game seems really tight. Also under the ocean looks really pretty, but I haven't actually had a chance to play it yet. Finally I'm eagerly awaiting the multiplayer update on tower climb.

The hardest spriting I've done has probably been anything that requires 4 legged animation. It makes my brain hurt. Luckily Starbound has much better artists than me working on it!

Is there any possibility of being able to pre-purchase Starbound and get beta access once it gets to a stage where it is in a properly playable state?

We're still talking about this internally. On one hand betas are great for feedback.

On the other I feel as if some people purchase a game in beta on the basis of what they hope the game will become, rather than what it actually is. It would be good to deliver a product and let people know exactly what they're buying before they put down any cash.

That said, I expect Starbound to evolve for a long time post release. So perhaps I should just do it. The debate goes on.

I'm a big fan, can I give you a piece of pixel art to use somewhere in your game?

I'd love to see it!

Some of my work is on fortytwopixels.net

Cool stuff, I like the back to the future art

What did you dislike most about Terraria, and how will you go about fixing that in Starbound?

The games actually play very differently. I wouldn't say Starbound is a Terraria sequal, so it's difficult to say I'm going to improve on X Y Z.

That said, I think a problem with Sandbox games in general is that they become a little dull once you've experienced all the content. When you're discovering new things, new items or new recipes there's a thrill there that disappears eventually.

My goal with Starbound is to keep that thrill going indefinitely.

How will the main space station in Starbound work?

The space station is still heavily under development, so a lot is in flux there. That said I'll tell you where it sits right now.

The space station is the games hub, it serves as a meeting point, a place to conduct research, a cooperative building and management activity and more.

In servers with open PVP enabled, it serves as the only place in the universe that's completely safe. There are no hostile monsters and players can't damage each other. But outside of the station the games takes on a bit of a DayZ feel. With players forming groups, building their own homeworlds and making up the rules as they go. Other players could become valuable allies or dreaded space pirates, it's up to the players.

Everything I've said so far is up in the air, but that's it's current purpose.

How many players could be on a server at a given time? If your server could handle anything, what would the max be?

It's entirely down to the server specs, there's no real built in max right now. Although the game runs well on low spec machines presently (60fps on a basic macbook air), it's actually completely unoptimised at the moment, so we haven't done any stress testing yet.

What do you look like in real life? I like to think of you as a slimmer, younger version of Malcolm Reynolds , with or without the coat.

That, and I really enjoyed Terraria, and can't wait for Starbound!

This is a picture I sent in response to a magazine asking for a photo of me. http://i.imgur.com/4Y62X.png

They printed it unedited >:D

You are now RES tagged as "MR. HANDSOME".

TIL you can tag people on RES! Thank you!

You look a little high in this picture. Are you?

Maybe

Just wanted to say that I love the style of Starbound and will eagerly eat it up on release! Keep up the great work!

When did you start designing art in the style of Terraria/Starbound? Was it Pre-Terraria or was Terraria the start of the style of drawing?

Cheers!

The art style in Terraria was purposefully low-fi and I think it completely fit the concept of the game but it was my first attempt at that style of pixel art.

Starbound on the other hand was inspired by the artist behind sword & sworcery, though we put our own twist on it. The artist there puts out beautiful wallpapers from time to time.

http://www.capybaragames.com/2011/12/here-take-these-pixel-art-wallpapers/

Here's the one that we found most inspiring for Starbound's art style I think: http://www.gamesetwatch.com/100104-winter-1.jpg (sorry I couldn't find the original link).

It's great how he gets so much detail out of so few colours.

I'm a big fan, can we expect space ships?

My curiosity got the better of me.

There are spaceships in the game, their primary purpose at the moment is to take you from one planet to another and carry any crew you want to take with you.

On that same note, can we expect any major customization from the spaceships? Regardless though that sounds awesome.

We're going to try to work in some spaceship customization if we have time. Ideally spaceships will provide a mini base when exploring an alien world and give you a bunch of benefits.

Can we design/build/fly our own spaceships while other people sit in it?

They're built for ferrying entire parties of different players between planets (even though every player has their own), so other players can definitely sit in it.

How did you come up with the name of your company, Chucklefish LTD?

What's your favorite aspect of making indie games?

I was at the aquarium one day and this fish looked as if it were laughing at me.

My favourite aspect is seeing an idea just come to life. Sooner or later it begins to evolve beyond your initial concept and takes on a life of it's own. You just have to try your best to steer it.

How did you get into developing indie games?

The first game I worked on was actually a mod for unreal tournament. From there I joined a couple of open source games which really helped me to understand the development process and confirmed for me that this is what I wanted to do with my future.

I think largely getting into indie development now is about having a good idea, having a skill that contributes to the construction of that idea and having the ability to inspire people so they'll join your cause.

Is game development going according to plan? As in, have there been any major hiccups?

Largely according to plan for a long time now. Honestly all the difficult mind bending parts have been completed, so it's just a case of trucking along.

will starbound feature steamworks? like cloud saving, matchmaking, achievements, steam server and so on? or do you guys build your own server infrastructure?

I can't talk about that yet, sorry :(

On a somewhat related note, did you have any input on the decision NOT to issue Steam keys to existing owners of Wanderlust who bought it prior to the game going up on Steam?

I want to support indie games but I also like having my games all tied to the one account as much as I can. Other developers in the past have in fact issued out Steam keys to existing owners who bought their games prior. Refusing to do that makes me very reluctant to purchase any indie games outside of Steam. This can hurt indie developers in the end because sometimes they need that early funding to continue development and gain momentum to get the game on Steam in the first place.

I know the wanderlust guys were looking into doing that, but there were a number of technical hurdles in the way. I'll ask them where they stand with issuing keys retroactively at the moment and get back to you :)

What are some of your favourite video games of all times?

Do you play other games? What are they? (board games, P&P RPG, anything)

I'm massively into fighting games. So any of the capcom classics, street fighter 3/4 etc. As a kid I grew up on the (good) sonic the hedgehog games, mario games, snes rpgs and a bunch of classic C64 stuff.

My mrs gets me to play boardgames now and then, Carcassonne is a great game. I haven't had a chance to try a P&P RPG before..

Do you have an actual copy of Terraria? The sound guy who did an AMA a while ago didn't have his own copy. :(

I have a copy yeah! I'll see if I can send one to the composer.

Hey Tiy! I know you can't give any details, but how many playable races can we expect? And will there be any racial bonuses that effect gameplay or will it be mostly an aesthetic choice?

We're aiming for around 6 for release. Races are largely aesthetics only. Giving them bonuses isn't difficult, but I hate presenting a player that has never played the game before with an early choice that will affect the rest of the game for them.

One thing that is unique per race is the visuals used when they craft basic objects. So an Avian will craft an Avian chest whilst a human crafts a human chest.

What's the origin of your alias Tiyuri?

It's from a blues song :)

I have a few questions.

For Starbound, does the terrain generator generate REALLY WEIRD stuff? Not just regular rolling hills, but stuff like floating islands, sideways trees, floating water blobs, etc.?

Second, do you love lamp?

Aaaand third, did you expect Starbound to get such a big reaction to its development?

(Fourth: what's your favorite type of weather? sun, overcast, rain, snow, thunderstorms, etc.)

The terrain generator has a ton of settings that we haven't really shown off yet, it's capable of generating mountains, canyons, hills, flats, chasms, etc. It's also capable of building very different tunnel systems. Sometimes these two systems come together to produce really cool, unique and alien terrain.

I'm happy to say it never looks "broken" though, it's intelligent generation.

Rho said she loves lamp.

I didn't expect such a big reaction, we're all just doing our own thing. But I'm very thankful for it and I'm going to make sure the game is awesome.

I love the thunderstorms in the game right now, archvince worked on generating lightning in real time, the sky gets much more cloudy, trees sway in the wind and it pours with rain. It's very atmospheric.

Will you be adding a modding API to the game for launch, or perhaps post-launch? Even the simple ability for hosting players to add new skins, sprites and objects to the game world would be fantastic. Minecraft still doesn't have chair or table objects for simple decoration purposes.

We'll be adding a fully fledged modding API post release, but the way the engine is built makes it incredibly easy to add new objects, monsters, weapons, etc etc. With zero programming knowledge required. I'll see if we can allow access to that for release.

How many cats feature in Starbound?

Rho has added a lot of cats

What advice do you have for someone getting into the game development industry?

What is your favorite game/mod that you've made?

Will there be a playable demo for Starbound?

When are you aiming to release Starbound?

Make friends, learn a valuable skill, don't be afraid to make an ugly prototype of your idea to show it works. Joining open source projects is a great entry point.

Haha well honestly my favourite game right now is Starbound, I'm having a blast developing it. I also still love a mod I made a long time ago for unreal tournament 2004 called Deathball Tennis.

I'd like to put out a demo at some point.

We're aiming to release the game by the end of the year, but will take as long as it requires for it to be fully baked.

Have you considered bitcoins as payment method?

I don't know enough about bitcoins at the moment.

Will there be a kickstarter, buying the beta (the same way as minecraft) or anything like that? This game looks really promesing.

I haven't planned a kickstarter, I'm also from the UK so I don't think I'm able to do one?

What sort of PvP can we expect to have in Starbound? I'm an admin on 2dForts, arguably the the best PvP server available for all of Terraria. Also one of the longest-lived servers to boot. (I'm a little biased, obviously.)

Bigass list 'o' questions:

• What can be expected on the pvp front for Starbound?
• Will the overall mechanics be similar?
• How will the weapons be balanced?
• Can the items be modified/controlled/enabled/disabled server side?
• Will there be minigames like Capture the Flag?
• Will player inventories be client-side or server-side?
• What plans do you have for explosive-style weaponry?
• Will there be server controls for preventing explosives from damaging terrain, while keeping them usable for pvp?
• Will there be a mana/magic weapons system like Terraria?
• How will melee weapons work in Starbound?
• Are there healing items for use on other teammates?
• Will there be co-op multiplayer modes? Monster swarm, big angry boss, etc?
• How will respawning work? How will it work for minigame modes (Like CTF)
• Will there be hired helpers to assist you while playing, D3 style?
• I've heard there will be a VAST array of weaponry available, how will this work? Will weapons have a parts grid for tweaks and attachments, or more like Diablo's RNG items?
• How will crews work in multiplayer games? Will they be based on the current planet's stats or the player's stats?
• How will interplanetary travel work in multiplayer games?
• What sort of server-side controls and abilities are you planning?
• With releasing through steam, can we ban players based on Steam ID?

I can't think of any more questions right now. Thank you for Terraria, I have well over 1000 hours logged on that game. Thank you for the endless fun times provided.

Also thank you for the Oinking Unicorns. Those are awesome.

Hi there,

2dForts is awesome!

On the PVP front there will be two kinds of PVP. Asteroid (arena) based PVP and open PVP. Open PVP is something that server admins need to enable because it's certainly not everyone's cup of tea, but it enables a sort of DayZ style experience where players are entirely at the mercy of other players.

If you want to form a band of evil space pirates and go around attacking other players homeworlds you can do that.

Weapons are intrinsically balanced through the generation system.

It's not possible to disable items on the serverside yet, but it's doable, I'll add it if we have time.

capture the flag style games will be part of the arena asteroids, might have to wait until post release though.

Explosive style weaponry does exist and it has a really cool affect on terrain, we're not quite ready to show that off yet, but it's very cool.

It wouldn't be difficult to add some explosion protection.

There are energy weapons in Starbound that take from the players overall energy pool.

Melee weapons are interesting as there's blocking and counter attacks.

There are healing items for teammates

There are no coop arena modes at the moment, but that could change post release

Respawning for arena play will work as you'd expect, respawning for regular play isn't really intended for constant PVP.

No hired helpers, but you can capture monsters.

Weapons are procedurally constructed both in terms of their visuals and their stats. They also fire or handle differently, every gun is different.

Do you mean space station crews? Or?

Every player has a ship they can use to travel from planet to planet, you can take your own ship or climb on board someone elses for group travel. Each player in a multiplayer server can be on different planets.

We'd like to add a bunch of server management controls to make things easier on admins, the kind of thing that's usually modded in by players.

Can't talk about steam just yet, sorry! :P

Do you think that you will be happy with the game's progress and release it by the end of the year as it's been said? or do you think it will need more time.

It's looking good for the end of the year at the moment, but I'll just take as long as it needs to be polished and sexy.

In Starbound, there are ton of features and goals that's gonna be planned for the game. Aren't you worried about that it's gonna be too much work or is that in control?

Honestly it's pretty much under control. The large majority of those features are already complete and everything challenging is already done.

How do you react when people call Terraria a copy of Minecraft? (It really isn't in case anyone was wondering). By the way Starbound looks amazing!

Well I think minecraft is the key player in something that's become it's own genre. You can draw the same comparisons between any two games that share a genre.

Just wanted to say thank you for making online co-op a priority in your games. I bought Terraria because of it, Wanderlust (I like to call it brolust) And now eagerly await starbound

Coop makes every game better

It has been mentioned earlier that you will be able to visit your friends' planets using sets of coordinates, but I never saw any confirmation as to how: Will you actually visit your friends' planet and play with them like multiplayer, or will it function like seeds in Minecraft where it just generates a planet similar to your friends' that you visit alone?

Coordinates are indeed like seeds in minecraft. For you to actually meet your friend there, you'd need to be on the same server.

• I know Starbound will have random weapons, But there will be also unique weapons? I think the charm of Terraria was that every weapon was different and had its own characteristics.

• Are there different types of ammunition besides "energy" and "normal"? If yes, can you give examples?

• How mining will work in Starbound? Can we make machines / robots to mine automatically ?

We're drawing a bunch of unique special weapons too :)

We've kept ammunition extremely simple so it doesn't turn into inventory management hell. However the way the gun FIRES that ammunition will differ per gun.

There are no automatic mining machines in game at the moment, though vehicles are on the table, so it's entirely possible we could add a mining vehicle.

how do you plan on showing people, customers, that starbound is more than a terraria 1.5 (or even 2)? how is the game different?

I think it'll become pretty clear once we show off more of the gameplay, we've been taking our time with the initial impression because it's such an important one.

Outside of all the different features..

Gameplay in Terraria was more jump and run, classic platformer. Gameplay in Starbound attempts a slower, more strategic approach. We've actually been looking at games like dragon's age and guildwars whilst working on the combat and spelunky with the underground portions.

Where there any armor sets in Terraria that were unreleased or not added into the game, but were actually drawn? And could We see them?

NDA stuff :( I'm sorry

Is the game expansive enough that you could settle down on a single planet and get enough resources from that planet that you could play on it as if it were a similar game to Terraria?

The engine certainly supports planets of that expanse. But it's actually something we've been experimenting with recently. Starbound supports a bunch of "biomes" at the moment, and the same biome is different on a per planet basis.

So we're thinking that perhaps making a single planet so expansive might be a bad idea. We want players to explore multiple planets and see how a forest can look on various alien worlds. On top of that, the great thing about encouraging the player to keep moving is that planets can become throwaway. That allows us to do things like blow them up completely or have meteor showers that completely destroy the landscape.

The important part is making sure the player isn't disturbed by those elements once they decide to set up a home base.

So far I've seen that Starbound has confirmed Humanoid, Avians, and Ape races. Are you ready to announce a new race just for the Reddit AMA?

If not its okay. I love your work and look forward to forfeiting so much productivity once I buy Starbound.

I can't just yet :( sorry. But we'll announce one soon!

Thanks for saying you can't actually discuss stuff due to NDA. Some devs tend to just ignore questions they can't answer, and it makes it seem like they don't care. Glad to see you do!

No problem :)

Do you make only the art for Starbound or do you work on other parts of the game as well?

I direct the game as a whole as well as implement content and draw some art. The other artists are far better than me though, so they do all of the difficult stuff.

You've mentioned in an interview that there will be a pet training mechanic in which you can capture and level up any monster you find. Is that still in on release? Or has it been relegated to a post-release feature?

Also, will the worlds have a horizontal end like Terraria or will it just loop to the other side like, say Pacman?

That's still in for release.

Worlds loop like pacman.

Alpacas are cool.

Hello Tiyuri! sorry if this has been asked already, but is there a decided price on release? D: i'm probably blind! but I suppose it's better to ask than be ignorant. keep up the good work, loving the looks of Starbound!

probably $9.99-$15.00 depending on what the distributor suggests. Thank you for the support <3

How deep storyline Starbound will have?

We're hoping for a light hearted story with lots of lore. You can examine any object in the game to get a description, point and click style, so the lore plays a part there too.

I am not sure if it breaks the NDA, so if it does I'm sorry. In the FAQ you have mention that it is possible to ride a machine. Are there any flying machines besides the land machines?

There aren't yet, but I would like there to be.. so there probably will be.

Do you have the game code backed up to somewhere other than one other computer you keep next to your main coding computer? I'd hate it if someone broke into your flat and stole all your code...

Yeah we use version control :P

Are there any people working on the game other than the main team?

There are a few people who submit content here and there, we love them all <3

Hey Tiy! I didn't know you were doing an AMA....

Will there be the opportunity for sentient companions, with or without AI?

You'll be able to bring friendly NPCs back to your space station :)

Have you played Borderlands/have drawn inspiration from it? Are you a fan of large content patches or smaller, more frequent patches? How goes the work on this "Director Mode?"

And lastly: Serverside characters to prevent (A lot of) cheating/foul play?

I have indeed played Borderlands and there is indeed some inspiration there.

I like both where appropriate, I don't think working on one has to exclude the other either. I think weekly or fortnightly updates really help keep a game flourishing. I'd like to put a team together to add cool little things every friday if I can.

I'd like to make server side characters a server setting. So server admins could require players to make characters on joining the server and store them server side. Or allow players to bring their own characters over from local games/other servers. Of course if you're playing on a server side character you'll be able to export it to a local character too. Think neverwinter nights.

Yourself being a successful indie developer, what caught your interest in Wanderlust: Rebirth to go ahead and work towards getting this indie game published?

It reminded me a lot of Seiken Densetsu 3. I think the real magic of Wanderlust: Rebirth is trying to get a perfect score on each level. It drives you to that angry birds level of addiction.

When will Starbound be available for preorder? Had never heard of it before but this looks AWESOME, and I love all your previous work. Congrats on your success and good luck for the future my friend.

Thank you for the kind words! I'm not sure just yet when we'll put it up for preorder. But hopefully it won't be quiet news :)

What is your favorite thing about the games industry? Least favorite?

The people are my favourite thing, honestly almost every developer I've met has been a lovely guy/girl.

The least favourite has to be how difficult it is to get into, I see a lot of people with great ideas, even great completed games, that just don't get enough of a following to keep going.

Was it your idea to make the Meteorite armor sparkley when you move?

I find that so disorientating when things are setting me on fire XD

Looking forwards to Starbound in a huge way, thanks!

I think Redigit added the sparkly particles, the armor design was my own :P

Thank you for your support! :)

Were you pleased with how terraria ended up? Is there anything you wish you'd added to it?

I think it ended up as a great game, but it's also the kind of game that you could just add features to forever.. and I can think of a few that would fit really nicely.

So what awesome stuff should we expect to see in Starbound? Besides, well, Starbound?

Lots of penguins

Hi Tiy! It's Lils :D Please come out with Starbound soon! We are all so excited for its release.

Hello Lils!

If we could only try one Indie game, what would you suggest?

Oh god, just one? Hmmm.. Spelunky maybe? It has a ton of replay value.

What about plants?

Can we have gardens? Alchemy? Plant based monsters?

CAN I BUILD A TREE HOUSE?

Right now trees will drop a seed that reflects it's...seed.. so you can farm unique plants you find. There's no alchemy in the game in a traditional sense, but we've added something to fill the gap that budding alchemists will enjoy.

There are some plant like monsters :)

What platforms are currently planned for the release of Starbound? Just Windows, or are you considering OS X and/or Linux?

It already runs natively on OSX and Linux. Hell it runs at 60fps on a macbook air :) So, windows, osx and linux.

Will spaceship-transportation between planets be seamless or will the planets have a loading screen?

Right now it's entirely seamless. There's a dev command in game right now /changeplanet <seed> which lets me instantly appear on any other planet.

Will the community be impacting much when it comes to the development of items, quests, creatures etc. for this game?

Oh yes! I'm constantly reading the forums and I'm always available on our IRC channel to chat too (during working UK hours at least).

I honestly think that this will be the greatest game of all time. I really honestly do. What I want to know is, do you plan on adding new game features after release, or just new variants of random weapons/enemies/terrain? Also, how do you plan on letting add-ons be used in multiplayer? Thanks.

^{alsoiloveyouaswellnohomo}

I plan for the core development team to continue to update the game for at least a year or so. Once we're ready to move onto another project I'm going to put together a second team solely to continue updating the game indefinitely.

We've got a ton of features planned for post release, the most exciting of which for me is director mode. Which you can read about here: http://community.playstarbound.com/index.php?threads/director-mode.5522/ excuse my IRC channel spamming.

At some point I want to release the engine for free non commercial use. It's incredibly modular and things like weapons, characters, weather, biomes, particles, enemies and so on can be added in just a couple of minutes through adding some art and writing a config file.

So you can train monsters. There are creeper in this game. Can you train an army of creepers and drop them down on a planet you don't like?

To ensure that capturing monsters doesn't completely destroy the gameplay, players will have 3 special inventory slots in which to carry monsters. Once a monster loses all of it's health it's returned to one of those slots and can't be called again until the player heals it at the space station. Monsters can only be swapped out and replaced at the space station.

Will multiplayer work the same in Starbound as it did in Terraria? Or will it be more accessible?

Answering this question properly would breach NDA, but we plan to make it extremely easy to join your friends in Starbound. I'd also like to link servers together through some kind of Stargate type doodad.

Hey, Just wanted to say that I'm really looking forward to Starbound (even more than any other AAA title).

Just one question: Any idea of when we're going to get a gameplay video (one that shows more of what the game offers than what is currently out there)? It would help build more excitement for the game for those who may be unfamiliar with what Starbound's about.

Thank you :)

We're getting really close to that I promise. We've held back on showing it off because we want to provide a more complete picture of the combat and there's still features here and there to implement.

I have an idea for a type of monster to add into the game, everyone seemed to like it and agree with it in IRC (you might even have it in the game already for all we know) i think there should be a type of "hive/swarming" monster i.e. Space ants/bees/wasps or something similar, they must have massive hives and of course a massive queen to kill in the middle of it. another idea that was said in IRC was maybe to add space termites, who fly from planet to planet and devour them if given the chance (pretty much eat them hollow and make them ugly) please tell me what you think of these ideas, i think they would really suit Starbound and should be added (if not already in there)

Swarming monsters are really cool, I'll look into it.

How massive of a pet army might one be able to achieve?

You can collect a vast number, but you're only able to bring 3 with you to a planet at one time. This is an attempt at not allowing the feature to completely break gameplay :P

Will Starbound feature other ways of travelling across the galaxy? Like, well, Stargates? :D

Yes! I would like to add stargates between servers.