XS GAMES: INTERVIEW

 1. WHAT WAS THE FIRST GAME THAT YOU'VE PLAYED THAT MADE YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH

GAMING?

I’m a guy from the 80’s so Super Mario Bros was my first game when I was a kid, spent hours trying to finish it. I was and still am a creative person, so by that time I was already thinking “I’d love to create stuff like that”, but knew nothing about programming, I was just enjoying playing a lot of games on my Commodore 64 :)

2. HOW DID YOU GET INTO GAME DEVELOPMENT?

I started my solo dev career by building apps and web templates because the demand was big and I had to get revenue to support my startup. In the back of my mind, I’ve always wanted to build games but had no time to learn Unity and C# and start building something.

In 2019 covid-19 entered the world, sadly, and my business suffered from it, so I took a chance to finally dedicate some time to learning how to build games in Unity.

I’ve built 3 simple escape room games called Dark Rooms, it was about solving riddles around black doors to unlock them and exit rooms. I sold the games to another developer a year later because I had created the first chapter of Mystery Box and saw that it as becoming popular in the escape room niche. I was also pretty satisfied with its design and wanted to dedicate time and effort to market that game series more than my previous games.

3.ARE YOU CURRENTLY A SOLO DEV OR DO YOU HAVE YOUR OWN TEAM?

Proudly a solo developer, I love challenges!

4. WHAT WAS THE IDEA BEHIND XS GAMES?

My previous startup was called XSCoder, so I’ve changed simply changed ‘coder’ into ‘Games’, keeping the XS prefix since it sounds like ‘excess’. I’m a really productive developer :)

5. MYSTERY BOX WHAT WAS THE INSPIRATION BEHIND THE NAME OF THE GAME?

I once bought a pair of shoes to my kids (I’ve got 4 children), and while I was opening their boxes, a thought popped up in my mind: what if I had to solve some riddles around these boxes to open them?

The day after I got into Blender and started to design the first box with some buttons and wheels around it. A couple of months later, Mystery Box - Hidden Secrets was released on the App an f Play stores :)

6. WHAT ENGINE ARE YOU USING TO CREATE THIS GAME?

Unity, and Blender for 3D modeling. I also use Photoshop to design 2D elements such as buttons, static images, etc.

7. WHERE DOES THE MYSTERY BOX TAKES PLACE?

You’re trapped into a dark room, there’s a table in the middle with a box on it, no particular location, let your imagination fly and pretend to be anywhere you want in the world.

8. WHAT TYPES OF PUZZLES THAT IS IN THE GAME?

Mostly it’s about buttons to press, wheels to rotate and levers to move to unlock puzzles around each side of the boxes, as well as thinking outside the box to solve some math or word riddles by following the clues around the sides of each box.

9.  ARE THERE ANY DIFFICULT ASPECTS TO THIS GAME AND WHY?

Well, you should love challenges and riddles, otherwise, the game may be a bit hard to play and enjoy. So, if you love crosswords and escape room games, you can have so much fun playing Mystery Box, it won’t be that hard to solve all the puzzles and get that satisfaction of victory after opening a box :)

10. WHAT TYPE OF BOXES CAN WE EXPECT TO SEE IN THE GAME?

In Hidden Secrets, you’ll find boxes made by common materials like metal, glass, wood, etc. In Evolution, you have to solve riddles on boxes that come from ancient cultures like the Chinese, Viking, Celtic, Aztec, and so on.

11. DOES THIS GAME HAVE A LEADERBOARD TYPE OF MULTIPLAYER ASPECT IN THE GAME?

No, it’s a single-player game, with no leaderboards, although you may still get next to your friends or relatives and solve the puzzles altogether, some players sent me feedback about it saying that they enjoyed the game with their family.

12.  HOW MANY LEVELS ARE IN THE GAME?

56, 8 levels for each box type.

13. WHY SHOULD PEOPLE WANT TO PLAY THIS GAME ON DAY ONE?

I believe Mystery Box has the potential to keep your brain trained and healthy, more than other minimal puzzles games, I mean, some of them are great, I play them as well, anyway Mystery Box has got that chilling atmosphere, music and design that if you play it in a dark room with headset on, you’ll get a cool gaming experience ;)

14. WHEN WILL THE MYSTERY BOX BE RELEASED AND WHAT PLATFORMS WILL IT BE ON?

Hidden Secrets and Evolution are already available on the iOS App Store, the Google Play Store, and Itch.

I’m currently building the 3rd chapter of this series, it should be released this upcoming Fall, still on the App & Play Stores and Itch, and probably I’ll build a VR version of it for the Meta Quest device. I’m really excited about this project, it’s gonna be cool!

15. WHERE CAN THEY FIND YOU ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

I’m active on Twitter and Instagram @xsgames_, but you may also visit my website to stay updated about my games and tools: xsgames.co