Barton Lynch Pro Surfing (Interview)

 

1. WHAT WAS THE FIRST GAME THAT YOU PLAYED THAT MADE YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH GAMING?

Moon Patrol and then Xevious – these are arcade tabletop games from back in the day.

2. HOW DID YOU GET INTO GAME DEVELOPMENT?

In a past life, I was a journalist. At the time I had a column at a local newspaper writing music and game reviews but by the time I got to my late 20’s I hit a wall and needed a change. So my brother and I got together with a programmer and we started banging out our first prototype out of his converted garage.

3. WHAT GAMES DID YOU WORK ON BEFORE BARTON LYNCH PRO SURFING?

We worked on three different surfing games on the PS2 in the early 2000s that never saw the light of day. One for EA, another game for Vivendi Universal, and a third for a budget Publisher called XS Games. Then fast forward to 2012 and we managed to release our first effort for PC, a game called The Surfer. We released it through a Melbourne-based indie platform called Desura, which at the time was a mini version of Steam. Desura was incredible for us and we were super grateful to them because back then, Steam was hard to get a game out on for indies, and they gave us a chance to finally get something to market. Fast forward another five years and in 2017 we managed to get a PS3 version of The Surfer out. But by then the PS4 was already around five years old and I think that if we were not the last game – we were close to the very last game to come out on the PS3 exclusively. So for us it’s been really tough and anything but an easy path.

4. WHO ARE YOUR FAVORITE SURFERS?

Well, I sort of group them into eras these days. From more recent times, hands down it’s Clay Marzo – I just love everything about the way he surfs, he’s just phenomenal. Dane Reynolds is another one, along with Nathan Florence. I think the thing with Nathan that I really appreciate most, is his ability to humbly take the ‘everyman’ surfing with him in his Youtube videos. I also really love Barton’s smooth and stylish surfing back in the day, Tom Carroll’s animal power, & then Dane Kealoha – I really love his style combined with brute force power turns on the wave too. There were a few local surfers we grew up with too, who I also loved to watch and surf with.

5 TELL US THE INSPIRATION BEHIND BARTON LYNCH PRO SURFING.

Well, we always wanted to build a surfing simulation that was representative of the sport primarily. Other sports have always had solid representation in video games and we’ve always wanted to at least try to do the same thing for surfing. We love the sport and we love the lifestyle along with its unique culture. We’re also alive to the fact that the translation of what we do in real life is tough to do in the world of video games. Bringing the two together is far from easy, but the challenge itself is inspiring; especially because we know that there are reasons that surfing hasn’t been as successful in video games as its offspring in skateboarding and snowboarding. We’re up against it. First, surfing is considered by many in the game industry as a niche pastime with limited scope in its gameplay appeal to a broader audience. So even though there are approximately twenty million (or so) of us surfers in real life, despite attempts to reach the surfing market by the various publishers and developers over the years, it’s tricky to get past the fact that on the gameplay side developers are essentially limited by a wave so gameplay depth has been a problem. In the past we’ve seen objective-based gameplay as the primary driver for engagement, but this doesn’t always neatly translate to surfing. On top of that, water and waves are hard; seriously, unbelievably, ridiculously hard. Anyone who has just the smallest amount of development knowledge will tell you that. So we are inspired to try and overcome these baked-in problems inherent within our particular genre.

6. WHAT ENGINE ARE YOU USING FOR THIS GAME AND WHY?

We’re using Unity for this project, only because it was meant to deal with alpha’s better than Unreal. Not so sure that’s true anymore and to boot when we started this game, most of our team had Unity backgrounds so it seemed like a logical fit at the time.

7. TELL US SOME OF THE FEATURES WITHIN THIS GAME.

Barton Lynch Pro Surfing is an in-depth leader-board sports game, that meets free surf exploration at 12 large real-world locations. The game focuses on the actual sport of surfing and features a unique momentum-based control, along with some pretty cool weather & deep customization tools. BL Pro Surfing is somewhere between a simulation and an arcade experience; so it is definitely pick up and play, but hard to master. It’s not as hard as a core simulator like an MS flight simulator or Session, but then it’s probably not as easy as a game like Kelly Slater Pro Surfing either – it’s somewhere in between.

8. WHAT MODES CAN WE EXPECT TO PLAY IN THIS GAME?

We have a Tour Mode (separate male and female), complete with rounds, prize money, random weather, & aggressive A.I. Within the tour itself, we run a lower-tiered specialty events tour we call the Contender Series, which allows you to earn more money to get back on the main tour if you fall off. There are also four different quick challenge modes from Single Session (which is a practice run for the main event), Big Wave Challenge, Air Challenge, and a Tube Challenge that we call ‘Shack Attack’. Or if you’re not interested in competing at all, there is Free Surf. Free Surf allows you to explore the beaches and/or surf along with the ability to set your own weather conditions in real-time (which impacts gameplay).

9. TELL US ABOUT THE ONLINE SIDE OF THE GAME IN THE FEATURES.

The game features an asynchronous online mode that we call Leader-board Legends. Essentially it’s a leader-board Ghost Challenge mode so that you can challenge your friends or other player’s ghosts.

10. WHAT TYPE OF OCEANS CAN YOU SURF ON IN THIS GAME?

Every type! From world-famous beach-breaks such as Hossegor in France to classic point breaks such as Snapper Rocks in Australia, Jeffrey’s Bay in South Africa, or Mundaka in the Basque region of Spain; deep water ocean reef breaks such as Aileen’s in Ireland, Margaret River Main break, slabs such as The Box, performance waves such as Trestles in California, big wave spots such as Jaws in Hawaii or even a wave park in Tokyo, Japan. So it’s a bit of

everything for all surfers.

11. ARE THERE PLANS FOR FUTURE DLC TO THIS GAME?

Not at this point. Unless we end up building whole new locations, at this stage we’d prefer to add extra content free of charge.

12. THE BILLION DOLLAR QUESTION. WHY SHOULD PEOPLE WANT TO PLAY THIS GAME DAY ONE?

Well, if you’re interested in surfing then we think it’s a pretty good surfing game.

13. WHEN WILL BARTON LYNCH PRO SURFING BE RELEASED AND WHAT PLATFORMS WILL IT BE ON?

November 17 for digital download stores, possibly a week later if you’re looking for a disc. Available on Xbox Series X, PlayStation 5 and Steam at this point, but we’re keen to get to other platforms too if we can.

14. WHERE CAN THEY FIND YOU ON SOCIAL MEDIA?

 Instagram here: https://www.instagram.com/bartonlynchprosurfing/

 Twitter here: https://twitter.com/BungarraS

 Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/BartonLynchProSurfing/