Another developer I had the chance to catch up with was one of the creators of N.Y.Zombies, a 3D first-person shooter than had impressed thousands of iPhone users worldwide.  They reached the top ten charts a number of times with it’s gruesome graphics for the hordes of zombies introduced in the game.  Whilst the controls was a slight let-down for some players, everything else seemed to cover it up.

They’re now creating another game and this time it’s got nothing to with horror.  They’re on a mission to complete a dual-stick shooter, Bug Heroes, which they also claim is a RPG-styled tie-in.  Some artwork can be found to the right of what the models should look like in-game.

So without further ado, here’s our full interview:

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How many people are there on your developing team and what does each person do?

There are four people in our dev team, me (Jamie), Miles, Connor, and Tom… and actually we are all brothers Its amazing how each of our skill sets fit perfectly into place to form a game development team… its been very exciting so far.

As for our roles, I handle all the main game graphics, including the 3d models, texturing, environments, etc. Miles created the entire engine from scratch, and continues to work on optimizations and new engine features. Connor handles the actual game code. And finally, Tom handles all of the UI coding and artwork, including the menu screens and the “inbetween” game infrastructure. He also does a good portion of the particle and special effects in game.

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What made you think of making a dual-stick shooter game rather than another third-person shooter similar to N.Y.Zombies?

Having worked on N.Y.Zombies for a year, we were ready to do something different — expand our horizons a bit. Bug Heroes is a nice change of pace, especially because of its completely different content and theme — with this title we feel like we can reach a broader audience.

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Will there be any iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4 enhancements?

We do have Bug Heroes up and running on the iPhone 4 using the full resolution of the retina display. We are also going to look into anti-aliasing for the 3GS.

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What are the different characters and what are their traits?

First, there is Beetle, the tank and crowd control hero of the game. He is large and heavily armored, able to shrug off hordes of lesser bugs as if they were nothing — his lack of speed however can give him lots of problems with the bigger or more powerful bugs who can pierce armor. Offensively he uses a huge stick which is capable of smushing and swatting away entire groups of smaller bugs at once.

Then there is Spider, who is the mysterious assassin hero. He (eventually) carries 4 large blades which deal massive damage to single targets. Spider is fast, but vulnerable, and players will have to be careful to avoid getting overwhelmed and quickly killed. He is best used to get in, kill the big targets quickly, and get out.

Finally there is Ant, the engineer and ranged specialist. While the other two heroes rely on getting up close and personal, ant has a slightly zoomed out perspective and a rapid fire machine gun. While he is weaker then either of the other two heroes in the beginning, he arguably becomes the strongest once decked out with some of his equipment and abilities. He has a lot of unique gadgets like a teleporter, proximity mines, an automated shoulder turret which independently fires at nearbye enemies, and lots of other cool stuff.

Besides the main heroes, there are also over 25 enemy types with many unique characteristics. For example the dual uzi wielding Pillbug will roll up into a ball if someone gets too close, making him very hard to kill with close combat weapons. There is the Armor Ant, nearly impervious to machine gun fire, best killed by Spider. There is the Queen Ant which lurks around the edges of the map, buffing the health and damage of all ants in the environment. The Vampire Spider is another interesting character, coming out only in the dark and coccooning up in the light. Of course that is just a glimpse of the variety Bug Heroes will offer.

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How will the game’s story mode go?

The story mode, if you want to call it that, is actually a hybrid between a traditional endless/survival shooter, and a typical mission based game with a linear plot. In Bug Heroes you will essentially play it like an Endless game, however during the play through players will come across random side quests and be confronted with numerous chances to unlock achievements, many of which will have story bits as the reward.

It is through these side quests and achievements that we will tell the story and background of the Bug Heroes world. In this regard, you can pretty much uncover the story as much as you want. If you’re not interested in the story however, you can literally pick up and play the game just like a typical survival game. We think its an interesting new way to play play a typical survival game, and hope we can appease both the types of gamers looking for “mindless” pick up and play, get the best score sessions, or those in it for a good storyline.

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How do you feel about the iPhone 4′s new features and how it will affect AppStore gaming?

Just got my iPhone 4 a week ago — love it. The screen is just… wow. Everything runs like butter on it, which is a nice step up from my old iPhone 3G. That being said, I really don’t foresee the app store taking a dramatic turn because of the iPhone4. Heck, its essentially a souped up 3GS, which certainly didn’t change the app store much. Sure you might see some more 3GS/iPhone4 only games with better graphics, but other then that, I don’t expect a huge change.

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