Senior Artist on Boom Boom Rocket

Hey Jeff, thanks for agreeing to be interviewed! So, Boom Boom Rocket is the second Bizarre Creations game to reach Xbox Live Arcade, following in the footsteps of Geometry Wars in 2005.

Q: Could you give us a quick rundown on what Boom Boom is about, and why people will love playing it?

Boom Boom Rocket is a dance rhythm game in which you have to detonate fireworks in time to music. The more accurately you detonate the fireworks, the higher you can score.

On casual (the easiest difficulty) it's colourful, charming, and relaxing. A pleasant alternative to driving and shooting! We want our mums and kids to be able to play it.

However, on difficult (the hardest setting) it's fast and frantic, and has the added competitive element of the leaderboards for those who want to go for the worldwide high score.

Q: The music selection in the game isn't your usual pick of licensed tracks. Why did you decide to go with the remixed classical songs instead of the usual chart tunes?

We decided very early on that we wanted to have instantly recognisable musical motifs, so we looked at classical music as there are many famous classical tracks that are now in the public domain. We chose not to use popular contemporary music, as it risks alienating some of your audience (not everybody likes heavy metal for example!). Given that we're trying to make Boom Boom appeal to everyone, the classical tracks seemed to fit the bill.

We didn't want to use straight-orchestra performed classical pieces as we thought that might be too 'square' for some people! Through experimentation we found that pop and rock music seems to play well because of its regular structure. A song that goes "chorus, verse, chorus, verse" is like having recognisable waves of enemies coming towards you in a shooting game.

It made sense then to take motifs from popular classics, and use them in our songs choruses. What we've ended up with is a crazy mix of pop, rock, and dance tracks... leading to some very interesting musical choices for the player.

Q: It looks like a lot of work has gone into the look and feel of the game. Are you hoping that Boom Boom will have the same psychedelic graphical style which made Geometry Wars so popular?

Yes! It'll be psychedelic and, like GW, it will fully max-out the 360's graphical power. We're lucky enough to have Steve Cakebread, the creator of GW, onboard to help us accomplish this.

One of the things that we've learned from GW is that the power of the 360 can be used for things other than just trying to reproduce reality. Xbox Live Arcade is a great way for our coders to show off their talents. It's like demo coding, but with less restriction than big games and more scope for experimentation. Our graphics coders love stuff like this!

Q: Tell us about the multiplayer...

There's a 2-player battle mode, which builds up to a frantic pace. You play 3 laps of the regular game side-by-side, and the music is continuously sped up as you play. By the end of the 3 laps it gets ridiculously fast by the end, meaning players will have to be on top of their game to beat their opponents!

Of course there are Xbox Live leaderboards too, so you can play your friends for the high score in any of the single player modes. This works great as a "pass the controller" game, similar to what we've seen with GW.

Q: How will the game tailor to different skill levels? Will I be able to compete if I've never played a rhythm game before?

Well as I mentioned, the game should scale from "really super easy" to "insanely furiously tough" pretty well. At the bottom end of our test scale is our boss's 3 year old son. He can play it on easy and understand what's going on. Of course at the other end is our internal Bizarre test team, who are as hardcore and dedicated to gaming as anyone. After playing for months they still have trouble on the toughest setting, so we hope the game has quite a bit of longevity when it's released to the wild.

Q: How does the combo system work?

The game features a combo bar that fills up as you successfully detonate fireworks. If you make a mistake the bar drops. Every time you fill a segment of the bar your scoring combo goes up. If you manage to fill the combo bar to the top a bonus run becomes available.

If you activate the bonus run, you enter a period of intense play where every firework is worth a massive score. If you miss a firework in this time then the run is cancelled and you lose your combo. However, there is far more going on visually meaning extra concentration is required to take advantage of it and not screw up!

Q: Finally, what's your favourite bit in Boom Boom Rocket?

I like the bonus run effect. It's a great graphical showcase where the fireworks effects, the city behind them, and the sky behind it all morph into one huge, pulsating, multicoloured, and highly stylised light show.

Thanks Jeff!