Interview with Thomas Schulze – Creator of Splatter

Splatter is not the classic shooting game. It is inspired by them, but with a light/shadow gameplay. Confused? Read what its creator has to say.

Tell us something about yourself

Me: I’m Thomas Schulze, 34 years old now, programming for nearly 30 years now. I started on a GDR computer called the Z1013 and grew from there over KC85/4, Robotron computers, the Amiga 500 to the PC. So I also had my share of games over the years, some of them are still shown at my team’s website http://www.dreamworlds.de My “company” Dreamworld: is me and an old friend of mine, Michael. I’m doing all the organisation, coding, PR, game design and story writing. Michael does all the graphics and visual design and all web-related stuff such as the web shop. There are a lot more people hoping that we succeed so they can join us to bring our sparetime projects to a new level :)

What can you tell us about Splatter?

Splatter is an Oldschool Topdown shooter with a unique light/shadow gameplay and gorgeous light/shadow graphics effects to accompany. The game offers a film-noir-styled storyline to play, upgradeable weapons, boss battles, dialogue and side missions, and secrets. When you’re done with the story, you can start another run at the new difficulty level, or you can jump into the Arcade game mode to fight for ranks in online leaderboards. You’ll get to keep all your upgrades. Or you gather a few friends in front of your computer. Splatter can be played in local multiplayer modes by up to 4 players. You either frag each other in Deathmatch or you stand together against ever-growing hordes of enemies in Survival. More game modes will follow via free updates.

Where did the game idea come from?

I loved Crimson Land for the shooting, but I came up with the light/shadow stuff because shooting gets old after a while.

What can you tell us about the development of the game?

Splatter was made by two people: me and Michael. It took us roughly 2 years, with occasional help from other Dreamworlds friends to bridge some gaps. Sound and music was contracted to Sven Gerlach who did a really good job for a more-than-friendly price. I still owe you one, Sven! I’m using C++, always switching to the most recent version of Visual Studio as soon as it’s available. I’m especially in love with C++11, even though Microsoft left the C++ side behind quite a bit in the recent years.

What is the most important thing you learned when making this game?

Organizing myself. This was my first project as a fulltime indie dev.

What advice would you tell people who are beginning with game development?

Stick to it, be curious, have fun. And leave it a hobby.

Anything else you would like to share with the audience?

Buy my game. I really think it’s way better than most of the other topdown shooters around. Especially after playing Gatling Gears.

 

Thanks Thomas! Awesome job with Splatter!

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