A great indie developer with roots going back to 2003, it was a pleasure to find out more about the history of the Senile Team. Also, huge thanks to WAVE Game Studios for just being awesome and so passionate about what they do, quite frankly.
Hello and thanks for chatting with us at GF!
Hello, thanks for reaching out to us!
Starting at the beginning - how did Senile Team originally form and how did you settle on the name? I’m guessing you aren’t in your frail, old age!
You guessed right, we haven't reached the sunset of our lives yet, and even less so when our team was formed back in 2003. When my two brothers and I were working on our first game, Beats of Rage, we didn't refer to ourselves as a team yet. But when it was almost done, we figured it turned out decent enough that we should "sign" it. We didn't have to think long about what to name ourselves.
We had been using the name "senile" for various things, ever since I randomly used that word in an attempt to find a free account name somewhere. It seemed apt for a retro game dev because senility is often associated (though perhaps incorrectly so) with old people forgetting the present and getting mentally stuck in the past. Also, it's a nod to Sonic Team.
Soon after the release of Beats of Rage, we were so fortunate to be joined by Ben, who has composed the music for our subsequent games.
What consoles/systems did you grow up playing and which games stood out in that formative period?
The first console to grace our parental home was an Atari 2600, which came with Defender II - arguably one of the best games for that system. I still have a poster of it on my wall. Combat was also a favourite. It could only be played with two players (not one), who tried to shoot each other using tanks or aeroplanes. It was a very simple concept that provided lasting fun by virtue of its many game modes, each of which had different rules, e.g. bouncing bullets, invisible tanks, etc.
Next up was the SEGA Mega Drive. It had so many great and influential games that I couldn't hope to list them all, but I remember being absolutely blown away by Sonic the Hedgehog. It was fast, colourful, huge and unlike anything I'd ever seen. Obviously, we also sank countless hours into Streets of Rage, and especially part 2 of the series. This would later lead to the creation of Beats of Rage. Road Rash II is one of the most perfect things ever created, and I still play it every once in a while. I find it relaxing.
I’m familiar with Beats of Rage and Rush Rush Rally Racing, Intrepid Izzy is again a game that straddles genre, what made Senile Team decide on creating a new Dreamcast adventure title?
It was not so much a decision, as a long journey that led us here. After Rush Rush Rally Racing, we started working on a runner. But that didn't meet our quality standards, so we tried to change it into a platformer. On account of some personal matters that whole project ended up getting scrapped, although the engine was still used to create a Dreamcast port of Polyko's Super Jelly Bean Quest in the Sketchbook of Illusion.
Separately from these projects, I was experimenting with HD graphics and skeletal 2D animation. I reached a bit of a breakthrough with that in 2015 and combined that with the platform engine (which had meanwhile been largely rewritten several times) to make a small game that served as a proof of concept. It worked very well.
It was then decided to further develop the concept. The addition of the costumes and a more advanced dialogue system naturally led to the adventure genre, and that's how we came up with Intrepid Izzy. At that point, it was still only running on PC, but because the code was written in a mostly hardware-independent way, it was fairly easy to get it running on the Dreamcast as well.
The balance on Intrepid Izzy feels nigh-on perfect. There’s a real challenge to be found that rewards exploration offset by a cheery accessibility, it strikes me as a hard thing to get right, did you have a specific approach in mind when beginning development?
Thank you!
I did have a fairly clear idea of the desired difficulty level right from the start. I think I got pretty close just by relying on my own experience, but it still required a lot of testing and feedback to get it just right. I found that I got the most useful information by simply observing others as they played, taking notes of every (potential) bottleneck.
On Twitter recently, You (seemingly) idly wondered at what a 16-bit release of Izzy would be like, are ports in the works or would you like this to remain a DC exclusive?
There's a Steam version already, and I hope to bring Izzy to the PS4 next. I think a Mega Drive, Saturn or Neo Geo version would be the awesomest thing ever, but unfortunately, that would probably require the game to be almost completely rebuilt from the ground up.
Can you tell us what’s next for Senile Team? There was quite a gap between your last release and Izzy, as far as I can tell - are you back for good?
There's a lot to do next, as Intrepid Izzy's Dreamcast release is far from the end of the line. Besides all the work involving distribution and promotion, the Steam version will be updated with the improvements that were made to the Dreamcast version, and also there's the PS4 port I just mentioned.
And then... I don't know yet. Intrepid Izzy 2 seems tempting. There seems to be a demand for it already. And we could probably jump right into it, not only because we already have the engine and the tools now, but also a list of literally hundreds of perfectly useable ideas that didn't make it into this game.
Then again, we might just do something completely different again. We'll see!
How are you finding the gaming scene at the moment from a Dev perspective? Also, are there other studios in your area that you think are doing great work?
The gaming scene as a whole is so vast these days, it's overwhelming. But I enjoy my little corner of it. The Dreamcast community is great. Very supportive, helpful and always prepared to give a warm welcome to new members. My experiences with players on Steam have been positive so far as well.
There's a small group of retro game devs in my home town of Dordrecht. One of the other members whose work impressed me, in particular, is Ultimo Games. Everyone should check out his games on Steam!
I’m a complete sucker for in-game arcades, a recent example of which was in The Touryst, it’s a perfect way to take a break from adventuring and get some old school high-score breaking done! I just wanted to thank you for the three games available in Izzy, I didn’t discover the arcade until a few hours in and it was a huge treat.
You're welcome! It was also a nice change of focus during development. Each of the arcade games was made in a single day, except 3D Wheel which took me an extra day to figure out the maths! :D
I just wanted to wish you the absolute best for Intrepid Izzy, I’m thoroughly enjoying it and it definitely deserves to fly off shelves into Dreamcast around the globe! I look forward to whatever comes next from Senile Team!
Thank you so much! We will do our best to keep you entertained! :)
-Roel van Mastbergen
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