Interesting People #14: Mikael Haveri on Nex Machina and Matterfall

Twin-stick and bullet-hell shooters may be considered fringe genres by the major publishers looking for their next AAA hit, but that hasn’t stopped Finnish developers Housemarque from finding their niche – and with it, a growing following of devoted fans. Responsible for the likes of Resogun and more recently Alienation, their pedigree goes all the way back to 1993 with the release of Stardust. I spoke to Housemarque’s Head of Publishing, Mikael Haveri, on their two most recent titles. 

Note: I have 10 free copies of Nex Machina which I am giving away here.

First, for those not in the know, what is Nex Machina about? What kind of gamers would be into it?
Mikael: Nex is for all lovers of twin-stick and score challenge type games. It's fast paced and will keep you on your toes the whole time. It's easily approachable for all, but the challenge is real, so might put off more casual players quite early into the experience. Generally all who like a challenge and or old-school titles should enjoy it. 

What were the Nex Machina's influences? I've heard Robotron and the “Jarvis Project” bandied around quite a bit, but I've been on your website and a lot of you guys look too young to have played it in the arcades! What gives?
Mikael: We are the oldest game developer in Finland, started with two companies in 1993 (Bloodhouse and Terramarque) who then fused to become Housemarque. We have two dev teams with total of just over 50 personnel and our motto is "Gameplay is King". Many games that influenced Nex Machina originate from the 80's and especially Eugene’s games like Robotron and Smash TV.

Another big influence are the various twin-stick shooters that we have made ourselves (like Super Stardust and Dead Nation). Tech wise it's a continuation to Resogun, as it is based on the same engine and utilizes a similar voxel style.

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You mentioned Eugene [Jarvis] – how involved was he on Nex Machina, and how was it working with such an industry legend?
It was great, kind of a fan boy moment every time you realize the legend in the room. He lives in Chicago so not much on location and his job was to be a creative consultant so not too involved on the day to day. 

Now, is your game really that hard, or are people just bad at playing games these days?
Mikael: Could be a bit of both, but yes, Nex Machina can be quite difficult. For reference check this clip of the "Hero Mode" from one of the top players.

Awesome! You guys are killing it in Finland, Sweden and Norway. CCP Games over in Iceland are also on a tear. What's up with Nordic game developers at the moment?
Mikael: Nordics have a lot of cool things going for them. Govenrment support, long winters to stay in and work on cool games, long history in the Demo Scene, and of course great schools. We have a bright future ahead of us as long as we can keep the quality high and our titles competitive.  It's a very different environment to work in compared to many other countries, but very much recommended looking into cool places to work.

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I heard there are a potentially infinite number of words in Finnish. Given this, how long did it take you to settle on 'Nex Machina', and what's the inspiration behind the name? Do you have a team working on the name of your next game already?
Mikael: Nex Machina roughly translated from Latin means "Killed by the Machine" or "Death Machine". We had a long road to coming up with the name, most of which is shown in the upcoming documentary "Name of the Game", coming out later this year. Our next game Matterfall is coming out on August 15th and it will be our take on Megaman and Gunstar Heroes.

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I have just had a look at Matterfall - it looks great. Reminds me of an old PC game called Abuse. Did you ever play that?
Mikael: Never played Abuse myself, but maybe people on the Matterfall team did. Initially we started working with gameplay and features that were inspired by the Turrican games. Later on we moved a bit away from that into a more run and gun formula that is akin to Gunstar Heroes.  It's gonna be a blast.

There will be a bit of a different control scheme compared to other recent game in the genre, but I'm sure lots of players will get deep into the game to really enjoy all the decisions we've made.

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I see Matterfall is a PS4 exclusive title. Why not spread your Nordic love around to other consoles, as well as PC players?
Mikael: Matterfall is a PS4 exclusive as many of our previous titles. Nex Machina was our first self-published title and thus our first game to launch day one on PC since 1999. We hope to bring more games to PC audiences in the future too, but really the success of Nex will show how much of that we are able to do.

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I’m looking forward to playing it! Thank you, Mikael - I appreciate you taking the time.
Mikael: No prob. Thanks! :) 

Thanks to Mikael for answering the questions – you can follow him on Twitter here. To learn more about HouseMarque and their lineup of games (old and new!) have a look at https://www.housemarque.com/ourgames/ 

And a big thanks of course to GOG.com for contributing 10 copies of Nex Machina which I’m giving away right here on Steemit.

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