Creators Corner: Fighties

Xbox Live Creators Program empowers passionate developers everywhere to share their games with the world. In the Creator’s Corner series, Xbox Live Creators Program developers will share what inspires and motivates them to design and create their games, what challenges and creative solutions they pursue to bring their games to fruition, and how they leverage Xbox Live capabilities to enhance their games for Xbox. Today, we’ll be chatting with Ben and Max Snyder about their experience creating and bringing Fighties to the Xbox audience.

Tell us about your developer journey — what inspired you to start developing games and what continues to motivate you?
We went to school to get software engineering degrees. We like to play games so whenever we could choose our school projects we would make a game. The thing that continues to motivate us is the game ideas in our heads that we want to make.

What was the first game you created, and how did that experience contribute to Fighties?
Fighties was the first game we created as Pillow Pig Games. Before that we individually made small games for school projects. While making the small games we learned the basics of game development which helped us create Fighties.

Tell us about your team and how you came together (briefly)
We are a team of two. Max does the programming and music. Ben does the art and animation. We are twin brothers.

What’s been the most rewarding part of developing and shipping your game in the Creators Program?
The most rewarding part was winning the Dream.Build.Play challenge. (Editor’s Note: Dream.Build.Play is a global community of gamemakers. It’s a place where individuals can engage with independent developers around the world, and the companies, technologies, and leading creators that support them. The Dream.Build.Play Challenge is an annual skills-based contest looking for the latest and greatest UWP games form the indie developer community).

What’s been the most frustrating roadblock/challenge you’ve faced in developing a game, and how did you solve for it?
The most frustrating challenge We faced in developing a game was making the backgrounds for Fighties. Ben doesn’t like drawing backgrounds and when he does he doesn’t think it looks good. To solve this, we simplified the backgrounds as much as possible.

Now that the game is available in the Creators Program, what would your team like to work on next?
We are working on our next game. We haven’t come up with the name for it yet. It has trains, sword fighting, and animal riding.

What’s your favorite game, ever, and why?
Max’s favorite game is StarCraft 2 because it’s a really fun and challenging game. Ben’s favorite game is The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker because of the art style.

If you could be any character in any game, who would you be and what would be the first thing you do?
If we could be any characters in any game, we would be Mario and Luigi. The first thing we would do is race in karts.

Thanks so much to Ben and Max for this interview and bringing Fighties to the Xbox community. Tune in to an exclusive interview and live-stream with Ben and Max on Mixer.com/Xbox on Monday, April 23 at 11 a.m. PST.

Check out all the other incredible games in the Microsoft Store or in-console within the Creators Collection and stay tuned to Xbox Wire for monthly posts featuring Creators Program developers from all around the world!