Talking Leibniz With “Dyad” Developer Shawn McGrath

[videoyoutube]“Who the hell’s up at this time?” asks Shawn McGrath, developer of the upcoming PlayStation exclusive Dyad. It’s early – UK time – but worryingly late over in Canada.

“You don’t sleep much?” I query, wondering why it’s taken four years for the game to finally get to a stage where it’s playable by the press when he’s awake so much.

“Yeah, I’m very slow,” he replies, to which I comment that the game looked pretty finished a year ago at E3. “It’s looked that way for probably 2 years now,” he laughs.

“But, it wasn’t quite right.”

Dyad’s an interesting concept. We discuss origins and roots and it’s clear that McGrath’s a big fan of Rez and there are elements of Sony’s own Wipeout in there too, but there’s more to Dyad than the puzzle/racer pigeonhole that I’m trying to slap onto it in our discussion.

“It’s a really difficult game to describe with words let alone put into a genre, which is more constrictive somehow,” he says. “Wipeout and Rez are definitely hugely influential to me, as are some weirder games like Internal Section, Torus Trooper. I think the game that’s actually the most similar for a pure gameplay standpoint is tetris attack, though.”

 TSA: Would it be fair to say you’re a Jeff Minter fan?

MCGRATH:  I have a love / hate relationship with his work.

TSA: And his beard?

MCGRATH: I stand 100% behind his facial hair and attitude on living and animals.

The joy of being an indie developer is that generally you can work to your own schedule, your own deadlines. But not everyone likes the term, and I comment that some devs really hate the term. “Well, there’s a reason to hate it maybe?” says McGrath. “Maybe hate’s a strong word,” he adds, “but it definitely carries a ‘scenester’ connotation.”

[drop]”I don’t really care one way or another for the term itself,” he says, before I ask how he’s getting on with Sony given that they’re publishing this kooky title.

“They aren’t publishing it,” he replies, by way of correction. Dyad’s a self published title, which further explains why we’ve had to wait so long for it.

“They’ve been promoting it heavily and helping me out big time,” he comments, “so if it seems like they’re publishing it that must mean they’re working hard for it.”

They’ve not assisted with development at all though, unlike some other PSN titles that have – for example – fallen under the umbrella of Santa Monica Studio. “They helped a lot with PR and marketing and that sort of thing,” says Shawn, “like showing at E3, GDC, some small press events, the Playstation Blog, etc. That stuff has been a huge help, but nothing in terms of development.”

The name of the game comes up next in our chat.

TSA: Dyad means duality, right?

MCGRATH: Essentially. More precisely it means “group of two” or “two things that form harmony together”.

TSA: Like music and sound?

MCGRATH: No actually! That name came from the initial designs of the game from back when there was no music and really ugly graphics.  There was no music for the first two and half years of development, and only one graphic style that wasn’t very good for the first three years.

TSA: So the origin of the name is…

MCGRATH: …it begins with Leibniz’s monadology philosophy which is a – very interesting way to look at the world.

TSA: I’ll need to look it up.

MCGRATH: Good, because I can’t really explain it! It’s weird.

Shawn goes onto talking about how the game was formed. “Pekko, our original co-designer, and I were thinking a lot about interactions in games,” he says. “Particularly shoot em ups, and we thought about weapon designs and how it seems like there’s always a ‘best’ weapon in the games, and we thought about why there’s always a best, and how there’s an imbalance when all interactions are just ‘good’ – like shooting something.”

[drop2]”Then games balance interactions by making some more good than others, so what we tried to do with Dyad was make all interactions both good and bad.”

“So you had to decide which was most good at all times. So like there’re two weapons, two polarities, two of everything, and the weapons are balanced in such a way that you’ll never want to just use 1 thing. You can’t do that actually.”

The game features heavily stylised graphics and music that’s procedurally generated depending on what you’re doing and where you are.

Shawn tells me that there’s a pool of samples for each level of around 200 loops and event triggers, and the visuals react to the beat and your progress too.

“Since I programmed the graphics,” he admits, “I just made them react. I didn’t even realise I was doing it. I don’t think I realised it until David, the musician pointed it out to me.” We go back to Rez, but McGrath’s keen to remind me that “Dyad’s completely randomised.”

TSA: Any plans for a Vita port?

MCGRATH: Plans? Nothing concrete. I want to make it though.

TSA: What’s stopping you?

MCGRATH: There’re two conditions that have to be met before I can make it. One, it has to be free for people who bought the PS3 version. I don’t want to charge people twice, and I don’t want to change the game for Vita. Dyad is a complete thing as far as I’m concered, so if there’s a Vita version it’ll be the exact same as the PS3 version and free if you have the PS3 version.

TSA: And the other?

MCGRATH: It has to not suck on a small screen.

McGrath comments that he “really likes the Vita” and that it’s his”favourite piece of hardware ever.” “I want there to be lots of good games for it,” he adds.

Before we part, McGrath confirms the pricing – $15 in the US (and whatever that translates to in Europe) and there’s going to be a discount for PlayStation Plus subscribers – but won’t spill the details on a release date. I ask him about trophies. There’s a platinum, he says, and the game runs at 1080p and 60fps, which is lovely.

We’re hoping to get some time with the game this week, so we’ll let you know what it’s like.