Interview with Jay Armstrong - co-founder of Massive Monster
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Hooked Gamers
First off, who decided on the idea for the Cult of the Lamb themed wedding at this years PAX AUS?
Jay Armstrong
Haha…that was Doug's (Doug Johns of PR agency PowerUP PR) idea. I think he started the idea as a joke initially. Given the following of Cult of the Lamb, he said maybe we could do a wedding. It quickly snowballed to the point that a call was put out via social media, and to our surprise we had a few people who were interested. And here we are today, having two actual weddings in the middle of PAX AUS at our Cult of the Lamb chapel.
So with Cult of the Lamb, how did you balance the roguelike elements with the cult-building and management aspects? What were some of the biggest challenges in creating a seamless transition between these two gameplay modes?
It was actually pretty tough. When either side of the game isn’t good enough, it just doesn’t work. So, it took a lot of work to ensure that both the dungeon crawling portion and the cult management section of the game played well on its own, but also blended in well together.
What inspired the unique and often grotesque enemy designs in Cult of the Lamb?
We wanted the designs to be dark. The dungeons had to be dark and scary and so the characters inside needed to fit in with their surroundings. We wanted there to be a contrast between the base (the cult area) and the darkness of the dungeons.
How did you approach the storytelling in Cult of the Lamb? Was there a specific narrative structure or inspiration that guided your creative process?
When we started, we wanted Cult of the Lamb to be an iterative experience, but one that resulted in a clear progression for the player. We wanted to ensure that whenever you jumped into a dungeon, it would be fun to play and you came out with something valuable. The Cult area binded the experience and over time your character would become more corrupted by the power.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced during the development of Cult of the Lamb?
One of the main challenges was that Cult of the Lamb is very iterative. We didn’t want the game to become a boring and grinding experience. So when we were developing the game, we came up with all these ideas, of which we cut about 60 percent. As I said before, we wanted the game to be dark, and to have players think about sacrificing their cultists. Doing that with such cute visuals was a challenge too, but I think it worked out great.
What are your plans for post-launch support and updates for Cult of the Lamb? Are there any specific features or expansions that you're considering outside those already launched?
Free updates were part of the original plan after the initial success of the game. We always wanted to keep improving the game. But with the continued success of the game, we wanted to provide the gamers with more Lamb. I can't say too much about any further releases though.
How do you engage with the Cult of the Lamb community? What are your thoughts on the role of player feedback in shaping the game's future?
We love the feedback of the fans. We get some great ideas.
For example, there are some players who want to see more of one particular character. We'll often try to incorporate some of these, but it may be difficult to do so. We need to safeguard the darkness of the overall story, so we can’t have too many cute characters running around.
How has Devolver Digital helped with Cult of the Lamb and its initial and continued development? I spoke to Graeme and he mentioned that it was actually the Massive Monster team that reached out to them.
Yeah, that's true. It’s a funny story actually. I sent a bunch of emails to some random email addresses that I thought would end up with the Devolver team. One of those I sent out was correct and got through to the right person. They contacted us pretty much straight away and wanted to talk more about Cult of the Lamb.
At first, having Deveolver on board gave us some credibility. We were this small development team who’d only release a few games. Devolver then had Cult of the Lamb shown during the Opening Night Live at Gamescom and then it took off from there.
The Devolver team has also provided us with mentoring along the way that has helped develop the game into what it is now. They've always said that "We don’t want you suffering to make the game", and making Cult of the Lamb has been great with their help.
We ended the interview there, but continued talking about how myself and my daughter bonded through video games by playing one of Massive Monster's previous titles, The Adventure Pals. It is a co-op platformer that was simple enough to allow us both to play when she was about eight years old. With a child of his own, Jay and I discussed when to introduce kids to gaming and about the types of games they should start playing. I pointed out that co-op games such as The Adventure Pals are perfect, as they have bright visuals that appeal to younger gamers and allow the parent to help out when required. And there’s no better way to bond with children than doing something that is fun for both parents and children alike.
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