WEST ORANGE, NJ — Gamers who also like puzzles were introduced to “Robo Puzzle Smash” on Nov. 15, a puzzle fighting game that came out on the computer platform Steam after being developed by West Orange-based programmer Benjamin Cole and his game development company Pxlplz. Players can go head-to-head as robots to match colored blocks and attack their opponents while trying to beat the clock. Cole and a team of four other people spent about four years developing “Robo Puzzle Smash.”
“I had about four people at a time working on art and characters and design,” he said in an interview with the West Orange Chronicle on Nov. 16. “We built a quick prototype for some game ideas and took it to conventions and then did a lot of development on it. There’s a lot of work that goes into it, we have to build a soundtrack and characters and then game modes.”
Cole said that the game doesn’t have a target audience and is for anyone who might enjoy it. Though he thinks it might be a little complicated for younger players, he said that, when they test drove the game at conventions, children were very good at it.
“Anyone who wants to play should,” Cole said. “It might be a little complicated for young kids, but we saw kids who were 10, 11 years old who were really good at it. It really stretches the gamut.”
“Robo Puzzle Smash” is inspired by the video games Cole liked to play as a child, like “Dr. Mario,” “Sonic the Hedgehog” and “Kirby.” He got into game design when he worked in animation, and then became involved in programming and the business side. He decided to start his own business to allow him to make the games he would want to play. In addition to Pxlplz, Cole does consulting work for other gaming platforms.
“We’ve done a couple of puzzle games for iPhone, mostly smaller scope and small scale games,” he said. “I do all the programming. I contract out other developers for the art and characters and story. We’re not building large-scale games, but we’re definitely making games we want to play.”
Cole described programming and game design as art that transforms into something else.
“In programming you do what the game wants you to do,” he said. “Here’s how to turn your art into something that does something else. Once you get sucked down that hole, I don’t think there’s any going back.”
Even in the last decade, the number of ways to play video games has increased, and Cole said this has made game development easier. When there are more ways to play a game, there are more games to play.
“It’s gotten a lot easier. Previously there was a lot of focus on one platform,” Cole said. “A game would be for the PlayStation or Xbox. If you were lucky you had some crossover, but it was difficult to build out. Now we use Javascript to write most programs and that works for iOS and Android and PC. We can build for a bunch of different systems.”
Because his business is small, Cole said the Nov. 15 release of “Robo Puzzle Smash” was only a soft launch. Conventions helped get the word out, and he has been reaching out to video game content creators on YouTube, hoping they will play the game and inspire people to buy it.
“That’s one of the reasons we added the head-to-head online version,” Cole said. “People who play can talk to each other. Some of those videos have millions of views, so it would help.”
Now that the game is released, Cole said he’s going to relax and take a break.
“After four years working on one thing I’m taking a little bit of a break before I start anything else,” he said.
To buy and play “Robo Puzzle Smash,” go to www.robopuzzlesmash.com.
Photos Courtesy of Benjamin Cole
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