Question #7 – Member: breadtruck
"Looking back, is there anything you feel like you shouldn't have done in Axiom Verge? [Or anything you would've done differently?] Like, maybe in retrospect, the world was too big, or there were too many weapon options?"
Tom Happ: "Too many weapons" is one of the biggest complaints I hear, which was borne of (perhaps overzealously) trying to give players more to search for than just missile or energy expansions. Instead of being perceived as "this is way more interesting that increasing a counter", it was perceived as "weapons are less valuable than in other games". Another complaint is that the bosses are "just bullet sponges", which was also a reactionary design choice since I was trying to avoid making "puzzle" bosses (like in Nintendo developed games where a boss can only be taken down by performing a sequence of puzzle moves… grabbing its tail with a grapple and throwing its own spikes back at it or something). I don't like having to solve puzzles while something is trying to kill me. But I would like to have made the bosses smarter than I did. Or maybe had the courage to avoid bosses altogether.
Question #23 – Member: Crawling Mushroom
"If Nintendo contacted you to make the "next entry in the Metroid series" what are some ideas that you would like to put in the game?"
Tom Happ: I would make something different. It feels like every Metroid has the same collection of items, powerups, weapons, enemies. So I'd come up with some other items and abilities. I'd probably be tempted to try and reboot the character, remove the cartoony stuff like being raised by bird people, the prophesized savior stuff, the Barbie Doll zero suit, try to bring in more of the Ellen Ripley and Boba Fett aspects of her personality.
Dan Adelman: I don't want to say too much about Chasm right now, but suffice it to say, the Vita sales on Axiom Verge definitely exceeded expectations….
Tom Happ: ...AAA game developers just don't get paid what I can make on my own.