Q: How did the idea of making Teen Games come about?
A: At first we were going to be 2 people, and we wanted to make our own game and we decided to start with Roblox, mixing many new features and good features from several games of the same genre, for example, I remember a game that we played a lot a long time ago, Jailbreak, and seeing that other games that at the time began to be released of the same type and offered some new features that were better than those of Jailbreak and that perhaps in Jailbreak by the style of game or any other reason had not been added and others were not compatible, then our intention was to make a game combining the best of each of them and adapting it to our ideas, in fact the map base, what is the terrain, vegetation, biomes, etc, was practically finished, there was a city biome, a swamp, desert, snow and we were preparing things to do in the future events in real time, which even many modify the biomes of the map, the handling of vehicles and so on.
We realized at that time that the technical specifications that were required for everything we wanted to do at that time with Roblox Studio was very complicated and to make it all work perfectly for users of even high-end equipment was almost impossible.
Later, because of certain things, I preferred to stay alone with the project and move on to something smaller and more sustainable that in the long term would not be so risky but could be a good project.
So the final idea of Teen Games was that I could make the games that I wanted to play, translating my ideas into a type of game, with a story and with a very specific type of gameplay that I wanted.
Q: You have mentioned before, some games, like Jailbreak, that you consider can distinguish Teen Games from other games or developers.
A: I think the time it took us to do things, well, it took us practically a year from when we released the first teaser of the game to the release of the first official trailer, but by doing that we managed to show something very changed, improved and convey an optimal progression for our resources and our goals. The idea is that we only show things when they are ready, we don't have short term projects, about medium term projects, we want them to remain in the background or not a priority and the projects that we really do are long term. It is also true that we take longer because of the few resources we have, we only want the game to come out when it is really in a perfect state for it, in the end we want each project to be better and bigger than the previous one, focusing on gameplay, performance and security for the users.
Q: What was the main challenge you faced:
A: Not knowing where to start and not knowing how much money it was going to cost to do this and if I was willing to invest it and especially when I was left alone on the project. Thanks to the fact that we have eventually hired some freelancers we have been able to move forward in several branches in the right way. In the end it is our first game with no experience and with very reduced resources and that will be noticed in the final version of the game, in fact if it is necessary another delay in the game, we will not hesitate to do it as long as it is for the good of the game.
Q: Do you think quality is much better than quantity?
A: Obviously, we have seen numerous companies in the last few years that have published numerous titles with embarrassing quality and now the industry is being severely affected by it. It seems that in the last few months several companies have realized the wrong business model they were pursuing and seem to be rectifying it and starting to treat their employees and users better.
Q: About Jennifer's Nightmare, what were your expectations in terms of results from the first trailer of the game?
A: Well, we honestly didn't expect to exceed the first teaser of the game by much, we were completely surprised when the next day we saw that on X or Twitter the publication of the trailer had already exceeded 20,000 plays, that on YouTube we were close to 2,000 plays and that among other platforms we got many hundreds of plays. It was a great sensation and the feedback we got from people has been very positive and has motivated the team enormously.
Q: You have been speaking in plural, which means that several people worked on the project, how many people worked on the project in total and how was your experience leading the team?
A: About 10 people in total and the experience has been complicated in many occasions, not being face to face, the different languages and schedules, it is difficult to convey exactly what you want to do and it is quite stressful and complex especially when it is the first time you do it, but over time you end up finding ways to improve it and you feel good because you see that everything is going in the direction you want to go.
Q: About the launching of the game, there was a press release notifying that the launching of the game was delayed. Was this due to some internal conflict that we don't know about?
A: Mainly the lack of resources, we are a company that is not even officially registered yet, and if we had more resources the game could already be playing or would not be many weeks away, but as it is not possible we can not hire many people at the same time or in total and in many cases I have to find my own way to get resources and learn to perform different tasks. We also took advantage of this delay to redo the story of the game, the story did not convey anything and was very flat and we have changed it for a deeper one that can convey the feelings that the protagonist of the game felt at the time.
Q: If Teen Games turns out to be a success, what do you think would be your next steps?
A: Well, without a doubt we would move on to other platforms, abandoning Roblox and start working with Unreal Engine and launch our games on Steam, Epic Games, PlayStation, Xbox, etc... Or even be able to have our own store with our own merchandising products with international shipping, but above all start creating more games but not too many, for example, develop 2 games at the same time for a certain period of time and thus be able to launch games with large periods of development every 2 or 3 years.
Q: If Teen Games could no longer operate, what would be your next step in this industry?
A: Well, most likely I will not continue in it, there are many more ideas and more industries in which I would like to participate and at the moment I am starting a process of opposition for Local Police, so if Teen Games would not work it would be time to move on to another project in another sector and leave this as a nice memory.
Q: Do you think that political correctness is a danger for videogames?
A: I think that on a general level for all entertainment, interactive or not, political correctness can get boring, if you play a videogame or watch a movie it is to disconnect from real life and entertain yourself, not to represent the same problems you have in real life and from which you want to disconnect. There are correct ways to include political correctness in your game without being negative, but I consider political incorrectness in entertainment to be much more entertaining and positive than political correctness, referring to the new trend of everything being “Woke”.
Q: About Roblox, what do you think about the malfunctioning of the platform and how do you think some problems could be solved?
A: Roblox has so many problems... The first problem of the platform are those who run it, they have been making many mistakes for many years and although the platform has more and more users, as is logical because everyone can enter whenever they want and for free and if the world population increases then Roblox players are likely to increase as well, just like Steam. Other problems, such as toxicity, hackers, bad performance in general, how little the game creators charge... They are a cumulative of many problems that end up defining that Roblox is a platform that is not at its best in certain areas.
Q: There has been controversy before about “bots” in Roblox, do you think this can be a good thing in some cases?
A: AI yes, like NPCs and things like that, that depends on how you look at it you can count it as a bot, but any other type of bot does not consider it positive, now I wouldn't know how to tell you any specific case since they would already be classified as AI and not as bot as they are referred to in that polemic.