Interview with game developer Dogroach about Cataclyzm

What happens when you combine the classic action of Metal Slug and Doom with a heavy dose of heavy metal, pixel art, and a unique beer mechanic? You get Cataclyzm, a fast-paced shmup from Australian solo developer Dogroach. Ahead of its upcoming launch on October 30th, we spoke with the creator about his very first game, his musical inspirations, and the challenges of solo development.

Could you briefly introduce yourself and your studio, and share how the initial idea for Cataclyzm came to life?

Heyo! I'm Dogroach, a solo developer from Australia. This is actually my first try at making a video game, so it's been one hell of a journey! The initial idea for Cataclyzm was about a cat that drank too much coffee and was fighting cafe themed enemies like giant cookies and evil espresso shots, but as I started creating the initial art for the character, enemies and powerups and the music, they kind of slowly evolved into the skull, demon and metal imagery that you see in Cataclyzm.

The visual style and dark atmosphere of Cataclyzm are striking. Which classic games, art forms, or media served as your biggest inspirations during design?

Thank you for your kind words regarding the style and atmosphere of Cataclyzm, I really appreciate it! For the art style, I really wanted to go for a mix of the amazing pixel art from the Metal Slug series, mixed with a bit of the classic and modern Doom games with a heavy metal theme. I love heavy music as I mentioned, and heavy metal album covers sometimes have some of the craziest art, so I also wanted to emulate some of that. I kind of want a game where you play one of these crazy hard rock and heavy metal album covers.

I was playing a bit of Doom 2016, Raiden, Cho Ren Sha and Blazing Star around that time as well so they have also heaviy influenced the type of gameplay and art style of Cataclyzm, something kinda difficult and fast paced, but has that flow state once you get the hang of it. I wanted the player to get the feeling of playing as a badass hero/anti-hero while also maintainging some of the charm and over the top ridiculouslness of the classic Metal Slug games.

The music of course was a huuuge influence for Cataclyzm! I love heavy metal (and heavy music in general) so I wanted to create a weird and ridiculous world of demonic amps, corrupted guitars and crazy skulls in a demon moshpit in hell. I was listening to a lot of Motorhead, Judas Priest, Metallica, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath as inspiration for the Cataclyzm soundtrack.

In an arcade-style game like Cataclyzm, the core gameplay loop is key. How did you balance making it accessible for new players while keeping the challenge high enough to keep them coming back?

I didn't want to have any difficulty settings for Cataclyzm. For the core gameplay, I wanted the player to feel like a badass unstoppable force but also facing off against the forces of heavy metal hell. The balacing of the overall difficulty was a challenging process, requiring lots of playtests from myself as well as others to try and get to that sweet spot of not too difficult and not too easy. In addition to the difficulty, there is also a scoring mechanic of filling beer mugs to add one more layer to the difficulty and balance of this game. A fully filled beer gives a huge score bonus and they can also be used to blow away enemy bullets and damage/kill enemies. I envision a high level player trying to maximise their beer collection while playing the game. I also want the players coming back for the weird pixel art and the rockin' music :)

The audiovisual design adds so much to the action. What role do the sound design and soundtrack play in driving the pacing and tense atmosphere?

For Cataclyzm, my vision from the very beginning was for the music to drive the action. I worked on and created the music for Cataclyzm first and they lay the groundwork for almost every single aspect of both the artstyle as well as the gameplay. I took a lot of inspiration from rock/metal legends like Motorhead, Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Metallica and Black Sabbath, and any metalhead playing Cataclyzm would instantly recognise the references. The pacing and enemy waves and approaches are all there to compliment the music, to add an extra layer to the music. I wanted the player to feel like going through a crazy concert in this hellish and weird world.
In terms of sound design, I deliberately chose the retro 8bit/16bit sound effects to contrast with the metal soundtrack. I wanted to create an atmosphere where maybe you're in this dingy pub, theres a few metal bands playing there that night and you're plugging your coins away at this dodgy and janky looking arcade machine in the corner trying to get the high score!

Developing an indie game always comes with hurdles. What was the biggest technical or creative challenge you had to overcome during production?

For me the biggest challenge was balancing the difficulty and flow of Cataclyzm. Since I'm a solo dev, it's sometimes very hard to look at certain aspects of the game in the same way someone with fresh eyes would, and that meant balancing the difficulty was a bit of a challenge, especially finding that sweet balance between too easy and too difficult. This is where having others play various builds during the development cycle was extremely helpful, and a lot of the feedback has led to a significantly better feel while playing Cataclyzm. I would like to thank all of these people from the bottom of my heart, thank you!

Looking at the development process so far, is there a specific feature or mechanics in Cataclyzm that you are most proud of?

I've got to say that I'm most proud of the beer mechanic! I wanted to do something that I quite haven't seen in shmups too often (something similar in Raiden Fighters Jet) where there is a bit of delayed satisfaction. I wanted there to be a bit of a risk/reward aspect to it where you have to be a little bit patient in filling up your beer mugs, but then the payoff is you get a huge score bonus and explosion that blows away bullets and enemies when you build up the beer to its fullest. It's probably the feature I spent the most amount of time on, both in the technical aspects as well the fine tuning of it where I didn't want this beer to fill up too fast or too slow.

With the game scheduled to launch on October 30th, what do the final months leading up to release look like for you, and what do you hope players take away from their first playthrough?

The final months will be a whole bunch of playtesting with myself and a few others to try and polish Cataclyzm up as much as possible. Once again, a big thank you from the bottom of my heart for those that are participating. I will be using the feedback to further add as much polish as possible to Cataclyzm.

For their first playthrough, I want players to be punched in the chest by the heavy soundtrack; just sit back, crack open a beer or two and enjoy the ride that is Cataclyzm!

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Please, add Cataclyzm to your wishlist on Steam.