Interview With Ash Jackson of Monster Robot Studios

Has interface design been more or less challenging for SZC compared to your previous games? Have you settled on the final UI design yet, or do you still find yourself making tweaks all the time as you get more feedback?

I’m pretty happy with the design. There was a lot of fine-tuning and feedback from friends. I’ve actually always been a fan of the old school buttons, but I managed to make a full touch interface, which I prefer over buttons for SZC. But the control system is customizable: you can have full touch, all buttons, or some of each. It all feels natural to me, but I guess we’ll find out just how good it is come release day.

Will Silas be reprising his role as musician on SZC? For that matter, how much thought have you given to releasing the Monster Robot game soundtracks? Because GravCat’s music rocks!

Thanks! This time around the music is being supplied by the very talented and amazing Dave Dexter. He has managed to come up with some really fantastic tracks.

Silas is actually a novelist by day and has released a few books. So he has been helping with the story on this game, as it’s more complicated than the story for, say, Bridge the Gap – “There were cute pirates who liked gold, the end.” But not to worry, he’ll be working on tracks for future games for sure.

Finally, we just happened to stumble on this 1950s flick while looking for your YouTube channel and noticed a resemblance to the Monster Robot Studios mascot. Pure coincidence, or are you guys huge fans of old sci-fi movies?

Oh no, no coincidence there! It’s intentional. As soon as I saw that monster in the movie I wanted to draw it and put it in a comic, a game, anything! Then when it came time for a company name and mascot, the answer was simple.

Just one final note: in keeping with our last game, anyone who rates/reviews SZC and then tweets that review to our Twitter account will be entered to win a $10 iTunes gift card. We’ll be picking two winners for the month of February!

Big thanks to Ash Jackson for taking the time to answer our questions. SZC is slated for a February 16 release, and stay tuned to Monster Robot Studios’ website, Facebook page and Twitter account for the latest news! And here’s the latest trailer for SZC while you’re waiting: