Indie Dev Interview: Solo Dev Andraž Oražem talks NecroBouncer

Interested in keeping the undead, rowdy customers and evil spirits out of nightclubs? That’s right, we all are. And in NecroBouncer, you can do your bit. 

NecroBouncer has been developed by Slovenian solo dev Andraž Oražem, he’s recently stepped out on his own to achieve his dream as a game developer. 

It is a rogue-lite dungeon crawler, where you play a necromancer who works in a dungeon club as a bouncer, keeping out undesirables while taking on evil bosses. 

As the game progresses you can level up your character with a huge variety of perks and special abilities, as you clear out the drunks and bums of the underworld. 

NecroBouncer lands on the 8th of December and you can stay updated through the game’s Steam page

Please could you introduce yourself?

My name is Andraž Oražem and I live in Slovenia. I am 28 years old and currently living with my girlfriend Nina. I have been working on games for the past 7 or 8 years now, but mostly in my spare time. Only recently have I started working on them full time (since May). Other than game development, I love playing piano, making orchestral music, drawing, playing board games and recently trying to learn how to read a book without getting distracted too easily.

And could you introduce your studio?

The story of the studio is the story about me. I am it’s founder and only member. The name is Alchemy Sheep, which is a name I selected for a few reasons. I like the colour green and I think sheep are cute. The name is random enough so that it doesn’t lock me into any profession, because I do want to create other things under the same name like board games, music, comics, videos, basically all kinds of entertainment media, for which I think the word “alchemy” is appropriate because you mix all kinds of knowledge and experience to create something new, which is especially true for game development.

Can you tell us about NecroBouncer?

It is a rogue-lite dungeon crawler, where you play a necromancer who works in a dungeon club as a bouncer. This is a short description of it.

Necrobouncer

Can you tell us a little about the gameplay?

Most of it is just classic rogue-like dungeon crawling, but a few things I like to point out are the following:

Instead of a large procedurally generated floor, I have split each floor into separate rooms that cannot be returned to once finished to try and decrease the amount of “down time” in the game. Also, each room has one of the many different unique game types, you have from the classic of “just kill everything”, all the way to the “block portals that spawn enemies every couple of seconds with giant stone pillars”. These should create a bigger variety of how you play the game and also how to build up your relics and then choose the appropriate rooms to go to.

At the end of each floor is of course a boss. When you defeat each of them, they drop their power gem which can from that point on be equipped every run by leveling up. Equipping a power gem will grant you one of the bosses’ abilities which will then also be upgrade-able with certain power gem specific relics and gems can also be combined in pairs to make the ability be a combination of the two. Each pair of gems has two options depending on which of those two is equipped as the active one and which as the upgrade.

You have different outfits for the NecroBouncer, all of which grant you a unique starting ability and stats and also a different set of relics that appear in the leveling system during the run. Those are totally catered to that specific outfit and it’s gimmick and you can’t get all of them every run since they are presented semi-randomly.

Can you tell us about the procedurally generated characters?

I don’t know exactly what this would be referring to. Characters (outfits, enemies and bosses) are all “hand crafted” so there is no procedural generation there, and for the rooms, they are also bound to certain rules and bases of how they can appear and what is in them. The most “procedural” thing is maybe the whole floor generation, which is generated every time from scratch when getting to a new floor or starting a new run.

You live in a dungeon?

Hahah, this is a joke I am making from time to time, because I we are living in a semi-basement apartment and to get to it, you have to go down the stairs and through the boiler room, so it looks like you are entering a “dungeon”. But to be honest, me and Nina live in a super lovely place, so I am very fortunate in that regard.

Necrobouncer

What’s your next step for the game and plans for the future?

There are already 3 NecroBouncer updates that I have planned for the next couple of months, so that is certainly happening. After that, I still have a bunch of ideas for the game that I would love to do, but it also depends a little on how my financial situation will look like. This means that I will probably start working on the next project that I have already planned out quite a bit and continue working on NecroBouncer from time to time. The better my situation will be, the more time I will be able to give NecroBouncer and push out some updates faster. But in either case, I would love to continue working on this game for a while!

How would you like the audience to respond to the game? Nightmares?

Naah, the most I am hoping from this game is for people to have fun! Find ludicrous combos, master the game’s mechanics, feel sometimes overwhelmed and sometimes overpowered and also feel some frustration when nearly killing the next boss, but in a way that makes you want to try just one more time, every time!

Did you come up with the game’s concept after getting rejected from a nightclub?

Hahah, no, the game’s concept was fairly simple in the beginning and started to flash out as I was developing. The theme of the club actually came quite some time into the development, probably randomly when walking outside or while taking a shower – most of my big ideas came from one or the other. I was in a club two maybe three times in my life and I never liked it, so there is no deeper meaning here 🙂

When is it out and how can people stay updated?

It will come out on 8th of December 2022! If you want to stay updated, probably the easiest thing to do would be to wishlist it on steam. Other than that, you can follow me or the game on twitter (@megaFIKUS, @Necro_Bouncer)” or join our discord server, where you can also get involved in the whole process and give me ideas for the game!

Thanks for reading our Indie Dev Interview: Solo Dev Andraž Oražem talks NecroBouncer, for more interesting articles on the indie games industry, check out the links below. 

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TOEM – REVIEW

This Article was written by: Harry Cole

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