Interview with Patrick Casey, Developer of Voyage to Farland

I sat down (at my laptop) to speak with Patrick Casey, sole developer with Peculiar Games and developer of Voyage to Farland (a cute-but-hardcore, addicting roguelike that I reviewed).

I often see you refer to Mystery Dungeon or Shiren when you talk about Voyage to Farland. Were there any other inspirations for Voyage to Farland?

I probably mention Shiren TOO much when talking about Voyage to Farland! I guess I'm hoping to snag a few Shiren fans or at least get them interested in my game. Shiren was indeed the main inspiration. I'd seen Rogue, Nethack and so on, but nothing that brought those older ASCII games into the present with a modern graphical treatment. And Chunsoft does such a fantastic job with the design - they didn't just take a couple of ideas from Rogue and make a so-so game to generate a few bucks. Shiren's design is TIGHT - especially the revamped 2006 DS release (2008 for the English version).

I'd been playing Earthbound before I picked up Shiren, and I think a few elements (or at least atmosphere) worked their way into Voyage to Farland as well, more subconsciously than by design. Since I started working on Voyage when I lived in Japan, there's a Japanese cultural influence also with a few of the monsters: Oba (from Obatarian - the way Japanese people describe "battalions" of pushy middle-aged women), Oni (the Japanese word for demon), and the Maskboy monster which is influenced by the bouncing heads and the masked "No-Face" character in Miyazaki's film, "Spirited Away".

HE MENTIONED EARTHBOUND!!!! YES!!! Auto-awesomeness in my book.

Some of the weapons also reference actual blades manufactured in Seki, Japan (in Gifu Prefecture). But it's a very obscure & convoluted shout-out!

Cursed Treasure 2 Review and Interview - FREE Tower Defense Meets RPG Web Game

Awesome, fun art right from the beginning!

Cursed Treasure 2 (with the awesome, impossible-to-resist-singing subtitle of 'Hey! Heroes! Leave us Gems Alone!') is a free Flash game that places you in the role of an evil overlord that must protect gems from the invading, annoying "good heroes" that always try to spoil a good/bad time. While the game is a Tower Defense game through and through, you gain experience after each level (whether you win or not!) that help you out, making the game great for both Tower Defense lovers AND RPG fans. I won't hesitate to say that I'm absolutely terrible at Tower Defense games myself, but I fell in love with the original Cursed Treasure. As soon as I heard the a sequel had released, I spent the next several nights absorbed in getting stars from levels, upgrading skills and annihilating do-gooders with unending fury!