We’ll soon be working on a review for Alchemist’s Castle for you, so we got in touch with Kabuk Games to talk about its development and PlayStation 4 release.
PS4Blog: Morning! Thank you for joining us today at PS4blog.net, Could you please get us started by letting our readers learn a bit about yourself and your work?
Hi! Thanks for having us. We are a team of four (three developers and an illustrator) based in Ankara. About a year ago, we met at the Animation Technologies and Game Development Center (ATOM), a pre-incubation center for wannabe indie developers, like us, sponsored by the Middle East Technical University. Alchemist’s Castle is our first project as a team. We sometimes also develop small mobile games.
PS4B: Alchemist’s Castle is out on PlayStation 4. How would you describe the game to someone who’s never heard about it?
It’s a 2D platformer heavily inspired by old-school classics like Metroid and Castlevania, with a unique story, interesting level design, and an awesome soundtrack.
PS4B: How long did it take to port the game to PS4? Where there any particular challenges or hurdles you had to overcome?
Technically, porting Alchemist’s Castle to the PS4 was quite easy. There were a couple of shaders which PS4 didn’t like, as well as some controller bugs, but nothing major. We solved all the issues within a couple of days. The main challenge was the certification process. Lack of proper documentation and clear guidelines didn’t make it any easier! It took us about three months to get the game certified. How did we overcome this challenge? Mostly just by brute force – submitting the build and waiting for the feedback.
PS4B: Now that Alchemist’s Castle is ready to on PlayStation 4, what game are you working on next? Any chance of a console release?
Aside from a couple of small games, we work on the sequel, Alchemist’s Legacy. It will definitely be released on PS4 as well!
PS4B: And now it is time for us to go. Is there something else you’d like to add before end this interview?
We would like to thank Emek Kepenek and everyone at ATOM for their guidance and feedback and to our families for their support. Without them, Alchemist’s Castle wouldn’t have been possible.
