We’re working on a review for Guard Duty, so I got in touch with ick Chicken Studios to talk a bit about the game. Come check it out!
PS4Blog: Hi! Welcome to http://PS4Blog.net. Could you please help us get started by telling our readers a bit about yourself and your work?
Hi, I’m Nathan from Sick Chicken Studios. I worked on Guard Duty doing the design, story, art, and writing. I worked together with my good friend Andy to create the game. Guard Duty started out in 2016 as a hobby project, something we were working on alongside our day jobs, three years later and a lot of late nights I decided to quit my job and work on Guard Duty full time. The game was released on Steam in May 2019.
PS4B: Ratalaika Games has released Guard Duty on PlayStation 4, PS Vita, and Nintendo Switch. What can you tell us about the game?
Guard Duty is a modern love letter to classic 90s adventure games like Monkey Island, Discworld, and Blazing Dragons. We took a familiar formula seen in the classic adventures and applied modern design sensibilities, trying out best to avoid illogical puzzles and give the player as much information as they need to solve any puzzles they encounter. We decided to go with a story that runs across two timelines, one set in a fantasy medieval setting and another in the dystopian future. There are a lot of fantasy adventure games, but not many that span both genres!
PS4B: How long did it take to make Guard Duty? Where there any particular hurdles or challenges you had to overcome during development?
Guard Duty’s development took roughly four years. We didn’t set out to make a full-blown commercial release, so development was at first quite slow. After the first year, we decided to take things a bit more seriously and started working on the game whenever we had a spare evening. One of the biggest hurdles with making a game of this length is motivation. When you get to that half-way point in development,you really start to get an idea of how long making a game takes. It’s quite scary!
PS4B: Are you currently working on any new projects that might make their way to consoles?
Whilst I haven’t announced anything yet, I’m quite far into a new game project, a narrative-driven 3D adventure about exploration, mystery, and the feeling of being watched. I’m hoping to be able to announce this alongside a short teaser trailer in the coming weeks.
PS4B: And now it’s time for us to go. Is there something else you’d like to add?
I’d just like to say thanks to everyone who has supported us so far, the feedback and positive vibes we’re seeing about Guard Duty have been really motivating. If you’d like to keep up to date about my future work, you can follow me on Twitterfollow me on Twitter, or you can also sign up for our mailing listsign up for our mailing list.
