Tommy Refenes
Legendary Gunsmith, Outer Heaven
Discussion
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Tommy Refenes
@tommyrefenes · Legendary Gunsmith, Outer Heaven
Hi! I'm Tommy Refenes. You might know my name from Super Meat Boy or Indie Game: The Movie. I'm pretty decent at design, writing, and programming, I'm terrible at art and I work constantly. I have diabetes, a wife and a cat and I hate the phrase "no worries" when it's used out of context...like when you're at Starbucks and they hand you your coffee and you say "Thank you" and they go "No Worries". That irritates me.
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Jake Crump
@jakecrump · Community Team with Product Hunt
What's been the biggest struggle for you, creatively, since your success after SMB?
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Tommy Refenes
@tommyrefenes · Legendary Gunsmith, Outer Heaven
@jakecrump The biggest struggle is finding my place. Edmund went and carved out his own career after Super Meat Boy...meanwhile I was making all the tools and stuff for our new games. I think I have a handle on it now...I'm doing my own stuff which I'm finding very rewarding.
SeaBass
@murder_punch
Would you ever consider doing a contest where you and a fan do a weekend game jam? Or given that you are looking for an artist, would you consider doing a weekend game jam as a trial to see if the artist has grit?
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Tommy Refenes
@tommyrefenes · Legendary Gunsmith, Outer Heaven
@murder_punch A gamejam trial might be a little much on me. I think I would do something more along the lines of "Here's a paragraph I wrote from a story for this game I want you to art from, draw this how you see it". If I like what I see, hired, if not, not hired!
Aaron Silverberg
@bashabookoos
@tommyrefenes @murder_punch That's sound cool, I would love to give that a shot! Do you have a paragraph of story ready or are you waiting to find an artist until later?
Russ Frushtick
@russfrushtick
Hey man, thanks for joining! Few questions for ya:
1) It seemed like Mew-Genics was making some good progress. Any reason it took a backburner?
2) Any juicy Super Meat Boy Forever news you can share?
3) What's your take on mobile games today? F2P cesspit or filled with diamonds in the rough?
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Tommy Refenes
@tommyrefenes · Legendary Gunsmith, Outer Heaven
@russfrushtick
1. MewGenics might have seemed like it was making good progress, but it wasn't. The design got away from us and it got to a point about 2 years in where it looked like there was no end in sight. One day it will be re-designed and put out, but I think that's a ways off.
2. I wish I had some, but unfortunately nothing new to share.
3. Mobile games are no different than AAA or Indie games. There are good and bad. I enjoyed Crossy Road...hell I even enjoyed Candy Crush before it became too painful to wait for lives to continue playing. I don't think a platform determines if a game is good or not, I think the designers do.
Emily Hodgins
@ems_hodge · Community and Marketing, Product Hunt
What's your take on the current state of indie games?
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Tommy Refenes
@tommyrefenes · Legendary Gunsmith, Outer Heaven
@ems_hodge I don't really follow "indie" games. I follow good games. In that respect, I think there are tons of good games out there today:)
SeaBass
@murder_punch
@tommyrefenes Thanks for doing this! At what point did you and Edmund decide to quit your day jobs and go full time on Meat Boy? And what were you doing prior to being a full time Indie dev?
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Tommy Refenes
@tommyrefenes · Legendary Gunsmith, Outer Heaven
@murder_punch Neither one of us had day jobs when we started SMB. I was already living off contract work and savings from my previous job and he was doing flash games here and there.
Before I worked on Meat Boy, I was working on a game with a friend that didn't turn out so great...it wasn't something I wanted to do. Before that, I was working an industry job in Amsterdam for a fucking shitty company.
SeaBass
@murder_punch
Hi Tommy! How much do you think IGTM benefited from Meat Boy sales-wise and how much do you guys think Meat Boy benefited sales-wise from IGTM?
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Tommy Refenes
@tommyrefenes · Legendary Gunsmith, Outer Heaven
@murder_punch I don't know how much. We did see an uptick in sales when the movie released. I don't think IGTM benefited from having Super Meat Boy in it...the merits of that film are in it's composition, directing and editing and not in Meat Boy. They could have done that movie in that style with any indie story and I think it would have been just as successful and important. They are masters at their craft.
SeaBass
@murder_punch
@tommyrefenes @murder_punch Thanks for the response. And while it's nice to see such a humble answer, I'm sure that you added much more to IGTM than you realize, if even indirectly! Can't wait for your lecture at HandMadeCon!
Denton.
@drstinkbomber
@tommyrefenes How far along is your metroidvania game, will we expect it earlyish next year?
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Tommy Refenes
@tommyrefenes · Legendary Gunsmith, Outer Heaven
@drstinkbomber Map generation is a big deal. I can't just throw a bunch of rooms together randomly and expect it to make any sense or be fun. That's what I'm working on right now and I feel like I will be done with the map generation by the end of the year. At that point, then I just finish designing enemies, grab an artist and a sound guy and go to town. My goal is to have it out before 2017.
codythedragondude
@realdragondude
@tommyrefenes ok now a serious question whens the next walking in video games marathon happening?
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Tommy Refenes
@tommyrefenes · Legendary Gunsmith, Outer Heaven
@realdragondude Currently our house is being renovated and we are living in the half of the house without a kitchen, dining, and living room. Once the renovation is done, I really want to do another walk across the map charity because I love doing them and there are so many new open world games I want to walk across. I would guess sometime early 2016