Nobuo Uematsu Of Final Fantasy Fame To Work On Defenders Quest II Theme

Pretty fun news today guys! Defenders Quest II: Mist of Ruin, a game that will fully support Linux, will have some theme music by Nobuo Uematsu who worked on the Final Fantasy series of games.

Lars Doucet had this to say about it:

QuoteWe're extremely excited to be working with Uematsu-san for our next project. I remember playing the first Final Fantasy game when I was just a kid, and in an age when most games had nothing but simple electronic blips, I was struck by how I was listening to real music. His music elevated the story-telling and really set the standard that all games are based on today.

Defender's Quest II is currently under development for Windows, Mac, and Linux, and will also feature the artwork of famous animator Dean Dodrill, best known for his million-selling indie blockbuster, Dust: An Elysian Tail.

Final Fantasy does have some of the best sound around and I remember them well; I hope this works out well for Lars!

The best thing about DQ2 is that it won't be using Adobe Air like the first game did, so Linux gamers can rejoice!

I asked Lars the developer of Defenders Quest 2 what's up:

How on earth did you manage to get someone like that to work with you as a small indie developer?

QuoteWe were extremely lucky. It would not have happened had we not been working with Kevin Penkin (our musician for DQ1).

Turns out, not only has Kevin met Uematsu on multiple occasions, they have even collaborated before. When I first realized this, I poked Kevin and said, "...um, Kevin? Two things: 1) How come you never told me this before? and 2) ... you don't suppose we could approach Uematsu for DQ2?" What followed was a long series of conversations, emails, introductions, etc, as Kevin introduced us to Hiroaki Yura from Creative Intelligence Arts, who had the connections to set this up and make the pitch.

Do you expect Defenders Quest 2 to be a same-day release for Linux as the other platforms?

QuoteThat's the goal! I just installed a kubuntu dual-boot on my main dev machine today so I don't have to lug out my laptop everytime I want to test a linux build.

How have you found Kubuntu so far?

QuoteI have literally worked with kubuntu for about 30 seconds! I'm more familiar with the Linux Mint interface (whatever that is), but so far Kubuntu seems nice and familiar.

Q: What are your thoughts on SteamOS? Do you think it will really get more people interested in Linux?

QuoteI think so. Now, I can't quantify that for you. Currently our own sales (as we shared with you recently) show that Linux is not an off-the-chart platform at the moment, but I think momentum is steadily building and the right seeds are being planted behind the scenes. More and more games are coming to Linux, that's undeniable, and now GOG is getting on board, too. The real big sea change will happen if/when large AAA studios throw their weight behind it. That has more to do with middleware choices than anything, I believe. Once everybody's middleware (Unity, CryEngine, Unreal Engine, Source) reliably supports linux targets I think we'll start seeing that.

As for SteamOS itself, yeah, I think this will move things. We got good promotion for being a launch title on Steam Linux, and we're sure as heck going to be a launch title for Steam Machines if I have anything to say about it. (Defender's Quest 1, that is :) DQ2 still needs time!). For better or worse, success has a lot to do with getting Steam to promote you, so this encourages people to support whatever Steam is pushing, in this case, SteamOS.

Like I've said before -- the *fact* that we're on Linux has brought us as many or more sales than actual direct sales from linux customers. That's interesting and weird, but the takeaway for me is it's revenue that wouldn't have happened if our game wasn't available on Linux.

Do you think there is much Linux still lacks for game developers?

QuoteYes and No. Linux can be kind of intimidating, but if you're a serious game dev you shouldn't be afraid of a command line.

I guess the biggest issues are that major proprietary software packages like Photoshop don't run on Linux. For instance, I'm pretty sure there isn't a Unity3D *editor client* for Linux (though I believe it exports games themselves to Linux now). That's obviously irrelevant to me as I don't use Unity, for this kind of reason :)

In my own sphere of Haxe/OpenFL development, everybody's favorite IDE -- FlashDevelop -- only runs on Windows. There's been talk of porting it but it wouldn't be an easy task. Of course, whereas there's no alternative to the Unity3D client, so you HAVE to develop on mac/windows in UnityLand, there's plenty of great Haxe/OpenFL alternative IDES for Linux, even if they're not *quite* as shiny to me as FlashDevelop is. And you can always just use the command line and a text editor for maximum l33tness.

So basically, software support is the only thing that's really lacking I would say, and that's gotten *so much better* in the last 5-10 years. And I've got two dual-booted machines anyways, so it's not like I'm locked in a box.

I would like to thank Lars for having a chat with me, he's always very open about finances, Linux and well...everything! This makes me very excited for the new game! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.