About The Company: Graduate Games is small two person company that was founded in 2006 by Michael Gnade and Zachary Gebelein in Wilmington, Delaware. Their works include Storked! a platforming puzzle title, and The Magic Toy Chest a high-concept physics based puzzle game that Mike describes as a homage to PC classic The Incredible Machine. The two are very passionate about their work and continue to bring high quality budget gaming to the PC.

Whats Next?: Graduate Games hopes to be releasing their next title soon, currently codenamed Project K. It seems to be a deep side scrolling shooter in vein of more recent hits such as Shadow Complex but pays respect to greats in the genre such as Metroid. With a level editor feature, and ranking system the game looks to be an instant internet hit.

TheGamersHub(Anthony DeCicco):What game compelled you to develop? What made you go, “Man I would love to make games like this.”

Graduate Games(Mike Gnade): When I was really young, I remember playing a simple asteroids type game on a pc and being like, this game sucks! I could make it so much better it was right around the dawn of the Internet and shareware that was when the seed got planted.

TGH: When did you start getting ideas about starting a company?

GG:I started developing/experimenting with video game development (again) when I was in Graduate School in 2005-2006. I found that I was way more passionate about it than the Economics that I was studying in school. One of my long time friends was always a great artist(Zack), so when I moved home  for my full time job I spoke to him about starting a game studio. We both were pretty fresh off of college so Graduate Games seemed to make sense.

TGH:What systems do you currently own?

GG: An Xbox 360, PS3 and a SNES

TGH: Sounds interesting, so I was told its going to be an episodic game. What gave you that idea to go in such a new direction from your previous works?

GG: it’s actually the first game that we conceived but it was too ambitious. we’ve learned a lot and gotten a lot better since we started. We saw indies like TellTaleGames and ZombieCow studios have success with episodic click adventure games and thought: this could actually make this game possible. So we returned to what we originally set out to do and what we were passionate about.

TGH: Any plans to move onto console development or do you plan to keep it strictly a PC based affair?

GG: We’ll move to Mac/Linux before console. Xbox Live Indie Games has struggled and Xbox Live Arcade has been hugely successful, but costs hundreds of thousands of dollars to develop for we’re looking at Mac/Linux and mobile platforms.

TGH: How has the community response been for your company?

GG: it’s hard to say, we just launched a forum in the past 30 days, so we didn’t really have a community before that. Review sites were pretty positive with our last game and no one has asked for a refund after buying a game (yet)

TGH: How much do your current games run for?

GG:Our games are between $10-$20 but we have a bundle deal to get both our games for $20 right now, it’s a limited time offer though. The first episode of our next game will probably be $5-10.

TGH: How would readers who live in the UK get their hands on one of these games? What are your payment methods?

GG: All our games are digital download, so all you have to do is go to our site and buy online, you’ll get a download link to the game as soon as you finish putting your credit card info in,we use a secure payment provider who accepts major credit cards, and Pay-Pal.

TGH: Do you plan on going retail in the future and putting your games on disc?

GG: If the opportunity came about, absolutely we’re always looking for ways to get our games into more hands.

TGH:What is your company currently working on?

GG: the game is currently untitled, but it is a Metroid-Vania type adventure platformer set in the Science Fiction realm. currently we call it Project K or Project Helix internally.

TGH:What is it about?

GG: the game is set in a universe that is at the brink of war. There is a human-run conglomerate faction,tons of planets and alien governments and a militaristic faction with advanced weapons that have just surfaced they’re social and military society is based on ancient rome the player will control a character from this faction who defects he is a Praetorian Guard

TGH: How many episodes do you initally plan to make for Project K?

GG: right now we’re planning on doing at least 3-4 but ultimately, if we’re pissiing time and money away we’ll move on. To tell the whole story of our first character will probably take 5+ episodes.

TGH: On average playtime, how long will one episode last in terms of hours?

GG:An episode will basically be a planet, so episode 1 will be on a planet you escape to after destroying a huge cruiser ship.Episode 1 will follow you as you work to procure a ship,it will also include the tutorial/prologue on the cruiser. It should be 3+ hours i would think

TGH: Are their any difficulties and extras like such to add to the value?

GG: We’re planning on having global speed run high score tables and there will be tons of reasons to explore each planet again. as you get upgrades/abilities you’ll unlock new areas and there will be side missions imagine Metroid, but with an open world dynamic to it like GTA.

TGH: So you can jack starships and your character runs like they have a Charlie horse?

GG: Haha, not yet, but you’ll be able to interact with NPC’s who may pay you to run deliveries or catch baddies our hope is people will get into it, give us feedback, and create their own levels too. The first thing we did was build an updater so when you buy the game (or download the free demo), the game’s launcher will advertise any new features or episodes available and will update your game or demo to the latest version all the updates, bug fixes, etc. will be free but you won’t be able to land your ship on the iceworld unless you have the iceworld episode.

TGH: How did you plan on having people create and submit their own levels?

GG: There will be a level editor. It’s not coming anytime soon, but people who preorder will get access to it and our locked forums.

TGH: I wish you the best of luck, there is a lot of potential there. The game sounds incredible, when could we be seeing this game or at least the demo?

GG: We’re constantly updating our blog with info: http://blog.graduategames.com . We’re really only missing graphics and enemies now expect to see a game announcement and free prototype by March 2010.

TGH: Sounds great, thank you very much for your time. Look forward to getting some hands on with the game. Anything you would like to say to the Internet.

GG: Internet, you are vast and fickle – please send us visitors and gamers who will help us create this badass game

There you have it, look out for Project K coming soon. Be sure to keep up to date with Mike and Zack on their site at Graduate Games and on their Twitter.  We will be having reviews of their first two PC games, Storked! and The Magic Toy Chest in the coming weeks. If you can’t wait for the review, FOR LIMITED TIME ONLY GET BOTH OF GRADUATE GAMES titles for $19.95. That’s $10 off. You cant lose!

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Anthony (ShadyDevil) DeCicco