Mike:
First things first: who is Tylario?
Tylario:
I am Tyler Hudson, that’s my name, I go by Tylario online. I made the name Tylario a long time ago, back when Agar.io first came out; before Slither.Io, before all these different games.
You know, it’s the game with the circles where you eat each other, and because my name is Tyler, I made my name Tylario.
It just made sense, and I don’t know, it’s stuck ever since then, so that’s what I’ve been known as.
I am 20 years old, I’ll be graduating from University of Charlotte in North Carolina.
I can now call myself an indie developer.
I guess I’ve made a couple games.
I have a website: tylario.io
Some of them aren’t very good.
Don’t go in expecting the best, because I’ve been programming since I was 12, I believe, so for a long time I’ve been making random little things.
Ever since last summer I said: “Now’s the time to make a real game and publish it on Steam”.
And here we are with Dead Unending.
Mike:
I want to say that Dead Unending looks amazing to me, mainly because it is very addictive.
You know, you may think at first glance that it is something repetitive or maybe simplistic because of the graphics, but when you’re inside of it, I think it’s one of the funniest games ever.
Tylario:
Wow, that makes me very happy. Thank you for saying that.
That was, the goal was to be addicted.
So I’m glad it worked, really.
Mike:
Your main idea to be addictive while developing a title like this one is the same as the one I found in other projects like Peggo! and TILED. Am I wrong?
Tylario:
That’s right. Peggo was the first game that I sold on Steam, and that was definitely addictive.
It’s very reminiscent of the Pachinko Casino kind of gambling, I guess you could say.
But yeah, that was a clicker, an incremental, which yeah, is addicting, and then TILED.
Wow, I’m surprised you got a chance to look at that.
I didn’t know anybody played that, but yeah, the goal was to be addictive.
I was trying to capitalize off the Wordle trend, where it’s like a new puzzle every day.
I’m glad you took a chance on a TILED.
Mike:
I also wanted to ask you this question: is there a team behind the name “Tylario”, or is it just you programming all the stuff?
Tylario:
Tylario is me; so really all those projects are stuff that I’ve made and taught myself, so it’s really just me, and whatever help I get online.
I will say that for Dead Unending, I did have the person who did the music, and he is one of my friends from high school.
I got one of my high school teachers to do the voice acting; in the beginning when you’re on the train and the infection is coming, that was actually my high school teacher.
So yeah, I can say that one was a group, that’s for sure.
Mike:
I already saw a lot of work about you and you look like a programmer more than a developer, am I right?
Tylario:
I guess so; I don’t know.
So I’m in school for programming, so I’m definitely into programming.
I’m into neural networks; they are really cool. I don’t know. I guess a little bit of everything.
A lot of people think that Dead Unending‘s main inspiration comes from Project Zomboid because it looks very similar, and interestingly, I didn’t know about Project Zomboid; I didn’t even hear about that game until I developed Dead Unending.
My original inspiration was a game that you probably haven’t heard of.
It’s called BoxHead, but it was like an old Flash Game that we would play in school, like when you’re not supposed to be playing games.
Mike:
What a memory unlocked, I played that!
Tylario:
Did you?
Wow, that’s incredible to find someone else who’s played it.
Mike:
It was one of the most played on Flash Games in 2010 I think…
Tylario:
Yeah, a long time ago.
To be honest, I don’t actually know.
Back then, I played games, but really, it was just whatever I found on cool Flash Games or whatever the website was.
Mike:
What did you take from that title? What was your inspiration for Dead Unending?
Tylario:
So the original idea was: I liked BoxHead and I liked how it gets pretty hectic really fast, you know, there’s a lot of zombies and it’s just turning into a meat grinder pretty much.
And I thought that was a very satisfying way to increment up.
You know, how the whole incremental genre it’s like that exponential thing where you start with a little and then pretty soon it gets crązy, so that’s what I took from BoxHead.
Start with a couple zombies, and then after you get a base, there are tons of zombies.
Tylario is definitely a rookie indie developer, but do not underestimate him. With the release of Dead Unending on Steam, he has shown the gaming world that he is a talented artist and diligent programmer. Interviewing him for Indie Games Devel was a real pleasure.
