Interview with Vincent Ogloblinsky, creator and developer of “You can’t catch me”.
You can’t catch me is the new mobile game by Vincent Ogloblinsky.
Help Marty and his friends during their day to day lives. Walk in the street, buy food, but take care of police controls!
Walk in the streets, have fun collecting coins & stopwatches, finish your mission in time, and remember, take care of your money and police controls.
In this interview Vincent Ogloblinsky talks about the birth of You can’t catch me and other details about the production of this project.
Francesco:
Hello everyone and welcome to Indie Games Devel, my name is Francesco and today we are with Vincent Ogloblinsky, a software architect and developer of “You can’t catch me“. Hi Vincent, welcome.
Vincent:
Hi.
Francesco:
The first question I want to ask you is – I’m very curious – first of all to know your background and to know how you started.
So, how is your relationship with your work, but first of all, with video games?
Vincent:
This project is part of a personal project. I’m a software architect in an IT services company and mobile operator in France: “Orange”.
In my spare time I enjoy playing games, creating software, projects and using software development.
My background: at the beginning I attended the school of engineer and mechatronics.
After several years I switched to computer and software development.
Francesco:
Ok, tell us something about your new project, how did you come up with this idea?
Vincent:
My idea was born during the lockdown in France, where I made my daughter discover all the video games I played in my childhood, like Super Mario Bros or Mario Cards exetera.
When we discussed about mobile games related to lockdown, she made a joke: can we make a game about that? About what are we living?
After discussing with her, with our friends and with wife, we said ok, it might be a good idea to crate a game about what we are living now.
You know, it wasn’t a very comfortable situation, I think playing and being calm can be a way to not distress you, at first it was just a joke.
I was trying to find a way to have fun in that situation.
Francesco :
Ok, perfect, thanks you.
I noticed a lot of interesting features in the game especially about game design, and I want to ask you, where did you get the inspiration for the production? In a particular video game or in a video game production or not?
Vincent:
Yes, my first inspiration was Packman, because at first I thought it would be a good idea to recreate the same gameplay with streets, cops and walks by carrying out your missions without crossing them.
But later I found it a little too complicated or too limited for the gameplay.
The transition from 2D to true 3D was, I believe, better for the gameplay. So I opened my mind about the game and the first expansion was that.
Subsequently, another inspiration was Grand Theft Auto.
Francesco:
Ah!
Vincent:
Number one and number two because they were like Packman, with the 2D top-down view where you have to walk.
So it was another way to come up with ideas or to try to find out if my gameplay was good enough to play.
Francesco:
So, I think you prefer gameplay and not art design, or both, art design and gameplay?
Vincent:
I think the most important part is to find a good gameplay that is neither too difficult, neither too easy.
At the beginning I had some ideas and one of them was that the police would find you, rather than catch you during construction.
Because in the game, instead, they walk on same line and you can walk wherever you want.
But in the beginning I added some patterning algorithms that allowed the police to find you and try to walk behind you.
After playing that, I thought it was too difficult to play, other gameplay are not that hard, so I decided to let the cops follow the same path and let players find out all the cops in the beginning.
So you know where they are and where they walk and you can find a way to avoid them.
Francesco:
Ok, and I want to ask you, will there be any updates or DLC in the future for “You Can’t Catch Me“?
Vincent:
Ok, an update want to have another city, maybe with the same gameplay but in another environment with maybe snow or desert.
I think it might just be this update, I don’t have other ideas.
It was just a joke, an idea. I tried to put it online and it came out a good gaming experience, just to say to myself: ok I’ve done this, I got this idea and I pushed.
In the end the game is on the store and after that I can always come up with another idea.
I like developing games so maybe I’ll be back to this game in a few months, but it’s online now.
The feedback are very good and now I’m moving on to another project.
Francesco:
The last question I want to ask you is: do you have a top secret future project that you would like to tell us about?
And, I’m curious about it, are you going to produce another game for mobile or for another device?
Vincent:
At the beginning I thought it would be fun for this game, development on other mobile platforms, like Nintendo ds for example.
But I am a software developer in web development so I can’t export this game to other devices which don’t support h5 or Java excrip and Nintendo doesn’t.
But I want to use everything I learned from this project, game design, resource management exetera for update again another game I made six years ago which is dedicated to a local games in Brittany.
It’s like a bowling game and I want to rebuild the game with all the streaming and create a better environment than it was in the beginning.
Francesco:
Ok, perfect, first of all I want to thanks you for your time and patience with my English.
Break a leg for this project and future projects of your work and thank you Vincent.
Vincent:
Thanks!
Francesco:
Have a nice day and have fun, from my Indie Games Devel friends, we will see each other in another interview.
