Foul Play: "We were drunk at the time..."

Writer, designer, producer Jeff Tanton admits to being intoxicated while thinking up the concept for Foul Play and explains some of theatrical mechanics built into this beat 'em up that is being released today on Steam and Xbox Live Arcade.

"We were drunk at the time, which is probably the story most developers would tell. But we were watching a whole bunch of music videos and stuff, and then "Tonight, Tonight" by The Smashing Pumpkins came on.

And I just thought this needs to be a video game."

Foul Play is based on a peculiar premise. The story of Baron Dashforth's achievements are being retold on stage and your performance (as measured by the crowd meter) also serves as your health bar.

"Normally when you're playing these games it's like "yeah, this guy is down, thank God I can move on", but actually in Foul Play the guys are like the tool you use. The enemies are like a playground so you've got five guys that run in and one big guy and people who have played a lot are suddenly formulating "okay, I'm going to beat up these guys over here, I'm going to swing back over here" and it just creates this wonderful element of actually beating these guys is what impresses the audience. Audience mood increases, so just by being awesome you get your health back. It's by being boring and dull and getting hit that you actually fail."

"When you see something like these lovely extras, dressed up in giant wolf costumes orwe've got these guys underneath the sea and they've got these huge crab arms - and they really like... All the extras and the actors in the game, your enemies, are basically people trying the best they possibly can to make the most of their role and to like create this world. So sometimes it seems a bit brutal when you hit them with this piledriver straight through the floor."