John Nielson, president and founder of J. Kenworthy Entertainment, was kind enough to grant us an interview regarding his new title, Ancients of Ooga.

Ancients of Ooga was developed in collaboration with NinjaBee and Wahoo Studios.  It is the spiritual successor of the very popular XBLA title, Cloning Clyde.

Wahoo Studios has extensive experience in various genres on numerous systems, including modern console, handheld, Windows, and Macintosh platforms. Wahoo does traditional contract work (work for hire) for publishers and other groups.

NinjaBee does projects that express our own creative vision – usually self-funded Indie projects, especially internal ideas we’ve always wanted to do but which publishers consider too risky to fund.

For those unfamiliar with Ancients of Ooga, could you briefly explain the title?

I’d love to! Ancients of Ooga is an adventure where as a great spirit you are summoned to help a primeval race of creatures called Ooganis.

The Oogani tribes ignored their chiefs and ate too many narcotic slugs and were enslaved by the big bad Boolis. As the Great Spirit, you will possess the bodies of Ooganis that are willing to join in a revolt to earn back their freedom.

Along the way, you will meet, befriend, and finally acquire 7 unique Oogani tribes, uncover their lost ancient powers, revive their chiefs and mount a rebellion against the tyrannical Boolis.

A variety of game mechanics keep things interesting as you eat, chant, dance, and even puke your way through the adventure!

How much time did you spend, from concept to finished product, on developing the title? How large was the team behind the development?

I think we figured out that I personally put in over 8000 work hours into the project over the last almost 4 years.  I don’t think I took a single Saturday off the entire time (although I did take Sundays off to spend time with family.)

The team fluctuated in size throughout the project.  At times we were as small as 4 people.  I think the largest we got was 12 with a few part timers. There was definitely a lot of sacrifice that went into making this game what it was.

How much of the successes of your earlier titles went into the making of Ancients of Ooga?

The success of Clyde greatly inspired and affected the development of Ancients of Ooga.  Ooga inherits some of Clyde’s same basic game mechanics as well as some game design  theories we felt worked well for Clyde.

Along those lines can you walk us through the thought process of how your team doesn’t just sit on your past success and do like so many other companies do and produce a lousy new title? How do you keep your team motivated to reach that ‘next level’?

For me the answer is seeing what we do as not only a business, but an art form to be pursued with passion and enthusiasm.  I see so many decisions being made by so many companies based solely on what is the safe bet or what will bring in fast cash.  I’m not saying that the desire to be financially successful is not one of our goals, but my theory has always been that if we focus on quality first and on creating the absolute best games we can even when it sometimes requires sacrificing some quick cash opportunities, in the end it will be recognized and create a solid base and a reputation for us as well as keep us in the habit of not taking sloppy shortcuts.

With multiple titles set for release this year from NinjaBee (A World of Keflings and Ancients of Ooga), do you often dedicate all of your resources into one title at a time, or split them up like larger gaming studios?

Ancients of Ooga and A World of Keflings were made two different studios.  Ancients of Ooga was developed mostly by J. Kenworthy Entertainment, a partner studio to NinjaBee, and A World of Keflings was developed internally by NinjaBee.  Even though the studios are separate, there is a lot of sharing of code, ideas and help that goes on between the two studios.

What type of achievements does Ancients of Ooga present? Which one was the most fun to implement?

Many of Ooga’s achievements are given as the murdered chiefs are revived and use their special powers. There are also achievements linked to a variety of other objectives including collecting bones of the ancient one, completing levels without dying, etc.  One of the ones that I like is the achievement for swallowing unique items. Ooga is full of many different types of items each one edible. I like that one because it’s off the beaten course.

Any comment on future DLC for Ancients of Ooga?

Just that the DLC for Ancients of Ooga should be really awesome, so keep watch for it!

Is there anything else you feel our readers should know about Ancients of Ooga? Any gameplay hints?

As a matter of fact, Yes! There is a special ending if you can manage to score over 650,000.

To earn points for your Ooga score:

• Complete the levels.
• Die as little as possible.
• Collect as many bones of the Ancient One as possible.
• Collect as many spices as possible.
• Swallow as many of the items in Ooga as you can find.
• Kill as many enemies as possible.
• Rescue every Oogani you can.