Hamish Millar, Producer on DeathSpank from studio Hothead, briefly answered a few of our questions regarding their latest title, Deathspank.  Add it to your XBLA queue by clicking here!

For those unfamiliar with DeathSpank, could you briefly explain the title?

DeathSpank is an action RPG where you play a parody of the ultimate heroic knight, set in a weird and wonderful fantasy world full of surprises.

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

More time than a chicken can count, as some of here would say.  Suffice to say that the game was left to brew for a long time with a small team to nail down the characters, humor and art direction before commencing full production.  I think nearly everyone in the studio was called upon to contribute to DeathSpank at some time or another.

How challenging was it to implement a game without loading screens?

This was a tricky question to answer – not because it was challenging to implement but because we never considered whether it was challenging at the time.  We have some real veterans in engine and technology roles and we saw a seamless, open world as the new standard for this type of game.  I guess the fact that we never considered whether it was challenging means that it wasn’t.  There were trickier things we encountered, such as how many enemies should be appearing on screen at once.

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

We have the typical Achievements that you’ll get as you progress through the game, but there are some that definitely stand out, such as killing 100 chickens or resurrecting at an outhouse by dying (that’s right, even death brings an achievement).  The most fun had to be Menu Hero, because it’s so different from anything out there. – Darren Evenson, Lead Designer