Hey Rovers! 👋
Today we're excited to be back for our third instalment of our Dev Dog Diaries series for Good Boy!
In this series of posts and videos, Team17 sat down with the team working on Good Boy, Observer Interactive, and their gorgeous canine pets (who are in the game 👀) to discuss their upcoming Creature Collector PET-roidvania! 🐶
Dev Dog Diaries Episode #3 - Matty McGrory
Design Director - Observer Interactive
In our third interview, we meet Giles the dog and Matty, to discuss the game's development, how it feels to have Matty's pets immortalised in his own video game, the relationship between brothers Newt & Giles both in Good Boy and IRL, and much more!
Introduce yourself, introduce your dog, and let us know what you do!
"I'm Matty and I'm the Design Director at Observer Interactive, and I'm one of the Lead Designers on Good Boy. This is Giles! They identified he's part white shepherd and Azawakh, and then the rest was, like a shopping list of breeds. He was classed as a mega mutt and he is five years old!
So we adopted Giles- he's a rescue from Romania, so he was found on the streets with his brother. He had a different name before we got him and then he arrived, I want to say is like 6AM in the morning. Before we rescued him, they weren't sure what breed he was.
The adoption charity knew that we had Newt (Matty's other dog), who's a little terrier, so they thought he was going to be a terrier too. Then he arrived and he was like three times the size of a terrier. So I was like "well, I guess we own a big dog now!"
How does it feel to see Giles as a Rover in the game?
"It's really cool to have him in the game, because his quests and his story are kind of about him as a dog, and he's quite anxious.
So I think it's really cool to take the stuff that he's taught me about people with anxiety and people with social issues and try and put it into a video game character. Hopefully someone can play it and be like, "Oh, that's me", or "That's my friend", or "That's my dog". So I think that's why it's extra special!
But also he's very handsome. So it's nice to see the big handsome boy in the game as well!"
"Because Giles and Newt are so close and they're brothers in real life, Giles works on Newt's farm. Giles, because he's a lot bigger than Newt as well, he's got a big water tank on his back. He helps water the crops and he also helps Newt dig as well. Newt's got some little digging paws in the game!"
"Having that story of the brothers being told and (it's nice) touching on some of the stuff, like their differences in their personalities- so Giles is a little bit anxious. When you find out about his anxiety in the game, you find out about how he copes with it, and then you help them cope together a little bit!"
What's it been like seeing Good Boy coming to life?
"When we were developing it, we always wanted to have like a human essence in the game and heart and soul. I think I'm really surprised about how much of that we've actually got, but also how much of it resonates with other people and players, because we knew that we would love it because it stars all our dogs!
I think when we see other people play it and we see other people get excited by it, I think that's been super cool. People like to see us develop as a studio as well, like how how good the game looks and how good it feels to play as well."
What personality traits does Giles share with his Rover?
"I think in the game, Giles is really loyal to his brother. Family's super important to him because he didn't have family and he got a found family. So I think that's something I'm super proud, that not just me, but probably the team are as well.
Also, I'm very close to my brother, so it's nice to see the relationship of two brothers in a game, two brothers that are very different and do different things.
I always say to people, I think Giles taught me more about the world and anxiety than a book or anyone could. I think having that in the game is super cool."
If you want to hear more from Matty about Good Boy, the full episode is now live on YouTube here!
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Good Boy is coming soon to Steam! Wishlist our Creature Collecting Pet-roidvania game now 👇