Recently, Mo, from the Montreal Indie team "Artifact 5" picked up Bolt and used it for a game jam. The results were astounding, so we sat down with him to pick his brain on his inspirations and process during development.

Ludiq: For those who don't already know you, please introduce yourself!

Mo: Hey! My name is Mo, from Montreal, Canada. I have a BFA in Computation Arts. I like cycling, dogs, bike polo, and cigars!

Ludiq: A lot of beginners out there are curious as to how people get into game design...can you give us some insight into how you got started?

Mo: I was taking my first 3D art class at University in 2004 when a friend proposed starting a mod project in Unreal Tournament 2003. Until then, I had no idea how games were made. The project failed miserably but it got me in an engine and I was hooked ever since! I focused the rest of my school years on learning 3D and game development. I freelanced for a few years after school before co-founding Artifact 5.

Ludiq: Mods are a great way to get started in games. Tell us a little more about your studio, Artifact 5.

Mo: Artifact 5 is an indie studio I co-founded with Ramy Daghstani and Samantha Cook. We focus on making emotionally driven trippy games. We just shipped Anamorphine in the summer of 2018! Now we’re working on getting a new super exciting project started. Keep an eye out for an announcement.

Ludiq: Here's the Anamorphine trailer for context:

Ludiq: Please introduce your project and the inspirations behind it.

Mo: Lucky Me is a Puzzle Shooter where talentless hacks copy your every move. Sometimes you have to use their stupidity against them to survive. Lucky Me is a solo side project right now, Artifact 5 might take it on!

I’m a big fan of Eminem. When I saw his music video, Lucky You ft. Joyner Lucas, I thought it would be cool to make a shooter with no AI, everyone is just a copycat that repeats your every move. The rest of the concept made itself from there!

Ludiq: When and how did you start working on this project?

Mo: I wanted to test the concept of Lucky Me at a local ~20-hour game jam with a programmer friend. He ended up getting sick just before the jam and had to bow out. I decided I’d try to do it on my own. I should mention, even though I have about 9 years of experience in games, I haven’t written any real code in all those years!

Ludiq: What got you started with Bolt?

Mo: I had a few hours of experience in a couple of node based scripting platforms (PlayMaker and UE4 Blueprint). I didn’t really like them and ended abandoning them. I was gonna bite the bullet and try to get back into one of them to get through the game jam with something playable. Luckily I remembered Bolt (Fun fact, Artifact 5 is based out of the same office space as Ludiq!). After a couple of hours of tutorials, I was confident enough to go to the game jam.

Bolt didn’t just help me get something playable at the end of the jam, the game was feature-complete in a couple of hours! Freeing me up to experiment with gameplay, make art, set up a level manager, and design a whole bunch of levels.

Ludiq: How has Bolt enabled you in terms of game development?

Mo: Without Bolt, Lucky Me would’ve been one of these ideas that gnaw on my brain for months! Instead, it’s a playable game with some potential! My favorite thing in Bolt and why Lucky Me exists is that Bolt uses the regular C# terminology and structure. Whenever I got stuck, I didn’t have to google “How to do this in Bolt”, I can just look up how to do it in C# and do it with Bolt! The only negative side of Bolt is that I can’t play games without thinking about how I’d make them in Bolt anymore…

Ludiq: Any final thoughts or comments?

Mo: I owe a huge part of the recent positive reception of the game to Bolt! I wouldn’t have been able to make the game without it!

As a creative director with a lot of ideas but no experience in coding, Bolt did not only allow me to make a fully playable game, it fueled my creativity further. Compared to all the other visual programming tools I’ve tried, I felt like Bolt was working with me, not against me! It made the transition from an idea in my head to a playable feature pretty seamless! I’d recommend it to everyone!

Ludiq: Thanks for taking the time to share your experience with us Mo!