Interview: Travis Rogers from Domain of the Infinite

its an eye.
Travis is the creator of Mind’s Eye of Jupiter, a 3D first-person episodic adventure game. The first two episodes are already available on the Xbox Live Indie Games market, and the third and final one has recently been submitted for peer review.

Could you give a little background on how you got started making Mind’s Eye of Jupiter?

I originally started Mind’s Eye of Jupiter as a graphic novel. I later decided to try making a game in XNA. I had some programming experience, mostly in web programming and a little Flash. I also have a computer animation degree from the Art Institute of Seattle. But I’ve never created any “real software” before. The tools Microsoft has given developers are pretty easy to learn.

So you decided to make it in to an adventure game?

The games I’ve most enjoyed are adventure games and first-person shooters. So I wanted to do a first-person 3D adventure game.  I wanted Mind’s Eye of Jupiter to focus on exploration, story and puzzle solving. Adventures games are perfect for indie games. It’s a genre that the big companies have mostly ignored. But I think there’s still a market for that type of game.

What can we expect in episode three?

In the 3rd episode the player meets Tribune, a character referenced in the second game but never seen. There are also two different endings of the game, based on your dialog choices with him.



What difficulties did you have making Mind’s Eye of Jupiter?

The hard part of adventure games is finding the right balance on the puzzles. I want the puzzles to add to the story and the environment, but not so hard that they frustrate people. I’m hoping I got the balance better for episode 3.

Is there anything you would change?

I think Microsoft should raise the 150 MB file size limit so people would not need to do episodic content. Other than that, I’ve been really impressed with XBLIG. I think it will only get better as us developers learn more.

What’s next for you?

I do have other games I would like to make. There is a bit of a teaser/Easter egg in the last episode of Mind’s Eye of Jupiter for my next project. I think I will focus more on standalone adventure games, rather than episodic games. I don’t think episodic games on XBLIG work as well as I would have liked.

You can read more about Domain of the Infinite and Mind’s Eye of Jupiter on their official website.

By at .

Posted on January 25, 2011 by Neil Soika in Uncategorized

About Neil Soika

Neil lives on the hard streets of West Chester, PA, where he works as an engineer. When he isn't playing on his Xbox 360, he enjoys playing soccer and poker and watching college basketball. Neil's favorite game is Final Fantasy VII.

  • http://twitter.com/DaveVoyles Dave Voyles

    A FPS in XNA? You don’t see that every day. Great interview, and it definitely peaked my interested about the developer and Mind’s Eye,

  • http://www.armlessoctopus.com Mike Wall

    first person adveeeennnnnnttttuuuuurrrrrreeeee game

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000540757625 Neil Soika

    Reading is FUNdamental.

  • http://twitter.com/DaveVoyles Dave Voyles

    I’ve got a t-shirt that reads “Making reading is fun”

    And Neil, I saw in your bio that FF VII is your favorite game – glad to have another writer agree. Now I don’t have to continue to plead my case to the guys, they think I’m crazy

  • Anonymous

    Great interview, its awesome to see interest in the Mind’s Eye of Jupiter games–I’ve been a long-time fan of Travis’ work and to see an interview on this site is a great way to pique other people’s interested too.