Ten Questions With… Roel Ezendam (RageSquid)

Ten Questions With… Roel Ezendam (RageSquid)

Facebook
Like RageSquid on Facebook

Twitter 
Follow RageSquid on Twitter

Website
Check out the official
Action Henk Website

Discussion
Give the developers feedback on the Steam Discussion Page

Purchase
Buy your Early Access copy on the Steam Store page 

If navigating tricky obstacle courses at high speed while controlling an overweight action figurine sounds like fun you definitely won’t want to miss out on Action Henk. The game was released a while back on Steam Early Access and impressed us with what it has to offer. RageSquid, the team behind the game has just released the first update, and we were fortunate enough to catch up with company co-founder, Roel Ezendam to find out more.

Can you give our readers a quick introduction of yourself and the studio?

Hi there! I’m Roel Ezendam, one of the founders and also game coder at RageSquid. We are a small game studio from the Netherlands. We’re a group of friends that know each other from a game development education. Currently we are working on our debut title Action Henk, a game about an action figure in a mid-life crisis.

How did the idea for Action Henk come about?

When we designed Action Henk, we really wanted to create a game that we would love to make and play. Our art lead Gabrian likes to create colorful art as well as art that you can measure, so toys was a great combination of colorful yet realistic. I wanted to have a go at creating a physics-based platformer, so that’s kind of how it all came together.

What are the games that influenced you and how?

The first games that come to mind would be Trials and Trackmania. These games are so easy to grasp, yet so insanely difficult to master. We really wanted to create an experience similar to these games. Joe Danger is also an inspiration, but more from an art-style point of view.

What features of Action Henk are you the most proud of?

I think the high quality 3D environments and the highly polished gameplay are the things I’m most proud of myself.

What is the biggest challenge creating Action Henk?

The biggest challenge for us didn’t necessarily have anything to do with creating the game itself. Just trying to manage a team of people that are scattered all over the place, and having to take care of every single thing, on both a development as well as a business & marketing side. That was the biggest challenge for us.

What aspect of creating the game was the most fun?

For me personally, building the physics of the game. I just love creating a system of variables and trying to tweak them in a way that the player really has to think about how to approach the levels.

How is your experience with Steam Early Access?

We’ve only been live for about a week now, but so far so good! We’re getting a lot of positive words, which is great. But on the other hand we’re also getting a lot of great feedback and bug reports, this will speed up the development so much.

What are the future plans for Action Henk/RageSquid?

For now we’re completely focused on Action Henk’s Early Access. We mainly want to add more levels, characters, skins and other content. But we are also looking into possibilities of adding for example a level editor or local multiplayer. These things take a lot of time to do properly, so for now we will also focus on content to at least have a steady update schedule. We’re not sure what we want to do after Action Henk is done, I guess that depends a lot on how much of a success the game will be. We also don’t want to lose our minds to much on a new idea, because we’re not done with the current one yet.

What is the most unusual thing on your desk right now?

Haha, there are a lot of unusual things on my desk. I mean, look at our office:

I guess the most unusual thing would be the electric race track that goes around my PC and monitor, including a loop!

Anything else you would like to add?

We would love everyone to have a look at Action Henk! It’s on Steam Early Access and we’re going to be adding a lot of cool new stuff in the upcoming months. So if you’re into speed-running or physics based games this could be a nice game for you 🙂

A big thank you to Roel for answering our questions and best of luck to the team. Anyone that has not yet experienced the joys of Action Henk should check out our Early Access preview HERE and then head over to the Steam Store to buy a copy.

Related posts

Ten Questions With… Tim & Lynda Cowles (D’Avekki Studios)

Ten Questions With... Tim & Lynda Cowles (D'Avekki Studios)

We’ve been big fans of D’Avekki Studios ever since they drew us into The Infectious Madness of Doctor Dekker. Since then they have continued to bring some class to the FMV game genre with titles like The Shapeshifting Detective, and more recently, Dark Nights With Poe and Munro. We were fortunate enough to catch up with the husband and wife team these hits to find out more!

Ten Questions With… Marco Mantoan (Picaresque Studio)

Ten Questions With... Marco Mantoan (Picaresque Studio)

We were very impressed by the gameplay trailer that Picaresque Studio unveiled for their upcoming title, Nantucket, and clearly we were not the only ones. The game managed to get Greenlit in record time, which means the Steam community is just as eager to get their hands on this Herman Melville influenced title. To find out more about the game we got in touch with Marco Mantoan.

Ten Questions With… Friso (Critical Bit)

Ten Questions With… Friso (Critical Bit)

Critical Bit recently released their unique take on the shoot ‘em up genre, Reign of Bullets. The game features tons of epic loot as well as the ability to bolt heaps of guns to your ship. The result is an addictive, but also surprisingly accessible shooter. To find out more about Reign of Bullets we caught up with the co-founder of Critical Bit.

Ten Questions With Kiko & Maribel Martínez Cervera (mc2games)

Ten Questions With Kiko & Maribel Martínez Cervera (mc2games)

Indie studio mc2games has continued to impress us with their series of escape room titles, and their latest release, Between Time, is no exception. Thanks to interesting scenarios, clever puzzles, and a good understanding of what makes escape rooms fun, mc2games titles are some of the best in the genre. To find out more about the studio and what goes into making their games, we got in touch with mc2games for some answers.

Ten Questions With… Peter Wagner (One Man Band Games)

Ten Questions With... Peter Wagner (One Man Band Games)

One Man Band Games recently released a PC version for Blowy Fish on Steam and we were pleasantly surprised by this simple, yet addictive title. After reaching out to Peter, the solo developer behind the game, he was kind enough to not only answer our questions, but also provide us with some keys to give away to our readers. Check out the widget at the end of the interview for a chance to win your own copy of the game.

Ten Questions With… Taosym (Lupiesoft)

Ten Questions With... Taosym (Lupiesoft)

The debut Steam release by Lupiesoft, The Reject Demon: Toko Chapter 0 — Prelude, surprised us with its unique visual style, fascinating characters and interesting story. To find out more about the visual novel and the studio behind it, we reached out to Lupiesoft for some answers.

Leave a comment

seven + 16 =