This week, we chat with Christian Czmar, our Senior QA Tester, as we delve into what it was like in the earlier builds of Iron Meat and what's it like post-launch!
Please introduce yourself and describe your involvement in Iron Meat's development.
Christian: Hi! I'm Christian "Siz" Czmar, I'm the Senior Game Tester at Retroware. My involvement with Iron Meat for the last 2 years has been trying to break it and then try to figure out how to make sure that I can't break it the same way again.
How does it feel to see a game you tested from its earlier builds to now where it's available to the world?
Christian: It's incredible, especially with the reception it's gotten. I was also on the Prison City team and that felt great, too, but to have people be so passionate this time around has been a nice cherry on top.
What were some notable bugs you found during the early builds you tested? How about a bug or two that you noticed later on in the near-final builds of the game?
Christian: By the time Iron Meat had gotten into my hands it was already way ahead in terms of polish, Ivan had been working on it already for years so a lot of the basic stuff I'm used to finding had been worked out. I think the most notable early bug was player 2 and player 1 having different hit boxes. I'm not sure what caused this to happen but some attacks were impossible to dodge as player 2 in those first builds I got. For example the laser attack on the first boss--even ducking, player 2 would die there no matter what. Between then and now, it was mostly just layering bugs--the player appearing in front of foreground assets and such. The last major bug (hopefully) was one a few people certainly noticed with Sasha not showing up at the end of the game. Apparently, she didn't like it when players took lives from their friends after the final boss fight. The worst part of the job is there's always something you didn't run into that eventually will be found in the thousands of other playthroughs that happen after release.
As a Senior QA Tester, how would you describe the experience of testing the game across multiple platforms?
Christian: I mean, it's not fun haha. We tried to get this out on as many platforms and distributors as we could, and each and every one of those has different requirements and expectations that they absolutely need or they won't let you release. Whenever some backend change is made to some version of the game to meet a requirement, that means there's a new build and that means I need to do another test to see if that change broke something somewhere else. I swear there was like 20 builds for PlayStation in a row where there was no visible change on my end but were all essential to being approved.
After going through the game countless times, which level do you think you've run through the most? Any favorite or least favorite bosses? And your preferred weapons?
Christian: I think it would be Tower. That had a few achievement hang ups that left us confused on what the issue was. That happened a few times, I think every achievement in Tower, besides the one for beating it, were bugged at one point or the other, haha. My favorite boss is probably the Carrionvoy; it just has such a great presence. My least favorite is probably Big Rig; that's probably just 'cause it's given me the most Game Over's besides The Iron Meat itself. My go-to weapon is for sure is the Spread Shotgun (S). Get that baby fully upgraded and you've got such a wide burst at long distance and can deal crazy damage up close. You can't go wrong with it. Thank me later.
Lastly, if you could add a new feature to Iron Meat, what do you think would be a great addition?
Christian: If I could add a feature it would probably be something like an Iron Man mode where your lives stay at a consistent count between levels. I'm glad they reset each level by default because we want as many people as possible to play and enjoy, but I can see the sickos out there who want to challenge themselves, yes you I see YOU! If it's in the cards to happen, I think it would make some people happy.
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