Interview: TWISTEX Was Originally Planned To Be A VR Only Game

Kevin: My name is Kevin Walker. I’m the solo dev behind Twistex. I started teaching myself how to make games around 10 years ago, and I’ve now released 3 Titles.

Kevin: The idea came while I was prototyping a totally different kind of game. I was trying to work out something complicated with angles and rotations between 2 VR controllers. While testing, I ended up with a cylinder that would stay between your hands and be an easy way to rotate it.

I quickly had the idea that this could be the playspace for a game, and soon, this became Tetris blocks falling around the edges, so you could rotate with the other hand. It pretty much wrote itself from there.

Kevin: The customization system went through many changes through development. I got really into color. I had 12 main colors that I was using for blocks, etc., and I wanted to change any aspect of the game to any of those colors and give the user a lot of freedom.

You can even change the material for the blocks and towers to be metallic or glow in the dark, etc.

Kevin: I didn’t want to change too many things at once. The cylinder idea and the VR control system were new, different things. So, I tried to keep everything else as simple as possible.

I chose 2 very classic game modes (clear rings/lines or clear groups of the same color) and applied them to the cylindrical grid. That way, people understand what they are doing right away, and the challenge comes from thinking about it in a 3D(ish) way.

Kevin: I wouldn’t have a non-VR version until I made the spectator view for the PC release. This gives you a copy of the tower close to the camera so people can see what you are doing more easily.

While testing that, I could see it was pretty easy to play on the screen using a stick to rotate and that it wouldn’t be hard to achieve, so I thought it would be rude not to at that point.

Kevin: After watching some videos people had posted, I could see that often, at first, they were struggling to keep up with the shapes because they were still working out the controls.

So, I added practice mode where the shapes only fall when you hold drop. This lets you get to grips with the controls and also lets you think about shape placement so you can plan the best strategies.

Kevin: It was about 1 year to the first release on Quest, then around 6 months doing updates and releasing on Steam.

Kevin: The reviews have always been really positive. All of the recent improvements have come from player feedback, and that’s an ongoing thing, but all the big issues have been addressed now.

Kevin: I’m working on something new now, but I don’t think I’m done with Twistex. I’d love to add more modes at some point and will continue to support it for a while.