Editor's note: I really dug Auditorium, but I had no idea its creators had produced follow-up Fractal until I came across Richard's insightful chat with Cipher Prime's Will Stallwood. Read the interview, then check out the demo at PlayFractal.com. -Brett

Indie developer Cipher Prime burst onto the scene in 2008 with their web-based music puzzler Auditorium, which won several awards and garnered viral success. Their integration of ambient music with beautiful graphics and animation won many fans. Auditorium has since been ported to the iPhone, and there is a console version in the works. Cipher Prime also released a follow-up, called Fractal, earlier this year, which keeps the same laid-back tone and immersive sound design but adds a more traditional puzzle game -- one in the vein of Lumines or Bejeweled -- on top.

I caught up with Cipher Prime cofounder Will Stallwood to ask him about the ideas and development behind Fractal, dealing with success, finding inspiration, and the nature of small-team game development.

Richard Moss: You have said previously that the idea for Auditorium came from playing around with a particle engine built for explosions. How did Fractal come about? Was it driven by a technology or a gameplay concept? Or perhaps something else?

Will Stallwood: Fractal started out as a really gritty board game based on Puzzle Fighter. [Cipher Prime co-founder] Dain [Saint] and I have spent way too much time playing that game, and we wanted to pay homage. The first prototype was played out on a piece of paper. Each player took turns “pushing” a fractal onto the board. You both played off the same board, and the objective was to simple create a set number of blooms before the other player. We then went and made our digital copy. Eventually, we decided it would be best to go basic and just create a single-player experience. Hopefully, we’ll get to revisit the multiplayer someday.

RM: I’d love to see it. For me, the way the game reacts to your successes and failures -- changing in color and vibrance as though it was a living entity -- is what elevates it above your typical puzzle game. It makes for a more consuming experience, and I love that I can gauge my progress simply through sensation, without looking at the HUD. What gave you the idea to have the world in Fractal wither or grow with the player? And was it hard to implement?

WS: Like all great ideas, Fractal was this really epic idea. The whole game was going to have this branching Fractal play-style. So, the original game spec we wrote had this whole wither and grow philosophy built right in. The trick for us was trying to find a way to do this with audio. We ended up having to build a whole audio engine from the ground up that could manipulate wave samples in order to simulate instruments. Then we built a little composer class that could take user input and convert it to the audio style we were going for. This whole system took a long time. However, now that we have it, our next games will benefit greatly. We have this really great audio demo called the Hex Synth I’ll have to send your way soon.

RM: I like the way you integrated tips into the background artwork. It’s something that seems to be gradually catching on with other developers, but I’m not sure I’ve seen it done so seamlessly, where it actually looks like part of the art rather than something layered on top. What made you do that instead of either a more invasive or more hidden alternative?

WS: I know I’ve seen that kind of design in other games, but I actually came up with the idea out of frustration. In our testing some people were able to pick Fractal right up and play, while others would be so confused they would run away instantly. I tried adding really obvious tips, but they just didn’t work. Eventually, I realized that they didn’t need to be obvious. If I made them a bit more subtle it could become a part of the game itself. For instance, if you type “makebloomsnotwar” while playing the campaign mode, interesting things will happen. Using the deco, we were able to add personality as well as fun tips and cheats along the way. I have to admit, it was also a bit nice to just sketch for a while.

RM: Speaking of “Make Blooms, Not War,” who came up with that tagline? It’s very catchy, and fits remarkably well with the theme and feel of the game.

WS: We love that tagline. Alisha Katzen was actually the one who came up with it. She was doodling in the office while testing one day and bam...awesome tagline.

RM: I’ve found that Puzzle Mode almost acts like a tutorial for the rest of the game, teaching the player how to rack up the big combos and chain reactions that are required to progress in the higher levels of the campaign or arcade modes. Was that intentional?

WS: From the second we put Puzzle Mode in, it became our teaching aid. With our beta testing, we were having lots of problems showing what was possible, and we needed a more controlled environment. We also kept making larger and larger blooms during our personal futzing around. It’s completely possible to create a 30X Bloom Cluster, which can be the entire stage on some levels. We wanted players to discover these kinds of cool tricks just like we did, but we needed a safe environment for any of those to really be possible. That said, it should never really feel like teaching. Learning all those funny tactics was fun to us, and we just wanted to share.

RM: I think it’s more my designer mindset that makes it feel like teaching to me -- I’m always breaking down the mechanics and trying to figure out why things work a certain way. When I saw Puzzle Mode, I knew right away: “This is teaching me how the game works.” It wasn’t until I came back from playing Puzzle Mode to trying more of the campaign that I realized just how much it was teaching me, though. There’s still a lot of luck in my play, but I’m now getting a grip on how to do crazy things like clear the entire board with the “electrify” power-up or string together huge Afterbloom combos. 

What’s your favorite mode in Fractal? Has there been much feedback on which game mode players prefer?

WS: Personally, I love all the Arcade Modes. Each Arcade Mode pushes me in different ways. Then there are levels 20-30. I just love those levels; they came together perfectly. Each one is like its own mini-challenge. I’m also a big fan of the Rubik’s Cube-style puzzles in Puzzle Mode that come up later in the sets.

Continue reading to find out Stallwood's influences, the Cipher Prime philosophy, Auditorium's future, and the difficulty of making a second game.