Phil Brown and Ben Darling are two names that have appeared in the credits of video games for over twenty years.
Having worked on popular IPs such as Star Wars, and with experience across a wide range of classic and modern platforms, the two veterans have spent many years at other companies. Now, they've come together to form a new indie studio dubbed OG Pixel and announce their very first game, Gooey.
Ahead of release, not only was I given the opportunity to demo Gooey ahead of the game's public beta, but I also had the chance to interview the creative minds behind it, and learn a bit more about their new game and their careers.
Hello and thank you for taking the time to speak with us! My name is Benjamin and I'm one of the founders of our gaming site Netto's Game Room. To kick things off, could you tell me a little bit about yourselves?
[Ben] We’re Ben and Phil, we first met and worked together at our first game dev industry job over 20 years ago. Together we’ve worked on a lot of small projects here and there along the way in our spare time and also were a big part of the development of another indie game called Reflex Arena with some additional team members. Gooey is just pulled back to the 2 of us working together on a shared passion of oldschool platformers.
So you are releasing a new indie game called Gooey, but before we get to that I had a handful of questions to ask about your carriers in general. You both have been developers for over 20 years, and have had the chance to work on multiple platforms. During that time, what would you say was your favorite platform to work with?
[Phil] That’s a question which can be pulled in a few directions :) Personally I like working with lean engines/platforms, where I can move and iterate fast. I really struggle with big slow engines as it’s so slow, and I have the knowledge of how to deal with the underlying things anyway. As a result I quite often work on small custom engines, this is where I shine. This also allows you to put things in which other engines don’t have, for example Gooey actually has a realtime SPH simulator for the goo and full fluid engine for background effects.
[Ben] For me, I really enjoyed the ps2 era. It felt like a sweet spot between gameplay and visuals without the need of normalmaps and all sorts of crazy technical things that really dragged out the production times. It felt like there was more of a focus on games!
What would you say was your least favorite?
[Ben] Probably the early on 3d handhelds that tried to push things a bit too far with 3d. The hardware wasn’t quite ready to live up to the expectations that players wanted, they definitely weren’t ready to be consoles you could take on the go with you. They were extremely challenging constraints to work within.
Working on licensed games had to be interesting! Could you tell us a little about how these deals usually came about, and for movie titles, were you ever provided with outlines detailing the unreleased film? Or were details kept pretty scarce?
[Ben] It’s always interesting getting to work on movie IP related things, especially with large pre-existing franchises that have several previous films. Star Wars in particular stood out to me, getting to see a lot of previously unseen publicly released material that didn’t get used in production just because a different design was used still definitely helped build a bigger picture of things. It’s also great to see what could have been, kind of a behind the scenes equivalent of Marvel’s “what if?” series.
What originally set you on the road of becoming a game developer, and what challenges did you face? Is there anything you would've did differently or changed if you could?
[Phil] I was playing games and learning to code as a kid, to me coding was as fun as playing a game. My dad got our family an original Apple II computer and I started on this in the 80s, he was not into gaming but was very much into tech / engineering. I was asking him to help me code up little snake games haha. This interest continued throughout my life :) One funny memory was at University when a lecturer asked a full room who wanted to work in games development, and I was the only one out of about 300 people in the room who raised their hand. I got my first real job at Torus straight out of university, and continued from there.
As for what I’d do differently, honestly I’m pretty happy. I’ve built a tonne of stuff, and had a pretty adventurous career doing it. I worked for big companies and small companies, even started my own companies. I haven’t had any massive blow outs, but on the technical side I am very happy with and proud of what I’ve built.
[Ben] My first console was the SNES (not counting the Intellivision we had a couple of interesting games for). Super Mario World was my first big exposure to gaming, followed by several other Nintendo first party games. For PC my first experiences were Duke Nukem 3D and Quake. I worked on levels and mods for Quake as my hobby and got offered a job at Torus Games after my first year of University. So I left Uni and that was that.
As for Gooey itself, this is the first title you are developing as the indie studio OG Pixel, correct? What inspired you to form OG Pixel and begin development?
[Phil] Ben and I have known each other for 20+ years, we were always tinkering and building projects together. Reflex was our last project. We got in touch a couple of years ago and started tinkering again, Gooey was the outcome!
Gooey reminds me personally of the classic puzzle platformers I'd sneak and play during computer class at school during the 2000s! Addictive gameplay that always pushed you to complete at least one more level before the teacher caught you. How would you say Gooey compares to such classics of days gone by?
[Phil] That’s exactly what we’re after!
[Ben] Super Mario World was a big influence for me growing up and developing Gooey. The progression and focus on a basic set of skills that can be used in a complexity of ways creates a lot of emergent gameplay and depth. Very similar core values in that regard. We’d much rather have a simple solid set like the older classic titles than try to add complexity with double jumps, wall jumps etc. that tend to be very rigid and forced, too much so for the fluid nature we were going after. We’ve taken a less is more approach and kept things lean and we’re pretty proud of how it’s come together.
The animations and movements in Gooey are so fluid and really capture the idea that we are playing as a glob! Was this something that decided before beginning development, or did the gameplay mechanics help establish the main character's identity? Or was it the other way around?
[Ben] There’s quite a few reasons actually! We know we wanted Gooey to be really dynamic and naturally go from one action to another, there’s always a kind of blended state, nothing is ever just a rigid single input equals single result. Gooey can be falling while engaging a swing which then yanks him around and naturally let go and the arm retracts and body and limbs react accordingly. We really wanted him to feel more alive and we’re both technically minded and this felt like the best approach. There’s actually very few animations, even Gooey’s running is done via code! Having all of the visuals like this let us have completely fluid and dynamic gameplay with very believable results. We knew very early on that we wanted Gooey to have a grapple swinging mechanic, so the direction we went with was pretty much from the get go.
Gooey is going to feature a level creator which will allow players to share their creations over Steam Workshop. As someone with some game design experience myself, I love using building tools in games, and always look forward to seeing what others can create as well. Is this something you plan to continue expanding upon after the game launches? With new tools, objects, etc to work with?
[Phil] Absolutely! We’ve kept it simple on purpose, it will build out “micro details” for you so it looks nice, but it’s very quick & fun to iterate on. We’ve spoken about adding more bloke types a bit, honestly we’re quite excited to see how the community responds to Gooey, we could take it in a few different directions.
Currently the game is set for a PC release, but could other platforms be possible in the future? Maybe the Nintendo Switch or Switch 2 with their portability?
[Phil] It will launch on PC + Mac, and yes absolutely :)
Is there anything you would like to tell our readers about Gooey?
[Ben] Please give it a go and tell us what you think! We like engaging with the community and love hearing ideas for things that people would like to see. We were very active with the community of our previous game Reflex Arena and we honestly believe it helped grow into a more complete game for it.
And finally, just for fun, is there a game you would've loved to work on if you had the chance?
[Ben] I can’t think of a single one in particular, some id software first person shooters and some first party Nintendo games :) The kind of stuff I grew up with, both in terms of the actual games, but also the fact that they were smaller tightly knit teams.
I'd like to once again thank Phil and Ben for taking time out of their busy schedule to speak with me, and for giving me the chance to try out the game early!
As for Gooey itself, those interested can head over to the Steam Page today. For more, here is the official overview and trailer.
About Gooey
Gooey is a precision platformer where you squish, swing, and fling your way through vibrant, momentum-based levels using your elastic grappling arm. Inspired by Celeste, Super Meat Boy, and the creative spirit of Mario Maker, Gooey delivers tight controls, satisfying movement, and an ever-growing world of user-generated challenges.
STRETCHY ARM GRAPPLING
Grab walls, swing from pulley belts, and slingshot yourself across gaps with your sticky extendable arm.
PIPE LAUNCHERS & MOVING BELTS
Chain together zooming pipes and spinning belts for flowing traversal combos.
HAZARDS & MOMENTUM CHALLENGES
Dodge electric beams, time your swings, and link your movement with satisfying precision.
COLLECTIBLES & GOALS
Each level tasks you with collecting the L, A, and B letters before reaching the beacon, a nod to platforming classics with a gooey twist.
LEVEL EDITOR + WORKSHOP
Create, play, and share custom levels with full Workshop support, from chill obstacle courses to evil precision gauntlets.
Whether you're a speedrunner, casual goo-flinger, or aspiring level designer, Gooey is a playground of sticky, satisfying movement and endless community creativity
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