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Doom & Destiny is a Role Playing Game (RPG) that we reviewed almost a month ago. Today, I’m still playing it, hacking and slashing at enemies, with loot and XP as my reward. We spoke with Matteo Nicolotti, CEO of HeartBit entertainment, to try to understand the efforts that went into making this game.

How many people created Doom & Destiny?

“Just two nerds. While I focused on technical aspects, Francesco Ficarelli worked to create a great game experience in his products.”

Matteo-and-Francesco

HeartBit entertainment is a relatively new company, launching in April 2011. However, Doom & Destiny has roots way before that, back in early 2010 when Matteo and Francesco joined forces to create Doom & Destiny – their first joint project. Even before their days of jointly developing, both Francesco and Matteo created code for games or apps.

Working on a project outside of working hours and in any spare time can mean that it can often take a while to be completed. Matteo tells us that Doom & Destiny took about a year and a half to finish. But once the duo knuckled down and focused on their own business, the development of subsequent apps has been completed considerable quicker.

Doom & Destiny intro

“One of our quickest games was Miner Warfare which took about a month to complete, and another one, Spyleaks, was finished in about 6 months – both are Xbox indie games.”

As you’ll have noticed by now, Matteo and Francesco aren’t satisfied with focusing on just one gaming platform, they want to deliver their content to both mobile and console gamers. 

“Not everybody owns an Xbox and we understand that many new gamers are playing games for the first time on their smartphones. From the beginning, we liked the new Windows Phone platform and saw it as something innovative and we wanted to bet on the success of this new marketplace.”

Are older games used as inspiration when creating new games?

Yes, and no, explains Matteo:

“Well, we initially created Doom & Destiny as an offensive parody of four friends of ours.”

“But they enjoyed it and pushed us to complete the game. The game is also a tribute to old NES and SNES role playing games, from the gameplay to the content. Final Fantasy and Pokemon are probably the most well known similar games.”

And what of new developers, what advice would you give to them?

“Don’t do it!” Matteo jokes. “That’s how to eliminate our competitors from the start.”

“Joking aside, creating a game is very hard and can be very time consuming, but it is rewarding. Always create something fun and original, and if it’s your first project, keep it simple!”

It’s easy to see Matteo’s personality and sense of humour transferred into Doom & Destiny, which is enjoyable to see. Creating a game isn’t just about typing in code; it’s about investing yourself into something that you enjoy.

Matteo and Francesco are always busy creating something, and we’ve been let into a little secret. They’re about to release two more games over the next few days. That’s as much as they’d tell us, but they’ll reveal all on their Facebook page as well as the HeartBit website, so make sure you keep checking there for more details.