Kid Mystic was recently released by Hamumu and Mike Hommel, the "Brains" behind the game and the company (not to mention one of our Illustrious Panel for our Monthly Round-Up), took time out to chat with us for a minute about this great new game.

For those who still might not know who Hamumu Software is, can you give us a little background about Hamumu Software?

Well, I started Hamumu Software around 1998. It consists of me... and that's it. Since then I've been cranking out Dumb games non-stop, always taking much longer than I expect, and scrapping a large majority of projects, but always ending up with something to show for it every year or so! Now if only I would spend any time or money marketing, I might make something doing it.

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Kid Mystic is the new game, so lets start there, how do you describe this game to people who haven't seen it?

It's an action/RPG, centered around developing your character by buying stuff in the shop, gaining experience, and collecting hidden spells to improve your abilities. It's got more action and puzzle than your typical action/RPG, and a whole lot less story.

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From playing Kid Mystic I would say it plays a lot like Dr. Lunatic, but beyond that game there aren't really any games on the market like Kid Mystic. In your mind, what makes Kid Mystic special?

I don't think it has some stand-out super original feature, but it is indeed a little outside any normal genre. What does it have to offer a player? Dumb humor and a strong blend of tough action, vicious puzzles, and freedom to proceed how you want. One little thing is that some RPGs completely deny their very reason for being - they let you level up, but the monsters you fight automatically adjust to your level, or they don't respawn (thanks, Dungeon Siege!) so you can't ever go back and improve if you find something too tough. I hate that. In this game, you pick your own difficulty - you can zip through and be crushed relentlessly, or you can amble slowly, gaining lots of experience and money, and make the game easy for yourself.

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Let's get back to the comparison with Dr. Lunatic, there are a lot of similarities between the two, down to the voices and what is said by the characters. What in your mind are the key differences that will make this game stand out to gamers and long-time Hamumu fans?

Yes, some of the similarity is because Kid Mystic was created when a publisher said they liked Dr. Lunatic but thought a bald adult hero would be scary to kids (news for them: kids absolute love Bouapha! Don't ask me why), and said "how about making him a wizard or a dinosaur instead?". Classic marketing speak. So I made him a wizard. But I'm not the type to do a cheap cash-in (and I wanted to be able to sell my scary bald guy game separately anyway!), so instead of just changing him, I created a whole new game around his wizardliness, using some of the elements I already had (it shares some monsters and terrain objects), and adding a bunch of new stuff. Other similarities are just Hamumu style - It's a classic in-joke for the hero to be "Kool Kat Bad!" when he finishes a level.

What's new about it? Just about everything! It does share the same weird concept of each level being a self-contained puzzle/adventure, starting from zero firepower, but really turns that on its head by allowing you to level up and improve yourself overall, not to mention having spells you can cast in each level even before you find any Energy Orbs to shoot fireballs with. So collecting the spells and choosing when and where to use them, collecting the fairies and choosing which one to bring with you, buying goods in the shop, gaining levels, fighting random battles, and just plain all-new levels to play! I'd say that's enough to push it into an entirely different genre. Not that I know what genre Dr. Lunatic is in.

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One of the things I always look forward to most, and least :), in your games is their lengthy play value (how many hundreds of hours of play time were in Dr. Lunatic again?). So here is the question, in your estimation how many hours of play time are packed into Kid Mystic?

Kid Mystic is certainly not the size of Supreme! Of course, neither was Baldur's Gate. But one nifty thing in Mystic is that there's the basic game which you can finish, and be done with if you're so inclined. That'll take, I don't know, 10 hours? It could really go anywhere from 6 to 20 depending on your obsessiveness, plodditude, and how impossible you find switch puzzles. There's a lot of junk to find! But then after you finish the basic game, there is more you MAY play as you wish. Two other modes to be precise, and both of them will take you much, much longer than the regular play mode. All told, if you get every secret, you're not getting out in less than 30 hours for sure, and probably not less than 50. But like I said, the nifty thing is how it's optional - you're missing stuff if you don't complete all 3 modes, but you've gotten the ending, you're happy. The rest is sorta like the extras on a DVD. If you're really into it, you check them out, if you just wanted the basic movie, you've got that.

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There seems to be quite a few cool secret things in Kid Mystic. Can you give us a word on what some of the cool hidden things are packed into Kid Mystic?

Well, two of the fundamental game mechanics in Kid Mystic are actually hidden. That is, every level (except the tutorial levels and boss levels) contains either a Spellbook or a Fairy Bell. These are hidden to varying degrees, but they're not required to complete the level. You could theoretically finish the game without any of them, though I would not envy your task. In addition to those main hidden items, there are the four pieces of the Armageddon Sword - find all four to complete the sword and drastically improve your firepower. What else? Well, there are 4 secret enemies, I won't divulge how to meet them, and the two sort-of-secret game modes, one of which ends with a big secret surprise that I really like a lot.

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What was been the most ambitious aspect of creating Kid Mystic?

It's kind of hard to say, because the game was originally created five years ago. I guess the ambitious part was that, when I finally got the rights back to offer it myself, instead of just re-releasing it as is, I went through and spent months on end adding in all the new stuff. I could've EASILY made an entirely new game with the effort I spent enhancing this one. I added the entire Fairy system, the snappy new water effects, the lighting effects (though I stole those from Supreme With Cheese), Challenge Mode, Madcap Mode, about twelve new enemies, two new bosses, around twenty new levels, and a whole lot of text for a certain surprise. That right there isn't just a whole new game, it's a big new game! My mistake, I guess.

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What really cool aspect of Kid Mystic do you hope gamers will appreciate?

The best thing in the game without a doubt is the one thing I actually come back to (I get notoriously sick of my own games after all the testing, though I of course still plow through almost all the submitted Dr. Lunatic worlds): Challenge Mode. It's loosely, but probably pretty obviously, based on the Tony Hawk series, and it's absolutely fun. I was able to find some challenges that require real lateral thinking on some of the levels, and those are my favorite. It takes the existing game (and a few new bonus levels) and completely opens it up in a whole new way, forcing you to really explore the powers of the different spells and fairies. And it's great to have that become available once you've exhausted the main game - you think you've gotten all the good stuff out of the game, and BAM! A whole new side to it.

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I know developing a game can have some rather tedious moments, but for you what part of creating Kid Mystic was the most enjoyable?

Enjoyable... it's all a blur! I know I was excited when the water worked so beautifully, although it really chews up the CPU, so I had to add a disabling option. It's mostly fun to do this stuff, especially updating an existing game, since the tedious underlying stuff is already done and you can just add bells and whistles. I'll tell you what I didn't enjoy: making new levels, which I always get very sick of very fast. But they were really necessary, and I spiced it up a little by coming up with major new elements for them that had to be done in code, so it wasn't all just laying down tiles, monsters, and events. I like making games, and these Dr. Lunatic-y ones (Loonyland included) are the most fun, something about it just fits right into my brain and I can throw stuff together easily. Too bad I keep trying to make games of other types.

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Now that you've completed Kid Mystic what's up next? (Other than a well-earned vacation?)

First there was the vacation, over now. Then a new patch for Supreme With Cheese - I'm adding a whole host of new features in the level editor, so the world builders who are so rabid will have a new set of tools to inflict torture on players (nothing really new for players in this patch, besides bug fixes, though they'll need it to play worlds made with the new features). Then the big deal... I'm afraid, though it's not set in stone, that I am going to become one of those guys trying to make an MMORPG. Now wait, don't run screaming! It's not nearly as bad as it sounds. It will be turn-based, more like a BBS door game than Everquest, so I am hoping that I can keep it in the realm of reality. I'm not hopeFUL, but I'm hopING. I hear horror stories of the problems of running one even if you can get it written. Anybody who wants to talk me out of it is welcome to share their horror stories. And anybody who wants to check out what's happening on that (nothing yet!) or whatever other project replaces it when it turns out too difficult, can always check out our Sneak Peek page http://www.hamumu.com/sneakpeek.php. 

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A thanks to Mike for taking time out of his busy schedule!  For those who haven't checked it out yet, head over to the Kid Mystic website and check it out!