How The Professional combines QWOP, comedy, and crime
The Professionalis a game about a daring heist. Just climb over the box, sneak through the laser trap, grab a diamond, and get out. The tricky part is that this is a physics game where you have to control the thief’s individual limbs and joints, making for a long, arduous, goofy journey to steal that gem.
Game Developer spoke with Torfi Asgeirsson, developer of this silly thieving game, about exploring the interesting depth of human movement, what thoughts went into choosing the degree of control the players had over the thief’s limbs, and creating a surprising difficulty curve with an innocent-looking set of stairs.
Game Developer: The Professional tasks players with guiding every limb of a burglar on a diamond heist. What inspired this idea for a game?
Torfi Asgeirsson: It started as a submission for a game jam, the theme of which was "lights." I had some ideas about doing something with lasers. Those laser grids you see in heist movies came to mind, and I thought it would be funny to have to navigate those with a physics-based character.
The games of Bennett Foddy are obviously big influences on me. Many people compare this game to QWOP but Getting Over It was more of a direct inspiration. I thought about it a lot as I was working on The Professional. Another game developer I greatly admire, Stephen Lavelle, has made a couple of games with similar characters, You gotta get off the train and Flagstaff. Toribash, a game I find myself constantly trying to remake in some form, was also somewhere in the back of my mind.
You've worked with human movements and the silliness within before (A Firm Handshake, Klifur). What draws you to create games that explore human movement in funny, lighthearted ways? What new thing did you want
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