When Ryan Ellis isn't busy (reluctantly) battling devil-possessed giant snakes outside his house, he makes games. Heck, according to him, he might even poop them. But I try not to think about that. Being a full third of the staff of Void Star Creations, creators of the upcoming Poker Smash, may be a challenge but Ellis still finds time to blog.

In a semi-recent post on his blog, he was ruminating over the constant interplay between getting the word out (and the interest up) and giving away too much (especially to competitors). He said:

It’s a very tough balancing act. Show too much and you’ve played your hand. Don’t show enough and people wont know about you. It’s compounded by the fact that we are so small we have 0 bandwidth to devote any time to this.

And so, I sought Mr. Ellis out for some more in-depth questioning about promoting an XBLA game as well as a variety of other topics. Check out some quick snippets from his responses here and join me after the break for the full interview.

The difference between an ok game and a great game usually boils down to how many times you can revisit the features.

It's kinda surprising how many 360 owners I have talked to that have no idea what XBLA is or how to get to it.

Learn more about Poker Smash here, or here.

[via Ryan Ellis's blog]

What are the advantages to working in such a small team? Disadvantages?

Being such a small team is sort of a double-edged sword. On the positive the team can react very quickly to change. Meaning that you can make revisions and adjustments to your game quickly and this allows you to get more iteration time in. The difference between an ok game and a great game usually boils down to how many times you can revisit the features. On the negative you have limited manpower and it will take you longer to deal with all the issues that crop up when actually finishing up a game for the market. You also have to watch out for burnout. It's really easy to get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of work you have to do. As far as our team size: yeah, its pretty much 3 people.

As a follow up, one of the disadvantages you spoke of in your blog post was that none of you has bandwidth to devote to getting the word out for your game (or to figure out how to do so effectively). And we all know that the promotion of XBLA games by Microsoft is basically limited to website space at xbox.com and a press release. Most of the promotion is up to the devs and the publishers (which varies from tiny and poor indie studios to mega publishers flush with cash). Would you want Microsoft to control more of the PR and promotion? Also, how do you think Microsoft could promote XBLA (and your game in particular) better?

Well as far as Microsoft is concerned I feel like they have done a decent job promoting the XBLA space to gamers but there is always room for improvement. A couple of things off the top of my head I could think of would be things like giving XBLA its own Blade in the dashboard. Also, as more and more games are released they will need to have a better system for organizing the games (instead of one huge list). I also think there is a lot more work that can be done with building awareness for XBLA. It's kinda surprising how many 360 owners I have talked to that have no idea what XBLA is or how to get to it. As far as having Microsoft control more of the promotion that is a tough question to answer as we are just beginning that phase of our project. Ask me that after our game has been out for awhile.

You said that you think that you might be acting too official to some degree when it comes to promoting the game. How do you gauge when to walk the official line (press releases, PR channels, etc.) and when to go rogue and stir up your own hype? And what kind of rogue activities would you want to use to create buzz?

When I made that comment It was more of a question to myself than anything else. As of now we don't really have any bandwidth to do any pre-release promotion projects. Also, being a new company you basically need to put out a good game first before those kinds of things work well. Once you have established yourself people are more apt to listen to what you have to say about your new game. Once we have released Poker Smash and start working on new projects we will be in a much better position to generate buzz.

Do you have any aces up your sleeve for closer to the release to help create buzz?

We do have some ideas that we are really excited about. If it all plays out like we want it to, it should be something that will benefit not only us but gamers as well. ;) Unfortunately, as nothing is set in stone at this point, I can't really say anything else about it.

Are your fears of showing your hand based primarily on buzz killing (e.g., "I know everything now so why keep investigating this game?") or on trade secrets (you've got ideas/features that you don't want stolen by the competition)? Combination of both?

Probably a little of both. Building buzz is a fine art in itself. Push too hard and the gaming community revolts. Don't push enough and people won't know about your product. Drew and I really do believe that the game will speak for itself once it's out in the world. There are some features that we want to be a surprise and would like to be the first to the market with. That is always a concern when you are building a game and you are trying to add things that others have not been doing.

Finally, what's it like defending your kingdom from the horde of slithering monsters that are invading?

Hahahaha well between the crazy work hours we have been pulling and the lack of sleep nature always finds a way to keep things interesting. ;)

A big thanks to Ryan Ellis for squeezing me in during his crazy schedule.