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Master Firoball - one of the A5 Pro winners in Conitec's contest teaches us how to win an A5 Pro copy this year. Q: When have you bought your first 3DGS package and what has determined you to do that? A: I got my first 3D Gamestudio back in November 1996. At that time I was creating Doom Levels all the time and the idea of buildiung my own game came up. Then a friend told me about a commercial he found in a games magazine and so I got my first 3D Gamestudio, version 3.5.
Q: So how’s 4LW going? Do you think that it will be finished this year? A: Since it always was (and still is) a hobby project, it's going rather slow right now. I'm also a lover of video games and they're stealing my time for Four Little Warriors so often (especially Phantasy Star Online is very very evil ;). I could easily finish the game this year, but I won't make a promise here. Maybe another idea comes up in my mind, that I really want to put into the game, then it will just take a bit longer :)
Q: How much time did it take you to finish the demo for Conitec’s contest? A: I started just about a year ago (end of june 2000) with Four little Warriors. One week later I had to go to the army, so there was not much time for finishing the game. Some months after starting the project, I dumped the whole thing as suddenly as I began creating the game. But after I talked with some friends about the dumped game, they all encouraged me to finish it for the contest. Well I guess I got enough of it done, although a lot of things went wrong in the contest version. There were features missing, a quick and ugly menu was done, and it was full of bugs. But I finally had something to send in for the contest.
Q: Did you write the scripts by yourself? If so, how / where did you learn wdl? A: I always wrote my scripts on my own. It's much easier to understand my own scripts than looking at the prefabricated scripts from Conitec. I started with WDL back in 1996, so I guess it's all a matter of time. I still remember my first script. It was a small code for letting doors open and close using IF_NEAR and IF_FAR (old A3 commands). It was not time corrected or even a GOOD script, but it was a first start. So I picked up more and more things with time passing by. I never mentioned it somewhere, but the first steps in A4 were really tough for me. I guess I did more stupid things than most of you can imagine, but I just didn't want to talk about it ;)
Q: What tools are you using for your models and sounds? A: I create models using the OLD MED because I still can't get used to the new release. I miss the possiblity to first move a crosshair around and THEN place the vertices according to the position of the crosshair.
Skins are done using PSP 4.12 and if there's a chance I use Photoshop (don't have a copy at home). Creating sounds is something I'm not very good at. I use a Shareware program called COOL EDIT for it. It's pretty old, I think it was released in 1996. There may be newer versions available, but this is the only one I ever used.
Q: Do you plan to team up with somebody else or can you finish 4LW by yourself? A: I can finish Four Little Warriors on my own, but it's just more fun to work in a team. The biggest problem is finding a good team. Since I'm a console gamer and hardly ever play a pc game, my games all look more console-like. Here in the forum are mostly pc players. How I can see that? Well if you read a bit through the forums or check the link page you'll find games that are typical pc games (a few exceptions, though). Not that this is a bad thing, but it's just not my world and finding someone who thinks the same way I do is quite difficult. I KNOW people who have my taste, but they all are gamers and don't have anything to do with game development.
Q: Who will publish your game? Have you signed any contract yet? A: I was in contact with ARI, but haven't heard from them for a while. I didn't sign anything, because -as I already mentioned- 4LW is a hobby project. It might be dead one day later, you never know.
Q: What else would you need to see implemented in A5 in the future? A: I'm missing the flexibility of 3D Gamestudio. You are very limited in bringing addons for your game or integrating a nice support for user levels. Everything has to be inside the resource (except levels), and the resource can't be split into several files (not anymore - it is implemented in the beta - George's note). I'd also like to have more control over files, I can't rename, delete or copy files in the game directory, or having an EOF command to know when I have to stop reading data from a file. I'd also like to see a possibility to create and deform meshes in realtime for special effects (it is implemented in the beta - George's note).
Q: Do you have a new demo for this year’s contest? A: Nope, so everybody who feared I might grab the pro edition again can be happy and hope for a prize ;)
Q: What should I do to make sure that my demo is a winner? Do you have any advice for the rest of us? A: Hm... that's a good question. I can only tell you about 4LW, but whether I'm right or not is only known by the Conitec jury ;) To be honest I never awaited to win a professional version, especially after I read that Sammy Suricate took part in the contest :P. So after I knew the result I started analyzing the whole game, coming to following conclusions: - Sounds are there but not anything REALLY good After all I think it primarily was the game idea. I and probably most people in the forum never saw a game of that type before. Just another shooter is nothing exciting, there are many commercial products out there probably better than such a game created with 3D Gamestudio. If you take a look at the first A4 contest, two unconventional games won as well (Desktop Guerilla and Ploing), so perhaps this is what Conitec wants to see. |