Interviews

It happened! One of the game templates from Aum was turned into a commercial product! Read the interview to find more.

Q: What type of game is Betti? What makes it special?

A: Betti is the game which is aimed for kids from 5 years and up. It is based on the Skeleton Inc. game from Aum17. It uses the same idea of falling platforms when player passes over them. Of course, I added a lot of new features like timed self moving platforms, moving platforms, lots of enemies walking on paths, lots of timed force fields, teleporters, etc. The kid who plays it has to be 100% concentrated all the time, not only because of the different traps and enemies, but because he or she must choose the good path in order to collect all the diamonds. On some levels the player can even create the path by himself, triggering moving platforms. The main goal of the game is to collect all the diamonds in one level in order to open another. Sometimes this is very difficult; in the second level the only way to collect the diamonds is to use the teleporter a few times and beam yourself to another part of the platform and pick up all diamonds. To be honest I don’t know what makes Betti special, but it has all elements to be a good game: great game-play, fine graphics, nice animated models by Andvari, and now we added perfect music for kids made by Ambassador (Samuel Anjam). We have 11 songs which play randomly on each level start.

Q: Betti includes some nice looking models. How big is their polygon count?

A: When the game starts you can select one of the 4 different players, 3 girls and one boy, and all of them have different properties. The first girl is the slowest, the second is faster and so on. The boy is about 2 times faster than the first girl, which makes it more difficult for the player to stay on the platform. All models have 2000-2400 triangles with a 512*512 pixels skin. The models were made by Andvari who will be my main modeler for a long time, I hope. Some enemy models are created by my second modeler – Bazuka.

Q: What type of AI are you using for the enemies?

A: The enemies are pretty dumb because they are only walking on paths, trying to catch the player. There are lots of birds flying around, and then I have one CHESS level where chess figures are going around and lots of funny creatures are chasing you; if they catch you will loose 20% of the energy. On some levels you have to collect apples which give you back your energy but on some levels you have to be careful to avoid enemies because you will die instantly if they touch you.

Q: Which are 3DGS’ strengths, in your opinion?

A: Easy of use, definitely. Before I started with 3DGS I was a Director power-user and I wanted to find a tool which is specially designed for games. I think that I finally found myself a perfect tool which I want to use in my projects. Also 3DGS is a powerful engine with very nice and growing community. I can say that for my first year with 3DGS, I found myself a lot of good friends, having nice conversations all the time, and getting help from them in no time. I especially want to thank Brayden Wilmoth (ISG) who was always ready to help me.

Q: Please give us the names of a few free or low-cost programs that you find to be extremely useful for game development.

A: For modeling I am using MilkShape, and I think that it is great. Few months ago I purchased Soxtimage XSI 4.0 which is very powerful, but unfortunately I don’t have time to learn it. Also I purchased GameSpace but I am finding it too buggy so I am not using it at all. I am so sorry that I can't use Animation Master! That was the first modeling program I purchased and it is such a great modeling-animation tool, but it has a very few exporting options, so for game development it is practically unusable. For all graphics needs I am using Fireworks from Macromedia and that’s perfect tool for me, and PhotoShop elements also. They are all inexpensive tools and they serve me very well.

Q: What would you like to see implemented in the engine, in the near future?

A: I am waiting for Octree Scene Management because I want to combine it with BSP, and I think that it can save us a lot of time especially if you have a great modeler who can export almost anything from MAX. I am happy that this feature is already in development, and I am looking forward to see it. Also I am waiting another feature which is already in beta test: models consisting of several meshes with different textures and materials. That will be a great help for developers. I'd like to see better template cameras and movement. I saw great PS2 games for small kids like Spyro, Donald Duck, Crash Bandicot, and they all have the same camera & movement. I think that Doug should make that kind of camera & movement for that type of games; you know, funny character with lots of running, jumping, collecting things etc.

And I think that documentation should be much better. Currently we can only learn from your magazine because the user's manual has a very few examples on each command. I think that every command should have 3-4 or even more example so we can test them all. I have learned to work with Macromedia Director from 1000 pages books. That’s the best way to learn something. Try each command and take what you need. I am sure that 3DGS is more powerful than I can imagine it, but simply I don’t now that because I don’t have examples to see what it is capable of.  But I am saying again: I am very, very happy that I have found myself a great tool – 3D GameStudio.

Q: I know that you are also a publisher. Where and how do you distribute the games? How big is the typical royalty rate if we choose you as our publisher?

A: I published more than 10 educative games for kids from 3-15 years, and Betti will be the first non-educative 3D game I made. I published my games currently in 4 European countries, and I have opened 2 more, just waiting to translate my games to local languages. I have found out that it is lot easier for me to publish games in local languages because competition is not so strong and I can find my place on the market. Because of that each game that I make or I buy the license for must be translated to local languages. About royalties, hm, it depends on the type of agreement. I am not a big publisher so it is obviously that I can’t pay 20,000$ or more for copyrights, but my advantage is that I am covering just few countries and when I buy the rights for a game, I am buying the rights only for those countries, so the rest of the world is still yours. And that’s good for start. Recently I made an agreement with RealSpawn productions about publishing P-Slider and we made a great job on translating the game to local languages; now P-Slider goes on 5 languages, and I think that this is a great result.

Q: Please give us a few tips for the beginners out there.

A: I think that biggest problem with the beginners is that they start one project and never finish it. Make a good game concept and follow that until the game is finished; adjust all necessary things in order to finish a game. One good example: I set my Betti game deadlines for late February, because in March the game has to be in stores. I had to abandon 2 levels because I realized that with 12 levels I will never finish my game, so I decided to cut the last 2. I saw that first 10 levels are quite enough for hours of playing and fun, so I decided to speed up things and publish the game as soon as I can. Of course my levels are independent so I could do that, but what I wanted to say is: don’t ever let your game control you, and don’t try to create the perfect game because it will never be perfect. Make nice graphics, fine game play and test it a lot. Test it, test it and test it. I am lucky that I have my best testers, my 2 angels, 5 and 8 year daughters who come to me every day asking me to allow them to play Betti. This way I know that I made a good game.

Thank you a lot, Dejan.