Interviews

Allcreon Game Development. A company who has published a successful title and is creating a great game: World Challenge Soccer 2006. Read this interview to find out more.

Q: When did you create Allcreon Game Development and how many employees do you have?

A: Allcreon Game Development was setup in May 2002. I am currently co-operating with one freelancer and my beloved wife. Allcreon is still a very small company and its survival depends on budgets and commissions. Cooperating with freelancers enables us more financial flexibility.

Q: You have published RC Boat Challenge last year; can you make a living as a smaller game developer? And how well does Acknex serve your ideas?

A: Among our own game development we are offering outsourcing services like art direction and digital media design. We have clients (not only from the entertainment industry) in Germany and USA. Putting it all together we can make a living from it. With Acknex we are able to realize our ideas and it is the perfect engine for our game titles. Since I have my roots in art design I am relieved to have a tool for creating games without too much programming effort.

Q: Your new title – WCS 2006 - looks really good. I understand that each and every player has its own features. Can you give us more information about this and explain how these features will have an impact during the game?

A: Each player has 3 attributes: stamina, motivation and injuries. These attributes will interact during a match. E.g. if a player was fouled, then his injuries will increase. And injuries will decrease stamina and motivation. Motivation will affect ball shooting and passing.

Q: Are you using some physics entities? If the answer is affirmative, which are those entities?

A: The ball is a physics entity when it is not in possession by a player. If a player has the ball, the physics characteristics will be disabled and the ball is attached to the player. The physics engine works very well for realistic ball movements. By the way, I often will be asked how I do the AI. But since I work on the game I think I spent more time with the player - ball interaction than with the AI.

Q: Please describe for us how does the goalkeeper adjust its position, angles and animation frames in order to catch the ball.

A: The goal keeper movements are from side to side rather than from his facing direction. Therefore the goal keeper moves across the front of the goal mouth, attempting to keep his body between the ball and a moving position located to his rear (intercept point of goal line and ball movement direction). So I use ent_move, nullvector the relative distance and change the absolute distance vector according to the intercept point. This enables that the steering behavior doesn't depend on the goal keepers facing direction. If the ball is in a critical distance to the goal and the keeper hasn't reached the level of the intercept point, he will try to dive after the ball and the corresponding animation frames will be played.

Q: How big is the frame rate on a decent system with all those models and fancy effects visible on the screen?

A: I have reduced the vertices of the player model to 800 so the frame rate will keep up on older systems even if all players are in view (30-40fps).

Q: Please tell us the names of some freeware or low cost game development tools that you find to be really useful.

A: Since I have grown up with Photoshop I think this is the most powerful graphic tool. Adobe is offering a smaller, affordable version " Photoshop Elements" (100$), too. For 3D modeling I use Cinema 4D from Maxon. But I have also made good experiences with Milkshape 3D. For music and sound effects I think Magix Music Maker with the (royalty-free) Soundpool Collection DVD is very useful.

Q: There are many engine users that would like to create successful games, but are unable to do that. Which are (in your opinion) the differences between you and them? What advice would you give to them?

A: Creating a game means a lot of work, even if it's a small project. Finishing it means even more work. While planning a game you should always have your resources (team size, budget, etc.) in mind. And it is necessary to determine schedules for the project. I think most users are disappointed or lose interest when they try to make a game like Half Life or Deus Ex and realize that they have started something they could never finish. To put it in a nutshell: try to create and finish your game with a specific effort of time and resources. The advantage for a lone wolf is that he can create a game for a certain small target group (e.g. casual gamer) and still make profit of it.

Thank you a lot, Florian.