Interviews

Q: Action Bird has an original game concept. How did you come up with this interesting idea?

A: Well the idea originally started as a rat reaching a sphere at the end of a level and evolved into our current concept. We wanted to create a game involving all types of game genres thus touching the hearts of all the gamers out there: the one who likes racing games, the one who likes action games, the one who likes role playing games, the one who likes puzzle games, and the one who likes platform games.

We have included many types of gameplay modes in the game: levels for jumping, running, and fighting, levels for riding a motorcycle, levels for controlling a "Wonder Sphere", levels for solving easy-hard puzzles. Hopefully all the different types of gameplay modes will be enough to interest all gamers and never bore the player out of the game. It has always been important for us to make something unique that was never seen before, and there you have it, a duck named Jet fighting off other birds trying to become the action bird! ;)

Q: How many types of games are included in A.B.? Can you enumerate them for us?

A: There are currently 4 main types of gameplay:

1) Jump and Run - Player gets full controls of Jet. Jet can walk, run, jump, climb, monkey swing and fight! You control Jet and you must go through the bird kingdom world jumping over obstacles, avoiding traps, climbing your way to higher places, and best of all fight vicious birds!

2) Wonder Sphere - A magic marble that Jet gets control of. You must roll your way through difficult levels. Might sound simple but this mode needs a lot of coordination and is very hard to get a hang of, but once you do, it is one of the most fun features in the game! The sphere uses the engine's physics engine.

3) Puzzles - You're up in the sky, you must find the right key, open the right gate, and get to the end without falling down or getting trapped! There is also a puzzle editor included for the gamers who want to create their own unique puzzle and play it.

4) Motorcycles - Learn how to ride a motorcycle and ride your way through difficult obstacles. The motorcycle physics are fully scripted but are objected to removal.

Q: How many men are working at this project? Can you give us their names?

A: As of now, we have about 20 people on the team. Many of these are only working on the game in their free time thus not having a lot of time to work, but they get it done eventually. Here is a list of every team member, what he has done and what he is currently working on:

Guy Tennenholtz - Main Developer, knows as ROMAC on the 3dgs forums. Manages the Romac Studios team, programs and level designs.

Luke Trares - Programmer. Has worked with us on his free time for 2 months and managed to finish all physics coding for both Wonder Sphere and Motorcycles.

Mark Swann - Programmer. Has worked with us from the very beginning. Programmed Jet's movements and is now finishing the coding for his movements.

Tom Charles Williams - Programming Assistance. Also known as DarkWhoppy2003 on the 3dgs forums. Just joined the team helping with minor programming issues.

Kalin Krastev - Modeler, Skinner. Also known as Winter on the 3dgs forums. Has worked with us from the very beginning. Made the main character and is currently working on the main enemy.

Gustavo Fiorenza - Modeler, Skinner. Created characters for the game, currently creating character models for enemies.

Pablo Aizpiri - Vehicle Modeler. Worked with us from the very beginning. Made all vehicle models for the game.

Andrew Bateman - Level Designer. Also known as Bateman on the 3dgs forums. Worked with us from the very beginning. Creates the Wonder Sphere levels.

Kristopher Stansfield - Level Designer. Also known as BloodRed on the 3dgs forums. Building the Jump and Run levels for the game.

Peter Woods - Animator. Joined us recently, animates the characters in the game.

Steve Melcher - Graphics Designer. Also knows as Xixao3d on the 3dgs forums. Creates much of the graphic art for the game and company.

Marko Nikolic - Texture Arist. Joined just recently. Creates great 2d textures for the levels.

Paul Ryan Tanner - Texture Aritst. Also known as Light_Mystic on the 3dgs forums. Creates 2d textures for the levels.

Guilhem Hachet - Vegetation Designer. Creates amazing 3d vegetation models for the levels.

Dennis Van Den Broek - Concept Artist. Creates 2d concepts of characters for the modelers.

Gregory Eric Palacios - SFX Designer. Creates professional sounds and effects for the game.

Jeffrey Coburn - Voice Actor. Acts out Jet, the main player, with a British accent. He has worked with Disney on famous movies voice acting other characters.

Kevin Lindamood - Voice Actor. Acts out villians in the game.

Andrew Jahn - Voice Actor. Acts out villians in the game.

Shane Filiatrault - Voice Actor. The naraator in the game.

Q: How many levels did you plan for this game? How much time will you need to create them all?

A: The number of levels planned has changed a lot through time, but as of now we can give a true estimate of the number of levels that will be produced for the full version: Jump and Run: 10-15 levels, Wonder Sphere: 10-15 levels, Puzzles: 20-30 levels, Motorcycles: Unsure. Since 90% of the programming is already finished, the main thing for us to do is to finish the levels.

Q: Your game includes “The Trial of Dignity”. I understand that the real Action Bird must have a lot of dignity, but how will it prove it?

A: Jet and the player will prove their dignity by finishing off the main enemy in the game - the two headed monster. Also a special twist will be revealed in the story of the game that we may not discover.

Q: Please describe for us an interesting feature in your game and explain how you coded it.

A: The most well written and complicated feature / code in the game would be the Wonder Sphere, which users 1 physics object from the 3dgs physics engine. The sphere responds to the player's movements by rolling in the directing requested. The sphere may also jump and climb walls. All is good until it comes to controlling the sphere, that part becomes tricky, and is the best part in the script, which challenges the player by making him calculate his falls and coordinate his movements. The Wonder Sphere moves like live marble and acts just like one, adding a lot of challenge to the player.

Q: Could you name the best freeware program that your team used for A.B.’s development?

A: Well 3DGS is practically free for what it does. But other than that one of the most useful freeware tools we've used was LithUnwrap, used for UV mapping. I've looked through their site recently and it seems they no longer give it out for free, but a great demo version can be downloaded. Another great freeware tool used in Action Bird would be Wings3D - found at this URL: http://www.wings3d.com/

Q: Did you find a publisher for your game?

A: Yes, we have found 2 big publishers actually. The word of the publishers is classified to public for the time being and will be announced shortly with the demo's release.

Q: Please give us a few tips for beginners.

A: "Your first ten games will be bad!" is claimed by a standard book about game design. My tip is to keep the idea and concept of all those first games the same (adding to it, changing it). Your first idea will be the best of all, and by your 10th game when your game starts to look "good" your concept will come to life just as you wanted it to from the beginning.

Thank you a lot, Guy.