Bloggpengar.com and Gamezine.se

One and a half year – damn, has it really been that long?

Although no longer an aspiring indie game developer, I still spend a lot of time with games. Most promptly, I am writing for the Swedish gaming magazine Gamezine.se. I also have a couple of personal experiments in micro websites (Bloggpengar.com, MinBMI.com), just to keep myself occupied.

I have decided to leave GameFocus as it is, if only to preserve the (admittedly few) developer interviews I have conducted. Hopefully it will be of interest to someone.

Developer interview: Marcus Nilsson, Senior producer at DICE

Tell us about yourself, who are you and what are your assignments at DICE?

My name is Marcus Nilsson and I am the Senior Producer heading up the development of Battlefield PC titles. My latest project is Battlefield 2142.

Tell us about the history of your studio!

It all started in Växjö 1987 with a group of young guys who started to develop their own games, the Pinball series for example. The company Dice was founded in 1992 and in 2000 Microsoft asked us to develop a game for Xbox. Electronic Arts fully owns Dice since October 2nd, 2006.
Today Dice is one of the world’s leading game studios.

The series DICE are without a doubt most known for are Battlefield. Tell us about the development of Battlefield 1942, the first game in the series.

Battlefield 1942 was born from a game called Codename Eagle, actually the first game combining infantry and vehicle combat online. It was really a single player game and to be honest not a really good one. But it did become relatively popular in hardcore online FPS communities. For Dice it meant we had a foundation for building the engine behind BF1942. It was not a walk in the park to develop and it was also a problem convincing publishers and other people we could actually do what we said we could. In the end EA understood the innovation in what we did and signed a deal. Today, they are very happy for this. Development of 1942 was very much of the basement character. We did not know so much about game development and therefore we tried too much too late etc. We really struggled to get it into one piece and it told we not only have to think about scope but also the processes around making games.

You released Battlefield 2142 not to long ago. How long time did it take to develop the game?

It took us right about 18 months from start to end.

In what amounts was the budget for the game, and are the sales meeting your expectations?

I can not go into details about budget but the game is selling just fine and we have found a category of gamers none of the previous titles managed to capture. Also, a lot of the dedicated gamers playing BF2 are equally in love with 2142 and especially the persistence system. It’s important to understand that 2142 and BF2 are different products and they compliment each other, they are not competing.

What is your targeted audience with Battlefield 2142?

As I said, a new type of players that were never appealed by the previous titles but off course also all the players that have enjoyed our titles in the past.

Do you (personally) prefer Battlefield 2142 over the other games in the series? Why?

I do prefer 2142. It’s an updated engine, making it more visually impact. The soldier feels much more part of the world. The persistence system makes every round interesting and I have a clear goal with every round. Titan mode is a new way of playing and I love collecting lots of points defending or attacking the titan.

Anything else you would like to mention about the game?

The booster pack Northern Strike is on its way out the door. It brings some very interesting game play 2142; it challenges the players to develop new tactics and strengths. It adds more unlocks, these are earned though achieving medals. Northern Strike fits very well into the vanilla game.

Tell us about your current games in progress.

We are currently developing Battlefield Bad Company; this is an exclusive console game, due to come out on Xbox 360 and on PS3. It’s developed with our brand new Frostbite engine and will feature some extreme environmental destruction that radically will change the way shooters are played. More info on this project will follow soon.

How is it to work at such a mayor game studio?

It’s a dream coming true. I’m not lying. The industry is blooming and growing. We make great games that people look forward to. I love going to work on a Monday morning, what’s better than that…

Thanks for answering our questions. Anything you would like to tell upcoming developers?

Thank you! The game developing industry is a place where creativeness rules. Regardless if you’re into programming, art or design you have equal terms to succeed since you are all badly needed in this growing market.

Marcus Nilsson

Senior Producer

EA – Dice

Thanks to Marcus for answering our questions!

Developer interview: Kevin Ryan at Top Meadow

Kevin Ryan is the lead coder at Top Meadow, the studio who recently released Puzzle Poker and Minigolf Mania. Minigolf Mania came at second place in GameTunnels Game of the year sports award.

Tell us about the history of your studio!

Top Meadow was founded by Brian Supple and myself in 1998 when we started work on our first game. Very soon after we released that game my son was born with severe medical problems that lead to a liver transplant among other operations and my family and I spent the next 7 months living a few hundred miles from home in San Francisco. Since then there have been many month long hospital stays and Top Meadow work was either on and off; or pretty much on hold. A couple of years ago my son had a brain surgery that solved his last problem that was causing many hospitalizations. Life calmed down and I’ve been able to work with the only interruptions being short overnight hospital stays. Expect to see many more Top Meadow games from Brian and myself in the future.

Before founding Top Meadow I had worked in the game industry for many years. I was one of the owner/partners of Dynamix along with Jeff Tunnell, Damon Slye, and Tony Reyneke before Sierra bought us. I’ve created somewhere between 20-30 games — apparently my most well known design is The Incredible Machine. I’m always surprised when I hear that people have heard of it or played it.

Where did you get the inspiration for Puzzle poker?

I was working on a game called Minigolf Mania that was getting close to being finished and I wanted to take a break from it. Garage Games had released a new engine (Torque Game Builder) that I wanted to check out. The first day I created a simple match-3 type of game for my son, Aidan. I wanted to do something different than the typical match three items and using cards occurred to me which lead to “hey, maybe try matching 5 cards into poker hands.” Torque Game Builder turned out to be very easy to use and I was able to get the prototype completed the first day. Then it was just a matter of refining and crafting.

Tell us about the game, what are the objectives?

In Puzzle Poker you are dealt 25 cards in a 5×5 grid on the board. The goal in Puzzle Poker is to form as many poker hands as you can on the game board by sliding cards around. You earn more chips by creating better poker hands. It really is very simple and people seem to get it
right away. I added pop up hints to the game to help when people are playing their first ten hands. I continue to have the hints show up if their average score is low.

Was it difficult to develop a game where you didn’t have any real examples to follow design-wise?

It wasn’t really that hard. I’ve been doing this for over 20 years now and I’ve gotten used to doing this stuff. And thinking about it I doubt there is any gameplay element in Puzzle Poker that I couldn’t find dozens examples of in other games.

What was the most challenging part of development?

Probably thinking about online and community elements. This was probably harder because it was added later in the development process than thought about up-front.

How long time did it take to create the game?

The first prototype took just a day in late November of 2005. I spent December playing around with layouts, menu flow structure, and different surrounding overall game types. In January I had most of the game design down and I then wrote all of the core code. Alex Swanson of Garage Games came on board in February to do the Art Direction and also the actual artwork. The look of the game is all Alex. In March we decided to amp up the GUI with more interactive elements and I also worked on adding more online/community elements. It was pretty much done by April and shipped near the start of May 2006. A couple of weeks after shipping the first version I updated it to a new version that has new/much better music created by Matt Sayre.

How large was the budget for the game?

Close to $0. The only thing that money was spent on was tools that will also be used in future games. Jeff Tunnell of Garage Games was the producer and so I worked closely with them.

What are your targeted audience?

After I finished the first version, Jay Moore, Garage Games marketing person at the time, became seriously hooked on the game. And then I heard that Jeff Tunnell’s teenage daughter was hooked on the game too. My Mom, who is in her seventies, has become hooked on Puzzle Poker too – which is a first for me. My Mon wasn’t really into some of my earlier games like driving tanks in the Antarctic and shooting aliens (Arctic Fox) or flying around in space shooting aliens (Skyfox 2). So, anyway, the target audience was in a sense everyone, although I do think Puzzle Poker is a little more cerebral than the typical match three type game.

Are there any other things you would like to mention about the game?

Give it a try: www.topm.com/puzzlePoker

Tell us about your current game/games in progress.

The game I just recently finished is Minigolf Mania. It is available for Windows and the Mac and it uses the Torque Game Engine so it is 3d. It currently has three 18 holes courses with a new 18 hole course just recently finished and available for free download. It can be download from this page: www.topm.com/minigolf. It has 60 minutes of free play so give it a try

Right now I’m working on three different projects. One is the first match three prototype game that I created the day before making the Puzzle Poker prototype. Brian Hahn, who did the artwork for The Incredible Machine, will be doing the artwork this game. Another is a game I’m doing with my oldest son that we will be releasing late this summer. And what I am spending almost all of my time on right now is a game project with Garage Games that I can’t talk about.

Oh, and I am also spending a surprising amount of time doing various marketing tasks for Minigolf Mania.

To wrap things up, thanks for answering our questions. Anything you would like to tell upcoming indie developers?

For those that haven’t finished a game yet. Finish it. Ship it. You may make some money. And for sure you will learn a lot.

Thanks to Kevin Ryan for doing the interview!

Developer Interview: John Dennis from Team17

Today, we have Design Manager John Dennis from Team17 with us. Team17 has made themselves a big name and brand with the Worms-series. John Dennis have been deeply involved in the creation of Worms3D and Worms 4: Mayhem, among others.

First of all, thanks for doing the interview!

You’re welcome.

Tell us about the history of your studio!

The studio was started in the early 90’s by a group of guys who thought they could do betterthan the current crop of Amiga games. As things turned out, they were right, and with their first release, “Miami Chase” under their belt, they formed a company… 17 Bit Software (at the time the technology was 16 bit, so 17 bit was one bit better than the rest… that’s where the Team 17 name comes from. Sadly nothing to do with there being 17 of us, having £17 and certainly nothing to do with pop group East 17. Remember them?) After “Miami Chase” came a whole host of different games, in all kinds of genres. “Body Blows”, a beat-em’ up, “Alien Breed”, a top-down arcade game, and “”Superfrog”, a 2D platformer were all very successful on the Amiga.

In 1995 things changed with the release of “Worms”. The game was far more successful than even we could have imagined, and as success begets sequels, so we developed a series of games that have grown the game from it’s Amiga roots to the well-known (and I hope, much loved) brand that it is today. Along the way, the game’s appeared on most platforms, and has branched from 2D to 3D and back again.

In the last couple of years, we’ve taken on work other than “Worms”, which lead to a very successful collaboration with Sony developing “Lemmings” for PSP and PlayStation3. While working on “Worms” has been great fun, it’s been nice to stretch our legs a little and get to grips with a new set of gameplay challenges. We’re currently engaged in two next-generation projects, and things currently look very rosy for the studio.

The game(series) you are without a doubt most known for is Worms. From where did you get the inspiration to create the first Worms-game?

The game was brought to Team 17 as a demo by a talented young programmer called Andy Davidson. Team 17 liked what they saw, thought the idea had mileage and worked with Andy to develop the game. His concept was beautifully balanced, and the features that the game is most associated with (such as worms firing Bazookas or throwing Grenades) and many of the strangest things that appear in the “Worms” games (such as the Concrete Donkey) are all down to him.

More recently you developed Worms Mayhem. Which was the most difficult part of transfering the idea into 3D?

Where do you start? The camera? The 3D deformable landscape? The randomly generated play arenas? The gameplay? There were many obstacles to overcome in moving the game into three dimensions, and while it shares many of the same features as the 2D games, it turned out to be something quite different. While I love the 2D games, I have something of a soft spot for the 3D games. There were so many challenges on the way that I’m really proud of what we achieved. We’ve got some great artists, programmers and designers here, and I think they really excelled themselves in making those games. “Worms 4 Mayhem” in particular looks fantastic, and is a great deal of fun to play.

How long time did it take to create the game?

“Worms 3D” was developed in about 18 months as I remember (it’s a while ago now), while “Worms 4 Mayhem” took about a year: a little bit shorter than “Worms 3D” given we already had the technology and editing tools in place.

What is your targeted audience?

For “Worms 4 Mayhem”? Fans of the “Worms” games, gamers, anyone who enjoys a game where they get to blast their friends to smithereens! : )

Are there any other things you would like to mention about the game?

We had a lot of fun making it. I think that comes out in the game itself. Ah… I have very fond memories of “Worms 3D” and “Worms 4 Mayhem”. Happy days : )

Tell us about your current game/games in progress.

Well, we’ve released a few things since “Worms 4 Mayhem”. We did PSP and DS versions of the game last year called “Worms Open Warfare”, both of which have been very successful. We’ve also developed an Xbox Live Arcade version of the game which should be arriving some time in January. And of course, we also recently developed “Lemmings” for PSP and PlayStation 3. They were very nice games to work on.

Currently we’ve got two next-generation games in development. I can’t really tell you anything about the largest one, as it’s very early days, but it’s quite a well-known IP, and there’s a collection of Hollywood voice talent that’s already signed up to work on the game, so we’re all really excited about it. I think it’ll surprise some people that it’s us developing it.

Thanks for answering our questions. Anything you would like to tell upcoming indie developers?

It’s a jungle out there. Don’t spend your own money making a game you can’t place with a publisher. And best of luck… you’ll need it!

Big thanks to John Dennis for doing the interview!

Click here to visit Team17’s website.

Developer interview: John Romero

I have a special treat for you today… John Romero, famous for creating the Doom and Wolfenstein series has answered some questions for the blog.

How did you start with developing games?
JR: I started developing games when i was 11 years old on an HP 9000 mainframe at the local college. I wrote text adventures until the Apple II arrived at the college.

What was the first game you made?
JR: The first game i wrote was a text adventure – it was saved on punch cards!

When you did you start actually making profit from your games, and how?JR: I sold my first game to inCider magazine in 1984 and it appeared in the June 1984 issue. I got $100 for the game but back then it was good money for a high school student.

When did you start living on creating games?JR: When I got my first job at Origin Systems in 1987, two years out of high school, I entered the game industry full-time. My first job was to port the game 2400 A.D. from the Apple II to the Commodore 64.

How did you meet John Carmack?
JR: I created a new department/product at Softdisk in 1990 called Gamer’s Edge, a bi-monthly game disk, and I needed another programmer to help me make the games. I interviewed John Carmack (from Kansas City) and we hit it off really well so he agreed to come down and join the team.

What did you think about 3D when it first arrived?
JR: 3D had been around here and there since the beginning of the game industry in the late 70’s but it wasn’t until the mid-90’s that it became the dominant form. I had played many of the earliest 3D games but not until Wolf 3D did I know the era of 3D had truly arrived.

What do you think about the Indie-business as it looks today?
JR: The indie biz is bigger today than it’s ever been and it’s getting bigger. It’s an awesome place to get some experience and exposure.

Of all the games you have developed, which one is your personal favourite?
JR: I’d have to say the DOOM series was my fave.

Would you have done anything differently if you could back and change your actions?
JR: I would have chosen different co-founders at Ion Storm (excluding Tom Hall – he’s awesome).

What are your ambitions for the future?
JR: To make my current MMORPG turn out as awesome as I think it can and have it accomplish the goals we’ve set for it.

If you could develop anything, what would you create?
JR: I’m developing exactly what I wanted to create – a massive MMORPG.

Name three things people don’t know about you.
JR: I’m a major advocate for preserving gaming history, I’m addicted to my Blackberry, and I play Quake deathmatch very frequently.

What is your tip to upcoming developers?
JR: Focus on what you want to do best then work very hard at becoming extremely good at that skill. If you’re a coder, make a ton of small games from beginning to end.

Do you prefer playing games on console or on PC?
JR: PC, hands down

Can you give us a hint of what your studio is currently working on?
JR: We’re making a PC MMORPG.

Pizza or a hamburger?
JR: Pizza!

Thanks to John Romero for the interview! You can visit his personal website if you’d like to know more about him: www.rome.ro

Developer Interview: Ryan Clark from Grubby Games

Ryan Clark, lead coder over at Grubby Games have been kind enough to do an interview for the blog. Grubby Games is the studio that developed the smash-hits Professor Fizzwizzle and Fizzball.

First and foremost, congratulations for making two fantastic games! You quickled established a brand in the casual industry, but excactly how was Grubby Games started?

Matt and I founded Grubby Games in October of 2004. He and I became good friends in 1995 when we lived in the same residence house at UBC, a university here in Vancouver, Canada. We played a lot of video games together while at school (Mario Kart 64, for example, and Worms), and often talked about games we would like to make. In 2004, we finally had the chance to make that dream a reality!

How was the development process for Professor Fizzwizzle?

It took about 9 months to complete Professor Fizzwizzle, working fairly long hours. The last 3 months or so were actually taken up with level design; the levels took much longer to create than we had anticipated! It’s difficult to “force” your brain to come up with yet another level design, after all of your creativity has been exhausted.

Where did you find the inspiration to create Fizzball, and will Professor Fizzwizzle play a part in your future games as well?

For our second game we wanted to make something more casual and action oriented, so we decided that something in the Arkanoid genre would be fun. Also, both Matt and I really love Katamari Damacy, so combining Arkanoid, Katamari Damacy, and Professor Fizzwizzle, seemed like a very cool idea.

As for Professor Fizzwizzle the character, he will certainly play a part in some of our future games! People seem to really love that guy

What are you currently working on?

We’re working on the sequel to Professor Fizzwizzle!

What are your ambitions for the future?

Well, we’d love to be able to keep making fun games. We really enjoy what we do, and hope that we can continue to do it.

Which is your favourite game, Fizzball or Professor Fizzwizzle?

I think they’re both great; it just depends what kind of mood you’re in. If you want a mental challenge, Professor Fizzwizzle is what you need. If you’d rather relax and use your reflexes instead of your brain, FizzBall is the way to go.

Any advice for upcoming indie developers?

I would suggest that you make sure you’ve attempted a few much smaller games before you start on the first game you intend to sell. Creating games can be quite difficult, so completing a few small projects will make sure that you have a more realistic idea of what you’re getting yourself into.

Also, if you need help on the programming/technical side of things, have a look at The Game Programming Wiki, which I founded: http://gpwiki.org

Good luck!

Thanks to Ryan Clark for the interview! Make sure to visit Grubby Games website to download their games.