Posts from ‘Interviews’ Category

The Making of Gesundheit!

By: Brandon McCartin (BMcC)

On: September 17th, 2008

Gesundheit! Design SketchMatt Hammill, funky, fearless creator of IGF Student Showcase nominated Gesundheit!, has been a busy, busy man. After IGF (which was fun, man — sucks I got sick!), he finished school, joined an animation studio, and even released a children’s book. Which is all thoroughly rad (congrats, Matt!), for sure, but, let’s be honest, what we here at TIGS want is more of that super cute, hand-drawn, homemade gaming goodness. Thankfully, he’s been “pluggin’ away” at that too!

Just recently he did a little making-of feature on Gesundheit! for Game Developer Magazine’s fall Game Career Guide, which you can find right here. It’s got design sketches, fun mock-up artwork, and useful reflections on the game development process, specifically working with AGS. Groovy.

Update: He’s also got a collection of misc. game art he’s done up on his personal site. Bonus grooviness.

Jonathan Blow Interview: “No Compromises”

By: Derek Yu

On: September 3rd, 2008

Jonathan Blow

Matthew Boyd (Three Panel Soul), who interviewed Tarn Adams for Kwanzoo.com about a month ago, just did another, shorter, interview with Jonathan Blow, where they discuss Braid, Microsoft, and the nature of being an independent developer.

I feel like there is enough compromise in the game industry. Everyone compromises on everything all the time. If I want to make something different, that really stands out, then a good way to do that is to not compromise. Plus, compromise does not suit my personality very well. It tastes bad.

In the past, I’ve noticed that before Braid was released, some people have took issue with Jon being vocal about his opinions regarding the games industry and the development process. Has that changed at all for you guys?

In any case, I’m digging these interviews. Keep ’em up, Matt!

Roundtable: Kenta Cho, Jon Mak, Omega

By: Derek Yu

On: July 28th, 2008

Shooter Kings

Around September of 2007, insertcredit‘s Brandon Sheffield arranged a meeting of the abstract shoot ’em up minds in Tokyo, to talk about everything from bullet patterns to the Japanese “doujin” game scene. The transcript of that discussion went live today on Gamasutra (link), and it’s a fun one! It’s cool to hear, for example, Jon Mak ask Kenta Cho how he feels about random behavior in games. More of this, please!

TIGdb: Entries for ABA Games, Everyday Shooter, and Every Extend

Cactus interviewed by Game Maker Television

By: Terry

On: July 25th, 2008

Quoth Cactus:

Dan Eggers from GameMaker TV came to my garden for an interview. In return I treated him to a ride on my dinosaur and opened myself up for some deep discussion.

The fourth episode of Game Maker TV was posted here yesterday. Check it out!

.

Addendum: He also released a new game, called Stallions in America, which is an existential adventure in the art of killing people on the beach, and man is it a doozy!

Watch out though, the balloon things drop eggs.

Dwarf Fortress New Release, Interview

By: Derek Yu

On: July 23rd, 2008

Dwarf Fortress

39d was released today, bringing with it a host of nice, shiny improvements. There’s also a really good three-part interview with Tarn up on kwanzoo (part 3 goes up tomorrow). The interviewer is Matt Boyd of Three Panel Soul.

Matt: I don’t want to tell you how to do your job, but it seems like a friendlier interface might help you by getting a lot more people into the game. It’s pretty daunting.

Tarn: Oh sure, it’s just something I’m going to have to slowly do myself, and I have many dev items along those lines. It’s just not something that I currently think is a good idea to do in a moddable fashion.

One thing I was a bit saddened to hear was that Tarn’s making less from donations now than he was before (EDIT: Tarn meant before, when he was a mathematician). But hell, I want the guy to live comfortably, given how much enjoyment he’s brought me and the internets over the years. If you’re a fan, consider giving a little to toast the new release. And I don’t know how well-known this is, but as a reward for donating you can get some awesome presents: either a short story that’s illustrated with a single line of ASCII art, or a crayon drawing.

And for those of you that are tired of hearing about DF, well, tough plump helmets! But seriously, I imagine this will be the last release for this particular arc. See ya!

Tale of Tales Interviews

By: Derek Yu

On: June 27th, 2008

Tale of Tales Interviews

Tale of Tales’ Michaël Samyn (The Endless Forest, The Graveyard) recently put up an interview he conducted with Takayoshi Sato, the man responsible for the haunting CG work in Silent Hill, and who is now employed at Virtual Heroes, a company that makes training games for various clients (they worked on America’s Army!). Michael asks Takoyashi about Silent Hill, games and art (natch), and his decision to now work on “serious games.” It’s an interesting discussion.

And definitely check out his other interviews, which go back to May of last year, when he chatted with American McGee! In the indie gaming sphere, Michael conducted two interviews before Sato – one with Simon Carless in December and one with Jenova Chen following this year’s GDC.

Tale of Tales has a unique approach to game design and the same goes for their interviews. A very worthwhile read (and very nice to look at, of course).

Out of the Mouths of Babes: The Tim Interviews

By: Derek Yu

On: April 23rd, 2008


Tommy inspires us all.

Tim W., editor of the almighty IndieGames.com blog, has compiled a list of his awesome indie developer interviews, including one with the notorious MDickie.

His latest interview, with Tommy Refenes (shown above), is not currently in the list, but must be read at all costs. Tommy’s multiplayer action/strategy game Goo! was an IGF finalist this year. A public PC demo of the game is available from his website.

P.S. Tim, I still want to do an interview with you. Please return my calls! :-*

1UP: “The Indie Kids Are Alright!”

By: Derek Yu

On: March 17th, 2008

1UP: The Indie Kids Are Alright

Scott Sharkey wrote a nice little round-up for the all the indie video interviews 1UP did at GDC last month. The feature has links to the developers’ interviews, and their websites, along with a nice photo of each one (which I’ve collected in the image above). Always great to see the beautiful faces behind the games!

No matter where they’re coming from, there’s one thing you hear over and over again: “It’d be nice to make money from this, but I’ll keep doing it anyway.” If they have anything in common, it’s a simple love of the art and a compulsion to make their ideas real.

Also, check out this great clip from DL.TV, where 1UP’S Garnett Lee expresses his admiration for Crayon Physics Deluxe and Fez (starting around 1:30):

His descriptions of the games are pretty spot-on, in my opinion!

The 1UP Show: Q-Games and thatgamecompany

By: Derek Yu

On: March 5th, 2008

I always enjoy listening to Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago (thatgamecompany) talk about games, and I’m not as familiar with Dylan Cuthbert (Q-Games), but he has good things to say. Hearing from developers who are passionate about what they do just makes my heart swell! It makes you feel very fortunate to be able to take part in this shift in gaming.

Gamasutra: Tarn Adams Interview

By: Derek Yu

On: March 3rd, 2008

Dwarf Fortress

Finally got around to reading this Gamasutra interview with Dwarf Fortress co-creator Tarn Adams (the other half being his brother, Zach). It’s a really great read that covers a lot of Dwarf Fortress’s history and pre-history, and also gets into a lot of geeky stuff like pathfinding and fluid dynamics.

But this is the best part:

What’s left to answer is why’d we be so into doing a fantasy game. That’s probably the same as everybody else: Tolkien, D&D, myths, and of course, the movie Beastmaster. (We like the part where the evil priest is like, “You’ll be sacrificed to ‘The God of AAaa,’” like they didn’t even bother thinking of a name, just powering through on the power of their badassedness.) But there were all kinds of things like that. In the movies, books, the arcade, PC, consoles, we were surrounded by that sort of thing.

Yes, frickin’ Beastmaster! I love that movie! I love you guys!

The image depicts YADFA (Yet Another Dwarf Fortress Anecdote), from DF forum member goldminer:

Its [sic] pretty fun to capture invaders and then devise crazy ways of getting rid of them. My current method happens to be a gold arena over an active volcano with an enraged bronze colossus. Goblins get dumped in through a hole from above.
Every year or so, the dwarves lower the bridge, re-capture the colossus and ‘clean’ the arena for future use. I had to build walls around the arena because too much precious iron was getting thrown into the magma.

Via this DF forum thread.