Because there may or may not have been resulting copyright issues, I’ve left this post on the backburner until the magazine went off the shop shelves. Usually I’d happily scan in a bit of a page if my games are mentioned, but this time it’s a whole entire page, and that’s a completely different kettle of fish. (Although, to be fair, I’ve written more than they have, so that probably counts for something!!)
Look inside for the complete text, and scary scary photograph!!!
Our hero this month is James Gamble (or Jayenkai to his many followers) who runs AGameAWeek.com – it won’t come as a shock to anyone considering that URL, but his aim is to produce a game every week, but what does come as a surprise however is that he can still find time to eat, sleep and talk to people who are bugging him for an interview!
Retro Gamer: The first question has to be the most obvious one; a game a week… are you insane, man?!
James Gamble: Apparently so! Lack of sleep can be daunting, but what decent programmers wouldn’t agree with that?
RG: Being more serious for a moment, how did you settle on the seven day timescale rather than two weeks or a month perhaps?
JG: I’ve tried all manner of timescales in the past. I can usually manage to hack out a pretty good game within a month, but after a while my lack of concentration usually results in me forgetting about a project. I tend to jump around a lot from game to game, and if I’m not done with a game by then, it tends to get lost along the way. A week works nicely, it’s enough time to get enough into a game, and have it all finished nicely.
RG: Although they’re not all strictly remakes, a lot of your inspiration generally seems to come from classic games – what draws you to them?
JG: Classic games are nothing more than raw gameplay. The game’s the key, and when you’re aiming to do AGameAWeek, you do tend to focus on that, as opposed to spending days drawing a lovely set of sprites that might end up in a pointless game.
Rather than remaking a particular game, though, I tend to aim towards a set of rules. Sometimes those rules very obviously fall into the gameplay of a classic game, so on those occasions I’ll probably end up going for a full on remake. I’ll try not to just do plain remakes, opting to add at least something new into the mix, but occasionally there’s no time to add much else.
RG: Of the games you’ve already released, which would be the one you’re most proud of and why?
JG: One!? If I had to pick just one, it would probably be the original Blockman game. I’d drawn an odd square-ish Pacman character a few months earlier, but didn’t want to create a standard Pacman game. Instead I decided on a platform style game, and after adding some smaller Blocklet characters, a whole Flicky style remake was created. With multiple graphic styles, plenty of levels, and even a few different bits of music, I’m quite happy that it turned out the way it did. Especially within a week!
RG: And which titles if any do you perhaps want to return to at some point?
JG: I’m not really sure if I’d go back to fix up a particular game, but there are many games that have the ability to store extra levels. I think if I were to look back, then I’d probably spend a couple of weeks building new levels into those, and posting nice big updates. RetroRaider, particularly, would be a great game to do that to, especially since it’s so easy to add extra backgrounds and tiles to the game.
RG: And is there anything in particular that you haven’t tried to date, but want to turn your hand to?
JG: I’ve still not done a proper racing game. They seem trickier than what I’d like to do in a week. Tracks, AI and more all seem like they’d take a little more than they could. Perhaps I should give it a go, but there’s plenty of other things to keep me occupied in the meantime.
RG: Generally speaking, where do you believe the homebrew community’s popularity comes from?
JG: Homebrew exists because people love to do things themselves.. Whether they’re staring blankly at an Amstrad CPC’s flashing yellow cursor wondering what else they could possibly type, or they’re amazed at how GTAIV was all put together, it’s the same end result. People will always want to make games, and homebrew will always be out there.
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11 comments
Shadow1w2 says:
January 10, 2010 at 10:10 pm (UTC -7 )
Nice large answers. Good interview.
Thunderskull 4024 says:
January 12, 2010 at 3:03 am (UTC -7 )
Zomfg! how come a big MAGAZINE interviewed a single game designer like you or that ASCIIpOrtal guy?!?
PixelProspector says:
January 12, 2010 at 2:17 pm (UTC -7 )
…Probably because they produce good stuff
Nice interview Jayenkai!
tametick says:
January 13, 2010 at 5:35 am (UTC -7 )
Scary, you kinda look like me (other than me being much better looking than you, of course).
Jayenkai says:
January 13, 2010 at 5:48 am (UTC -7 )
lol
swarmer says:
January 13, 2010 at 10:36 pm (UTC -7 )
What is that development environment you are typing in!
Jayenkai says:
January 14, 2010 at 5:11 am (UTC -7 )
It’s Blitz3D on the left (75%) and Paintshop Pro on the right (25%)
I usually keep it there as a reference to my sprites..
So I’ve got code on the left, code jumpy links in the middle (which Blitz does itself) and then sprites over on the right.
Very handy way of doing things, but Alt+Tab works just as well!
Jiro25 says:
January 14, 2010 at 7:19 pm (UTC -7 )
Reading this makes me want to have been here to see it all happen from the beginning. Unfortunatly, I only first looked at this site because I downloaded a flabbergasting-ly great game called JNKPlatDS08. I think the JNKPlat games are among the best homebrew I’ve ever played – Up there among Cave Story, Toribash, and StillAliveDS.
Jayenkai says:
January 15, 2010 at 1:25 pm (UTC -7 )
Don’t worry, there’s plenty more to come
New JNKPlat, this year, methinks
Dither says:
January 16, 2010 at 12:18 pm (UTC -7 )
And I want to add that Jay has been very generous to others, helping out with coding questions and such. Thanks again, Jay!
idealsoft says:
January 16, 2010 at 5:41 pm (UTC -7 )
Congratulations for the interview Jayenkay ! Retro (indie) games are still alive !
Bye from Italy.
Idealsoft.