Recently I spent an indecent amount of time with new community release Remote Masseuse for Xbox Live. Giving it what you might call my "seal of approval", I have every intention of continuing to approve it through the holidays. Much to my surprise the creator himself stumbled across my humble little blog and commented, and having hit "ask" with a dart while blindfolded, I decided to request a moment of his time.
Fortunately Entrager agreed. Unfortunately I'm a terrible interviewer, so here are the best questions I could come up with.
I want to thank Entrager for being kind enough to pick up the slack:
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42: I've always been interested in what leads people to choose their online handles so I thought that might be a good place to start. Can you tell us how you came about the name "Entrager", and perhaps what it means to you?
Entrager: People ask me this all the time. Way back in the '90s I was looking for
a handle and randomly typed letters, then deleted consonants until I
had something pronounceable.
42: How long have you been gaming, and would you consider yourself a casual or hardcore gamer? Maybe somewhere in between?
Entrager: I've been playing games since I was a toddler. My dad would sit me in
from of our Commodore 64 and show me how to play games. My hardcore
gaming life started when I got an NES. These days I'm somewhere in
between. I'm very interested in the industry and follow it closely,
but I only play games a few hours a week and only acquire a new game
once every month or two.
42: What are some of your favorite titles or genres, and what about them do you consider appealing?
Entrager: It changes all the time. I'm a big time retro gamer, my NES is always
connected to my TV. Mostly I play Super Mario 3 on it. My current
favorite game is Left 4 Dead, I've been playing mostly that since it
launched in November. I also love RPGs, but I can't find the time to
play them anymore.
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42: What influenced you to start developing for the Xbox Community? Had you any experience at the time? If so, with which platforms/programming environments?
Entrager: I have many years of coding experience, but no professional experience
making games. I've made a few here and there, and even took a game
design class in college, but this is my first commercial release. I
interviewed for a UI Programmer position for a prominent PSN title,
but turned down the job for a better offer.
42: What inspired you to develop Remote Masseuse?
Entrager: It was initially developed as a quick "get to know XNA" project. To
teach myself how to write networking code I wrote a simple program
that let me vibrate my controller from my PC. I then set that project
aside and began working on a puzzle game. When it became obvious that
I had a product people might actually want, I brought it back and
finished it.
42: What tools did you use to make Remote Masseuse? Did you take advantage of the XNA development resources Microsoft is pushing these days and if so, do you consider them helpful? How helpful?
Entrager: I used Visual Studio 2008 with XNA Game Studio 3.0. I used Gimp for
the artwork. Microsoft's tools are incredible helpful, I'm especially
impressed with the documentation.
42: Are there any features you would like to add at some point?
Entrager: Yes, I actually wrote the game to support up to 16 players on XBox
Live. I ended up dropping that and going with two because I had a hard
time deciding how to make the interface work. I'd like to put that
back in. If Microsoft ever provides support for the Live Vision Camera
in XNA, I will add that as well.
42: Is there any secret functionality we're not aware of in Remote Masseuse (codes maybe)?
Entrager: No, maybe in a future version there will be.
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42: You're working on a new game called Puzzle. Puzzle? Puzzle! First, that's a catchy name. How did you come up with it?
Entrager: Credit for the name has to go to the fine folks that run the
RetroforceGO podcast. They came up with it.
42: Can you tell us anything about Puzzle. Puzzle? Puzzle!? What will the gameplay be like, and can you ballpark when it might be released?
Entrager: My best guess for a release date would be April, but really it just
depends on how much time I can find to work on it. It's still fairly
early in development so the gameplay is still evolving. Right now it's
basically a "clear the pieces" type game like Tetris, only you don't
clear pieces by making rows. I have plans to allow players to pick
different characters which will each have unique gameplay and a
multiplayer battle mode of some kind.
42: Did you learn anything while making Remote Masseuse that has been especially helpful to your current efforts?
Entrager: Yes, a lot of the code I wrote or handling input and networking is
being used in Puzzle. Puzzle? Puzzle! I also have learned a bit more
about releasing XNA games. When I released Remote Masseuse I didn't
know that updates weren't sent to users automatically. That's
important for writing networking code, an older version of the game
needs to be able to accept input from a newer one.
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42: Did you work with anyone on either of your games or have they been entirely solo efforts?
Entrager: Remote Masseuse was an entirely solo effort, however I have a couple
people helping me with Puzzle. Puzzle? Puzzle! One person has already
given me some music to use in the game, and another has offered to
help with artwork.
42: Do you intend to start developing for any other platforms? Any plans to port your current works?
Entrager: Not at the moment, but I would like to someday.
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42: How far would you like to take your programming expertise (hobbyist/ contract professional/ career)?
Entrager: I'm already a professional programmer. Perhaps one day I'll move into
management, but for now I'm happy just designing and writing software.
42: Have you any plans to make a career of game development?
Entrager: I would like to get into full-time game development, but there aren't
many jobs in the field locally and I'm not willing to relocate at this
time.
42: What kind of game do you most want to make?
Entrager: I don't know really, any game development is interesting to me.
42: If you could be paid to work at any task of your choice, what would you do (doesn't have to be game-related)?
Entrager: I honestly would be a software developer or game designer. I also
would like to work in film.
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42: Is there anyone you'd like to thank, award-show style?
Entrager: My wife. She's really supportive of my passion for gaming and puts up
with me staying up late to play games (and code them).
42: And finally, is there any words or wisdom you'd like to share with the gaming community as a whole? Anything at all. Slander and personal attacks are welcome.
Entrager: Don't shoot the red cars in Left 4 Dead. It's not funny to make the
alarm go off.
==
Truer words have never been spoken.
I want to thank Entrager again for his time and wisdom. You can purchase Remote Masseuse on Xbox Live in the Community Games section for 200 Microsoft Points or $2.50USD. Keep an eye out in April for his upcoming release Puzzle. Puzzle? Puzzle!, and if you have anything you want to add, please use the comment section below.
Just remember: what flowers won't do, Remote Masseuse will. Happy Valentine's Day, friends.
-Unfather
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