Indie Game Magazine Interview

I just had an interview with one of the authors from Indie Game Magazine Mobile, Thomas Wang, and he made me some questions about Viral and my upcoming portable game project:




IGM Mobile –  Hi Rodrigo, can you tell us about yourself?

Rodrigo – I am Rodrigo G. Maitret, I live in Mexico. Since my state doesn’t have any good place to learn programming I’ve become a programmer thanks to the internet and all it has to show.

IGM Mobile – How did Team ZuperZ form? What games did you make?

Rodrigo – Team ZuperZ, is just a name I gave to a friend and myself when we work together around 4 years ago. Nothing special, when we two make games together we’re called Team ZuperZ. My main job in Team ZuperZ is the programming, and sometimes I do art for the projects. But the main artist in our current project, Viral, is Agustin Sánchez Ocampo (aka Dennot). Together, we’ve just managed to make a very small game called The Million Character Game during a game jam. Also, I forgot to mention someone really important: Jorge Figueroa Peart (aka G-or-G) contributed on The Million Character Game by making character art, and Easyname gave us one song so we could add it to the game. I did the programming , and Agustin did scenario. We all did the character art together. I’ve made many other small projects by myself, but most of them never were finished. And the ones that were finished were never uploaded to the internet.

IGM Mobile – You’ve already told me you were working on a game called ‘Viral’, can you tell me a little more about it?

Rodrigo – Oh yes, Viral. Viral is my first ambitious project. One of the reasons I chose this one is because it involves 3D graphics and multiplayer scripts. I already feel good with my knowledge with 2D games, so I want to go to the next level. Now, the game style is a pretty common around iOS, eg: Minigore and those who look like it. It is a Third Person Zombie Shooter. The point of the game is not just kill them, but to survive in cooperation, explore (which is the main point of the game), gather resources, improve and have fun.

IGM Mobile - How long have you been working on ‘Viral’?

Rodrigo - We’ve been on Viral for a while. The main mechanics, such as: movement, inventory and item systems, multiplayer were close to be finished. That was going to be the Pre-Alpha 4 surprise. But I was doing the project in 2D with an helicopter-view angle. People at the IndieDB seemed to dislike this. So I decided to change this by making the whole thing again, but now in 3D before the project went further. This was done to make them happy. After all, I want the people to play the game, so it needs to look good, and in 3D, it does. Now, in Viral, I’m doing the character art, and Dennot is doing everything else that involves art, which is a lot.

IGM Mobile - You’ve also introduced me to a game called ‘Bounce’, can you explain more about the concept? Can you give me any more information on estimated release dates?

Rodrigo - Now, Bounce. It is going to be a game that I will do by myself (programming and art) and will be released to iOS and Android. Hopefully Desura and Mac App store too. I want to make it good, but not too big, because this is a project for learning how the world of Apps work, after all, this is going to be my first “purchasable” game. I will release “Bounce” around a week and a month after Game Maker Studio’s release.

IGM Mobile - Any final comments?

Rodrigo - To all developers out there, check IndieDB, it is a great community to show off your projects. I have a blog that I update very often, which is TheGreenTie.blogspot.com, and a big shout to my friends at Twitter and DeviantArt. Also, I would like to give a big shout to Jordan Chewning (@jordizzle) for giving me some support in the 3D scripts I don’t know too well. I’ve included some images about my games.

He also showed this sketch I drew for the upcoming game, Bounce:

This was a good experience, being interviewed by one of the most important Indie Game websites. I wonder how this will be reflected.

Original interview source: http://mobile.indiegamemag.com/interview-with-rodrigo-maitret-team-zuperz-whats-coming-soon/