Cooperation by:International Game Developers Association Japan Chapter(IDGA Japan)
SENSE OF WONDER NIGHT 2015
Tough Coded: Live
Fernando Sarmiento / Little Nando 〔Argentina〕
- 1: What's your background in making games?
- I've begun making games from a very early age, starting out writing text adventures in .BAT (in MS-DOS), later on working with the vintage Game Maker software, and then with Clickteam products, from Klik & Play onwards. My first game was created when I was around 11 years old during preliminary school. After that and throughout my teens, I've developed around 10 "shareware" and "freeware" games which were available online.
- 2: How much time did you spend working on the game?
- Tough Coded has several versions. The LIVE version is the "latest" one, although there's also an online version which is also an MMO, or, what I like to call, an MMS -Massive Multiplayer Shmup. The LIVE version is merely 2 years old, but it must´ve taken me just 4, 5 months to do.
- 3: How did you come up with the concept?
- Tough Coded: Live is a Live Videogame Experience. It's sort of like an audiovisual experience. The idea comes from my VJ years. I used to be a VJ for big events, such as Creamfields, working alongside world reknowned DJs such as JunkieXL, Hernan Cattaneo, Lexicon Avenue, Jimmy Van M, etc.etc. I was one day coding a sort of shmup game playing some dubstep music, and it suddenly hit me: hey! I should do a LIVE VJ game. It was a revolutionary idea for me, so I went right ahead and did it.
- 4: What development tools did you use?
- I use all Clickteam products, Tough Coded is currently being coded in Fusion 2.5. I'm not a real programmer, as these softwares don't need for the user to know any code.
- 5: What were the significant changes between the presented games and games you developed before?
- I used to make lots of games when I was a little kid, but for years I stopped making them. I only begun making games 2 years ago again (I'm 33 years old now). I think the main difference between my new games and my old games is that right now I focus 100% on gameplay. When I was a little kid, I focused 100% on ART, which is a fatal mistake in game design. Games must be FUN first, CUTE later.
- 6: What is your goal as a game developer?
- I currently own a videogame company, and am doing various indie games on my own. My main goal as a game developer is to create awesome interactive and original experiences, but that also serve a commercial purpose. I love experimental things, but I love them more when they are part of an industry, create jobs and push the industry into the future. I also hate commercial projects that only "milk" the industry and don't help innovate on anything. I think that achieving that balance is quite difficult --but totally possible. I've been the CEO for PepperMelon (an animation company working for commercials in Argentina) for 8 years now, and I totally know that you can achieve commercial and GOOD things.
- 7: Please write a message to future SOWN attendees regarding your expectation and feeling about being selected to be a finalist.
- When I created Tough Coded my dream was to showcase it in Japan. The reason? I LOVE Japan, I LOVE Tokyo (I´ve been there once) and I LOVE shmups. And, I know that japanese people love shmups. So I always thought that Tough Coded´s best crowd would totally be there, in Japan. I´m extremeley excited in showcasing my work in Asia, it would be the first Asian show, as the project has already travelled to US and Europe. Asia was the next goal. :)
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