TOP For Exhibitor Sense of Wonder Night Award Winners 8BitMMO / Robby Zinchak

Sense of Wonder Night 2015

8BitMMO

Robby Zinchak

|2014 Best Technological Game Award

1What's your background in making games?

I made my first game when I was ten years old using the programming language 'BASIC'. I began learning more programming and made many more small games. Over the years, my games got bigger and better. I went to college and got a degree in computer science. After finishing college, I entered the professional game industry in 2006. I worked at Midway, Capcom, and Microsoft and got to work on some great projects. I had always wanted to work on my own project though, so in 2011 I became a full time indie developer.

2How much time did you spend working on the game?

I worked on 8BitMMO for around fourteen years (but only full-time for three years).

3How did you come up with the concept?

Ultima Online was the first MMO I played when I grew up. It was very impressive to see so many players all across the world play the same game! I wanted to be able to build the world together with my friends. I began building early builds of a game that allowed multiple people to build in the world together. It was very basic, but even early on it was fun to build together.

4What development tools did you use?

For this project, I used C++ and Java programming languages.

5What were the significant changes from the "old buggy prototype"
you made a year ago?

There is a whole new Player vs Player mode implemented now called 'Transponders' where players can build bases that other players can try to infiltrate. Additionally, many new in-game items have been added.

6Have you sold or released the game of your presentation? How did it go?
Let us know what it has gone since then.

Yes, after many years, 8BitMMO is now finally released. It is now up to more than 750,000 registered players! I am thankful so many players have found the game interesting.

7What is your goal as a game developer?

I love to be able to follow my vision and make games full-time. As a studio, I am currently almost profitable with my games, but I still have to do contract work on other projects sometimes to make ends meet. My dream is to be fully self sufficient so I can spend all my time making my games. Also while I am dreaming, I would very much love to live in Japan for a year or two.

8Please send a message to game developers who is joining SOWN
with his game!

Congratulations to developers joining SOWN! It is very exciting to be recognized internationally with this honor. Getting to visit Japan and win this award was one of the best moments of my life. I am looking forward to seeing your projects!

Word from SOWN Presenters

Museum of Simulation Technology
by Albert Shih|2013 Audience Award, Best Technological Game Award

I came up with the concept when I was trying to sleep. I was trying to come up with an idea that I could implement in 2 weeks and still be interesting. Since I couldn't do art, I knew the game would probably involve objects as simple as a white cube.

Kyoto
by Eddie Lee|2013 Best Arts Award

The game "Kyoto" was a homage to the beautiful city that I've lived in. When I first moved there, I was so in awe of the beauty and majesty of the city that I wanted to pay homage to it in the only way I knew how -- which was to make a interactive game experience out of it!

Miegakure
by Marc ten Bosch|2014 Best Experimental Game Award

I had the idea for a hyper-dimensional game in college, maybe around 2005? When you program a 3D game, every object’s position is represented using three numbers (usually called x, y and z), but that concept easily generalizes.

Mirage
by Mario von Rickenbach|2013 Best Experimental Game Awards

Mirage was first of all an experiment with the goal to create an interesting character. From that starting point I started developing the world and the visual style around it.

PICOLECITTA
by TECO|2014 Best Presentation Award

I frequently played video games with my friends and family. In that setting, the question that was always in the back of my mind was whether there was a game that more people could enjoy playing together.

To Exhibit [Deadline for Applications] May 29(Fri) [Exhibitor Briefing] July 1(Wed) Download TGS 2015 Exhibit Data(PDF)

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