The second or third last Developer Friday! His interview may be one of the last, but his impact on the game has been huge. Markus is our lead programmer and one of the core developers. The game wouldn't have been there without him.
For those of you who are new (the group grew hugely!) - every friday is Developer Friday and we post an interview with one of our developers.
- Who are you and what do you do on "The Ball"? Hi, I’m Markus Arvidsson and I do a large chunk of the programming work for The Ball. I am one of three people that works full time on the game. My official title is Lead Programmer so I guess I do what a Lead Programmer typically does :). I am also involved in the game mechanics design and final testing. If the game crashes or if you did not get that achievement I am probably the one to blame.
- When and how did you join the team? I joined the team in March last year. I replied to an ad and I got accepted to the team after I had done the very first enemy AI implementation for the game. Originally my intention was just to break away from single person development and be a part of a team and do a larger project. Thankfully we did well and the whole project turned into something else.
- How did you start out with programming? I started out with programming a couple of months into college. I was an engineering student and I wanted to try out graphics programming and game programming so I started to work on it in my spare time. Since then I have done some small personal projects and I also started one bigger project that eventually turned out to be too ambitious. So far I want to continue in this field. Game development offers interesting challenges in diverse areas and I also like the creative aspect of it. Coming up with a story and a world and having someone experience your creation is really rewarding. Working with a team with diverse background and skill set is also something that appeals to me.
- What has been the most challenging thing you have done on the game? Finding and fixing all the bugs, big and small, the final few months took a lot of effort. The 'old saying' that the last 10 percent is 50 percent of the work was definitely true in this case. Working with the Unreal Engine and figuring out how everything fits together was also quite challenging. My experience with Unreal Engine was limited when I started working on the game so I had to digest a lot of information in a short amount of time time, while still finding time for the mandatory school work I had at that time. Another thing that required some iteration before we got it right was the combat for the boss fights. The various areas where the fights would take place were already done when I started to work on them, so I had to come up with solutions that worked within those existing environments.
- What do you like the most about the game? I like the world and the diversity of the levels. The game does not repeat itself and you always look forward to what comes next. Most of the locations are also memorable, something that is rare for games of this size. The game mechanics are a good mix between exploration, combat, and puzzles, and I think most players will find something they like about the game. Development wise I really like how we managed to improve the game for every release. As a programmer you tend to work mostly in test levels during development. I was always pleasantly surprised to see how much the other parts of the game had improved when the time came to implemented the new gameplay into the real levels. The final release continues in this tradition and I think it is a big improvement over the previous (mod) releases. I hope everyone who plays the game will enjoy it!