EXCLUSIVE: 20 Questions With ThatOtherDev

In this edition of 20 Questions with a Dev we where lucky enough to speak with ThatOtherDev about his amazing work on both the PS3 And Wii and what we can expect in his upcoming games. For those of you who don't now who ThatOtherDev is let me explain a little about how much he has contributed.  ThatOtherDev has created about 50 different homebrew games spanning multiple genres and is always working on something new or improving what he has already done. So lets take a look at what he had to say when asked our 20 Questions.

1. How long have you been developing your own software?
Well my first publicly available piece of Wii homebrew (Pineapple Apocalypse RPG) was released on November 23, 2009. I know I was already experimenting with Wii homebrew (at the time I was using Libwiisprite) as early as June 17, 2008. Most of those initial experiments were abandoned but one title 1bit Invaders did eventually get remade with SDL and another of them eventually became They Do Not Die. But even before then I was making (admittedly terrible) PC stuff using Dark Basic, DB Pro and briefly even Dark GDK. I dug up my first of those games recently (which was an FPS and became my source of inspiration for Cherophobe) and it apparently dates back to the 26th of March 2005.

2. What's your favorite development language and why?
C++ is definitely my favorite although I'm fine with using C too. They are about as lightweight, efficient, powerful and flexible as you can get without using assembly. I don't find them to be any more difficult to program with than anything else I've tried and it's what I'm most familiar with now. It's also portable. Not portable in the compile once and run (in theory) everywhere way but in the sense that it's whats used to make software for essentially every platform. I can make a game for Windows in C++ and the port it to Wii and PS3 without rewriting anything but perhaps some very specific parts relating to rendering or input (the collision system will compile and run perfectly on all platforms). On a related note I dread the idea of using something that seems to be most well known for being the leading reason why Minecraft is apparently so bloated and why it takes half a decade for JDownloader to start up.

3. Are there any suggestions you would give to people who are just starting to write code?
If you haven't started and don't know anything yet then I'd recommend learning C++ and using SDL to first make a simple game for Windows (or whatever desktop OS you are using). I highly recommend the Lazy Foo' tutorials (www.lazyfoo.net/SDL_tutorials/). If you are already coding then you are doing something right and you should just keep doing that. It doesn't matter what you make or are already making. Just make something. Don't spend eternity revising a game design that seems amazing in your head. Just make something.

4. What's your Favorite video game system of all time?
Sega Genesis. So many fond memories. It was the first system I got and I loved it. It was second (or more likely third or fourth) hand, overheated way too easily and it was probably already at the end of the systems life cycle by the time I got it. But I was young and didn't know there was anything better than it. Plus the upside of me getting it late meant that cheap used games were plentiful.

5. Whats your favorite video game?

The original Deus Ex. I Still go back and play it every now and then. It's held up incredibly well and is still better than anything else I've played

6. Youve been making your own games for quite some time now what got you started?
I don't know. I like making things with computers and it was something to do.

7. You write homebrew for both the Wii and the PS3 which do you prefer to work with and why?
I want to say PS3. It's a much better piece of hardware and in theory it should be possible to make things for it that aren't possible on Wii. But the homebrew dev tools are really great for Wii and really terrible for PS3. DevkitPro makes Wii my primary console platform of choice.

8. I know youre working on two huge games for the Wii (Hero City 2, Time Frack 3D) could you tell us a little about your end goal for these games?

Hero City 2 is an open world super hero game. What I want is for it to become what I had originally intended the first Hero City to be. I want there to be objectives to complete and have the player be able to level up and gain new abilities. Basically I want it to be at least vaguely reminiscent of what you would expect from a commercial game of it's kind. The graphics are already far better than it's predecessor.

Time Frack 3D is an over the shoulder arena shooter with the ability to slow down and reverse time. You will have very precise control over the speed that time is progressing or reversing at. I don't know how well this part is going to turn out but the idea is to make the game incredibly difficult (when playing at real time). Since you can reverse time there isn't any consequence to failure but to progress the player will be forced to play it slowly, methodically, and strategically. I want it to be the antithesis to twitch shooters.

9. Youve recently released The Catachthonic.  You described it as a toy with an interactive environment. Is this a proof of concept for something else and what do you want to add?

I'll be keeping the sandbox/toy mode as an option to play in but I would like to turn it into more of a shooter so it can earn it's place in the game category. I would also like to eventually make a sequel with a much larger (though still infinitely looping) playing area and have a procedurally generated city in it. The buildings would all be destructible.

10. What homebrew do you play most aside from your own work?
To be honest I don't play other peoples homebrew very often. I've gotten a lot of playtime out of the GP2X port of PrBoom and a verity of emulators on that system. But I can't really think of any original homebrew games I've played more than once. Does Fall Down or Fast Tunnel on a TI graphing calculator count?

11. Do you plan to work on any more consoles/handhelds in the future?
Definitely. I've been meaning to get a PSP and try making homebrew for that. I might eventually get a 360 to make homebrew for or try making games for the original xbox (which I already own one of and have soft modded) but those two aren't very likely. If it becomes possible to make good native homebrew for Vita then I'll be getting one in a hurry.

12. What Dev do you think is someone to watch in the future?
Owen (of NewoShooter fame) is pretty cool.

13. What do you love / hate about the current state of the Mod community as a whole?
I like the news sites and I'm not just saying that to suck up. It's cool how console homebrew is pretty much guaranteed to get coverage and feedback. By comparison it can be difficult to get that when making stuff exclusively for PC.

14. Is there anything you would like to undo in the Mod community?
Not really. The community just is what it is.

15. What do you think of True Blues announcement about their anti-clone technology being able to erase a HDD?
It's really messed up. The part about it apparently only happening at random intervals makes me hope it might just be FUD. Or maybe it does it unpredictably to make it more difficult to test solutions for it. Or maybe it's really a bug (either the random interval part or the entire data erasing thing) and they are trying to turn it into a feature by providing documentation. I'm guessing it is real. If it is real then it's inexcusable. I think it crosses the line.

16. Whats the funniest moment you can think of?
When I read about that dongle that's used for piracy but tries to prevent itself from being pirated by using DRM that is even more malicious than the DRM it is used to circumvent.

17. Whats the scariest thing that ever happened to you?

Nothing comes to mind. I live a very dull life.

18. Xbox360, Wii or PS3 what do you prefer to play?
PS3. I'm loving Borderlands on it. I don't have a 360 yet and since I got my PS3 I've found it progressively more and more difficult to go back to playing Wii games. I'm totally fine the lower polygon counts and lower resolution textures on Wii but the rendering resolution gets to me. All that blury pixelation that makes things unintelligible. DDR games are the only things that I still regularly play on Wii.

19. What kind of music do you like to listen to, and whats your favorite band?
I don't really listen to a lot of music. Tegan and Sara are cool. Does a duo count as a band?

20. Now Ill ask the obligatory stupid question to finish this off, Octopus vs. Alligator who wins?
I suspect the Alligator would win the fight but I'd still like the Octopus more.

For more on what ThatOtherDev is up to check out his site ThatOtherDev.com and as always stay tuned to DashHacks.com.  Once again we want to give a big shout out and thank you to ThatOtherDev for taking the time to give us some insights into his work.  Keep up the great work ThatOtherDev and we are certainly looking for more great things from you and the rest of the talented devs that keep the scene moving forward.

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