Interview with the creators of the game Undead Carnage: Redemption for Windows Phone
I present to you the interview with the creators of the game Undead Carnage: Redemption for Windows Phone - Artem Veselovsky. Interviewed by sashaeve .
[Alexander] Hi, Artem. Tell us a little about yourself, your team and how the idea of ​​creating the game Undead Carnage was born.
[Artem] Hi! My name is Artem Veselovsky, I am 25. Our team consists of three people: designer Sasha Synyava, programmer and level designer Orest Blagodir, well, I am responsible for the development of the engine core and 3D animation. Game development takes place in his spare time. For some of us, this is a dream since high school, someone started dreaming about it later, but we all became gamers at first :) Everyone from the team has preferences in games that are about the same - we love action and football.
')
From the moment we gathered in a separate team, we wanted to make an active game for smartphones. There were a lot of samples ... There were a lot of ideas (and there are still), a lot of projects started, a lot of things in proof of concept style.
The idea was born at the beginning of last summer. Then I had the first working assembly of the game on the phone. We used the HTC HD2 for testing. I tell you honestly, she was crooked, ugly and boring. Especially boring ... The game was called “2D action about zombies”. Many times they reworked the engine parts, balanced the dynamics, but it always lacked a design approach. We dreamed of a 3D game and stopped developing ...
They did 3D shooters, learned a lot about programming 3D graphics, wrote their own 3D engine, wrote a demo of the game on tank battles. They added artificial intelligence there and rested on the phone's performance.
Then they somehow saw the announcement of a contest for the development of Windows Phone from Microsoft Ukraine and Nokia, where games were one of the categories. We decided to take part. There was a little time, nothing from time zero. And they remembered that we had almost a working game, tools, and an idea appeared. They sat down, thought, threw a layout of the story, shared responsibilities and set to work.
At first, all three were programmed, but the lack of design was strongly striking and did not overlap with any mutes in the gameplay. And then Sanya came on the scene. From Visual Studio, he switched completely to Photoshop. And after the first developments, the game gained a very cool design and atmosphere. We looked at what we did, and here, our first game Undead Carnage: Redemption.
[Alexander] Why Redemption?
[Artem] Redemption means atonement. The story of the game tells about a guy who lost a loved one several years before the events in the game, but says nothing about what happened during these several years. Yes, and the story is written in such a way that the continuation suggests itself. Redemption for sins in the past. Part of the story itself is the game. Part of the "past", perhaps, will tell later. In general, play :)
[Alexander] How much time and resources did it take to create?
[Artem] Development was constantly led by 3 people. It took a lot of time. We were in a hurry to make a working version for the competition. So we had a demo version of the game. They showed the beginning of the story and not quite ready design of the game. In absolute terms, about 5 months passed to the game itself and about a month to develop the engine and tools.
[Alexander] Tell us about the technical aspects of the game?
[Artem] From the very beginning they placed a very strong emphasis on technology. Squeezed a maximum of iron (then it was only the first generation of devices running Windows Phone 7). They did a maximum of beauty. Of the main aspects, this is, of course, the configured and balanced parallax scrolling. His idea is to draw several layers of graphics with different scale and scrolling speed. If it is properly set up and made the right design, then a simple 2D game creates an illusion of the depth and perspective of the 3D game. Also in our game, the Bloom effect is implemented, most likely, the only implementation for today under Windows Phone 7. The idea of ​​a bloom is to create a light defraction effect. If a dark-colored character stands on a light background, then its outlines are also highlighted and blurred with the background. Later added effects of space curvature and Slow Motion. In fact, it turned out quite a complex drawing pipeline. We draw the entire scene in the picture, smear it and light it in the right places. Then we use this picture as a texture for a polygonal mesh, which we can bend, creating a curvature that gives, say, a glass ball. Later added the ability to set fire to opponents. Fireball, which we showed in the demo, now deals a lot of damage due to burning. It's nice to watch as a burning and charred zombie goes towards the main character :)
[Alexander] And who writes music to you?
[Artem] Sami ... Guitar parts were recorded (played by Maxim Synyava - Sasha's younger brother, and Andrei Lutsyuk - our employee and friend). Then Sasha handled this whole thing on a computer. Some tracks were not recorded at all. That is, this electronic creation in its purest form.
[Alexander] What were the biggest technical problems in creating the game?
[Artem] The first difficulty is the limitations of the SDK and the platform. Programmable shaders are not supported on the phone. Much smaller buffers can be used (reach vs hi-def profiles for XNA). This greatly limits the ability of programmers. A strange step by Microsoft, but I, in principle, guess what the problem is. There is a problem with the incompatibility of the battery part of the phone and XNA 4.0. The XNA framework itself is just a wrapper around DirectX 9.0 interfaces. And Windows Phone devices are built on GPU with Shader Model 4.0 (DirectX 10). Although the guys from Microsoft saved the situation a little by writing their shader progress in five built-in effects, in most cases this is not enough. For things like Windows Phone, you need to create an SDK from scratch. Here I will make a low bow to Sony for the PS Suite SDK. There everything is done for five plus. The C # language, a high-level framework running on Mono, NVidia CG as a shader language, the ability to use insecure code. There's even no Sprite Batch. All you need to write yourself, everything is hardcore, everything is beautiful.
The second difficulty, and at the same time the benefit - is the impossibility of targeting the code for a specific iron. That is, things that work fine on second-generation phones, in 90% of cases will be very slow on the first. It is necessary to cut off beauty, which is regrettable. And for the time being, the devices of the first generation are many, so it’s impossible to discount them.
The third problem is that there is no marketplace for developers in Ukraine. And it's not even a matter of publishing the program on the Windows Phone Marketplace on your own, but of the fact that there are things on AppHub that are available only to registered developers. This makes learning difficult.
The fourth problem is the disinterest of Microsoft themselves. Here I am talking about Xbox Live. We wrote to Microsoft about Xbox Live for Undead Carnage. We just wanted an agreement on the use of opportunities for social gaming: achievements, leader boards on MS servers. We were told that they would contact if interested. Not contacted ... We will think of something from Facebook (Alawar and Nokia also did not give an affirmative answer - Alexander) .
And the most important thing is the constant striving for the ideal. But it is impossible to achieve it, the game still cannot be liked by absolutely all users. Well, the constant balance between the right things and new cool ideas that do not really fit the right things. Because of this, we had to rewrite the main modules of the game engine several times. But it is an experience, anyway.
[Alexander] Undead Carnage took part in three contests from Microsoft, but was able to win only one. And this is when she was a leader in the Russian and American Marketplace. What do you think is the reason?
[Artem] We think that this is due to several things. The main aspect - the game has its own target audience and its age rating. As it turned out, not everyone appreciates the product for its qualities, regardless of the ratings and topics. That is, if the game is made well, it looks beautiful, sounds and provides hardcore gameplay, then why draw a line between daisies and zombies? Perhaps the game is too complicated for mobile devices ... But still, this is the Xbox mobile platform, which means that the games should be a match for the platform.
[Alexander] The demo version was downloaded a total of more than 120k times. Do you think this is a good result?
[Artem] I think (and the whole team will agree with me) that this is an excellent result as for the “attempt at writing”. Still, this is our first game, brought to the end. For an inexperienced team, not funded by anyone, who developed the game in 99% of cases at home at night, sometimes stayed at the company for the night and made the game on laptops, this is an excellent result.
[Alexander] Now there is a lot of talk about the future of Windows Phone. What do you think, what are the prospects for Windows Phone 7 in our country and in the world?
[Artem] Again, I will speak on behalf of the whole team. We believe that the platform will flourish. The main problem is always in people. They are afraid of something new. Afraid to try. Throw away new at the slightest minuses and do not give chances. Many people don't like Windows Phone at first glance. And I had the same acquaintance with her. Fortunately, I did not buy the device. I had a HTC HD2 with Windows Mobile, then I installed Android on it, then WP7. I do not understand, did not recognize, demolished, returned Android. But I appreciated its smoothness and stability. After a couple of days, he took down Android and returned WP7. This was in the winter of 2010-2011. And she is still there :) And the guys liked her.
Today in the company we have more than 10 devices with WP7, which I know about. Every new user just falls in love with WP7. It's nice to look at the person yesterday with a phone on Android, who speaks well about WP7. We also believe that WP8 will be a new round of development and a continuation of the ideas embodied in WP7. I also want to believe that Microsoft will begin to appreciate not only big developers, but also small ones. There are many examples of this. Even with games. Even on WP7. Games from large and famous developers are not always better, and very often worse than indie projects. If indie developers are given the opportunity, there will be a much better ecosystem, and the platform will evolve better.
In Ukraine, this is a bit more complicated. Again, this is the Marketplace, this is the normal mobile Internet and our greed. Many do not understand how it is possible to pay for the software ...
[Alexander] Well, the last question, what are your plans for the future?
[Artem] We will make games :) What exactly? Time will tell. I can only say that we will try to set the quality bar for games on WP7.
I personally really want to finish and release the Demon Smasher, a 3D game that Sasha and I wrote in less than a day on the hackathon in Lviv (the hackathon was conducted by the wp7rocks team - Alexander) . Many pans, all interesting. A lot of developments, a lot of code written and waiting for their turn to work on users' phones.
The development of Undead Carnage has taught us a lot. Now we will know where problems may appear during development, how to solve them, or even not get into them. There was also a desire to port Undead Carnage: Redemption for tablets with Windows 8. Time will tell!
[Alexander] Hi, Artem. Tell us a little about yourself, your team and how the idea of ​​creating the game Undead Carnage was born.
[Artem] Hi! My name is Artem Veselovsky, I am 25. Our team consists of three people: designer Sasha Synyava, programmer and level designer Orest Blagodir, well, I am responsible for the development of the engine core and 3D animation. Game development takes place in his spare time. For some of us, this is a dream since high school, someone started dreaming about it later, but we all became gamers at first :) Everyone from the team has preferences in games that are about the same - we love action and football.
')
From the moment we gathered in a separate team, we wanted to make an active game for smartphones. There were a lot of samples ... There were a lot of ideas (and there are still), a lot of projects started, a lot of things in proof of concept style.
The idea was born at the beginning of last summer. Then I had the first working assembly of the game on the phone. We used the HTC HD2 for testing. I tell you honestly, she was crooked, ugly and boring. Especially boring ... The game was called “2D action about zombies”. Many times they reworked the engine parts, balanced the dynamics, but it always lacked a design approach. We dreamed of a 3D game and stopped developing ...
They did 3D shooters, learned a lot about programming 3D graphics, wrote their own 3D engine, wrote a demo of the game on tank battles. They added artificial intelligence there and rested on the phone's performance.
Then they somehow saw the announcement of a contest for the development of Windows Phone from Microsoft Ukraine and Nokia, where games were one of the categories. We decided to take part. There was a little time, nothing from time zero. And they remembered that we had almost a working game, tools, and an idea appeared. They sat down, thought, threw a layout of the story, shared responsibilities and set to work.
At first, all three were programmed, but the lack of design was strongly striking and did not overlap with any mutes in the gameplay. And then Sanya came on the scene. From Visual Studio, he switched completely to Photoshop. And after the first developments, the game gained a very cool design and atmosphere. We looked at what we did, and here, our first game Undead Carnage: Redemption.
[Alexander] Why Redemption?
[Artem] Redemption means atonement. The story of the game tells about a guy who lost a loved one several years before the events in the game, but says nothing about what happened during these several years. Yes, and the story is written in such a way that the continuation suggests itself. Redemption for sins in the past. Part of the story itself is the game. Part of the "past", perhaps, will tell later. In general, play :)
[Alexander] How much time and resources did it take to create?
[Artem] Development was constantly led by 3 people. It took a lot of time. We were in a hurry to make a working version for the competition. So we had a demo version of the game. They showed the beginning of the story and not quite ready design of the game. In absolute terms, about 5 months passed to the game itself and about a month to develop the engine and tools.
[Alexander] Tell us about the technical aspects of the game?
[Artem] From the very beginning they placed a very strong emphasis on technology. Squeezed a maximum of iron (then it was only the first generation of devices running Windows Phone 7). They did a maximum of beauty. Of the main aspects, this is, of course, the configured and balanced parallax scrolling. His idea is to draw several layers of graphics with different scale and scrolling speed. If it is properly set up and made the right design, then a simple 2D game creates an illusion of the depth and perspective of the 3D game. Also in our game, the Bloom effect is implemented, most likely, the only implementation for today under Windows Phone 7. The idea of ​​a bloom is to create a light defraction effect. If a dark-colored character stands on a light background, then its outlines are also highlighted and blurred with the background. Later added effects of space curvature and Slow Motion. In fact, it turned out quite a complex drawing pipeline. We draw the entire scene in the picture, smear it and light it in the right places. Then we use this picture as a texture for a polygonal mesh, which we can bend, creating a curvature that gives, say, a glass ball. Later added the ability to set fire to opponents. Fireball, which we showed in the demo, now deals a lot of damage due to burning. It's nice to watch as a burning and charred zombie goes towards the main character :)
[Alexander] And who writes music to you?
[Artem] Sami ... Guitar parts were recorded (played by Maxim Synyava - Sasha's younger brother, and Andrei Lutsyuk - our employee and friend). Then Sasha handled this whole thing on a computer. Some tracks were not recorded at all. That is, this electronic creation in its purest form.
[Alexander] What were the biggest technical problems in creating the game?
[Artem] The first difficulty is the limitations of the SDK and the platform. Programmable shaders are not supported on the phone. Much smaller buffers can be used (reach vs hi-def profiles for XNA). This greatly limits the ability of programmers. A strange step by Microsoft, but I, in principle, guess what the problem is. There is a problem with the incompatibility of the battery part of the phone and XNA 4.0. The XNA framework itself is just a wrapper around DirectX 9.0 interfaces. And Windows Phone devices are built on GPU with Shader Model 4.0 (DirectX 10). Although the guys from Microsoft saved the situation a little by writing their shader progress in five built-in effects, in most cases this is not enough. For things like Windows Phone, you need to create an SDK from scratch. Here I will make a low bow to Sony for the PS Suite SDK. There everything is done for five plus. The C # language, a high-level framework running on Mono, NVidia CG as a shader language, the ability to use insecure code. There's even no Sprite Batch. All you need to write yourself, everything is hardcore, everything is beautiful.
The second difficulty, and at the same time the benefit - is the impossibility of targeting the code for a specific iron. That is, things that work fine on second-generation phones, in 90% of cases will be very slow on the first. It is necessary to cut off beauty, which is regrettable. And for the time being, the devices of the first generation are many, so it’s impossible to discount them.
The third problem is that there is no marketplace for developers in Ukraine. And it's not even a matter of publishing the program on the Windows Phone Marketplace on your own, but of the fact that there are things on AppHub that are available only to registered developers. This makes learning difficult.
The fourth problem is the disinterest of Microsoft themselves. Here I am talking about Xbox Live. We wrote to Microsoft about Xbox Live for Undead Carnage. We just wanted an agreement on the use of opportunities for social gaming: achievements, leader boards on MS servers. We were told that they would contact if interested. Not contacted ... We will think of something from Facebook (Alawar and Nokia also did not give an affirmative answer - Alexander) .
And the most important thing is the constant striving for the ideal. But it is impossible to achieve it, the game still cannot be liked by absolutely all users. Well, the constant balance between the right things and new cool ideas that do not really fit the right things. Because of this, we had to rewrite the main modules of the game engine several times. But it is an experience, anyway.
[Alexander] Undead Carnage took part in three contests from Microsoft, but was able to win only one. And this is when she was a leader in the Russian and American Marketplace. What do you think is the reason?
[Artem] We think that this is due to several things. The main aspect - the game has its own target audience and its age rating. As it turned out, not everyone appreciates the product for its qualities, regardless of the ratings and topics. That is, if the game is made well, it looks beautiful, sounds and provides hardcore gameplay, then why draw a line between daisies and zombies? Perhaps the game is too complicated for mobile devices ... But still, this is the Xbox mobile platform, which means that the games should be a match for the platform.
[Alexander] The demo version was downloaded a total of more than 120k times. Do you think this is a good result?
[Artem] I think (and the whole team will agree with me) that this is an excellent result as for the “attempt at writing”. Still, this is our first game, brought to the end. For an inexperienced team, not funded by anyone, who developed the game in 99% of cases at home at night, sometimes stayed at the company for the night and made the game on laptops, this is an excellent result.
[Alexander] Now there is a lot of talk about the future of Windows Phone. What do you think, what are the prospects for Windows Phone 7 in our country and in the world?
[Artem] Again, I will speak on behalf of the whole team. We believe that the platform will flourish. The main problem is always in people. They are afraid of something new. Afraid to try. Throw away new at the slightest minuses and do not give chances. Many people don't like Windows Phone at first glance. And I had the same acquaintance with her. Fortunately, I did not buy the device. I had a HTC HD2 with Windows Mobile, then I installed Android on it, then WP7. I do not understand, did not recognize, demolished, returned Android. But I appreciated its smoothness and stability. After a couple of days, he took down Android and returned WP7. This was in the winter of 2010-2011. And she is still there :) And the guys liked her.
Today in the company we have more than 10 devices with WP7, which I know about. Every new user just falls in love with WP7. It's nice to look at the person yesterday with a phone on Android, who speaks well about WP7. We also believe that WP8 will be a new round of development and a continuation of the ideas embodied in WP7. I also want to believe that Microsoft will begin to appreciate not only big developers, but also small ones. There are many examples of this. Even with games. Even on WP7. Games from large and famous developers are not always better, and very often worse than indie projects. If indie developers are given the opportunity, there will be a much better ecosystem, and the platform will evolve better.
In Ukraine, this is a bit more complicated. Again, this is the Marketplace, this is the normal mobile Internet and our greed. Many do not understand how it is possible to pay for the software ...
[Alexander] Well, the last question, what are your plans for the future?
[Artem] We will make games :) What exactly? Time will tell. I can only say that we will try to set the quality bar for games on WP7.
I personally really want to finish and release the Demon Smasher, a 3D game that Sasha and I wrote in less than a day on the hackathon in Lviv (the hackathon was conducted by the wp7rocks team - Alexander) . Many pans, all interesting. A lot of developments, a lot of code written and waiting for their turn to work on users' phones.
The development of Undead Carnage has taught us a lot. Now we will know where problems may appear during development, how to solve them, or even not get into them. There was also a desire to port Undead Carnage: Redemption for tablets with Windows 8. Time will tell!
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/143958/
All Articles