In light of the recent tragic earthquake in Haiti, Armor Games has pledged 50% of all Crush the Castle proceeds from this week to be donated to the American Red Cross Haiti Relief and Development Fund as part of Apps for Haiti Week. Apps for Haiti will run from January 18-22. You can download Crush the Castle from iTunes and support the American Red Cross Haiti Relief and Development Fund by clicking HERE.

Thank you Armor Games for your support to help the Haitian people in this time of need.

UPDATE #1 : $850 was raised on Monday to help Haiti relief. Let’s try and raise even MORE money today. Thanks to everyone who is supporting the cause.

UPDATE #2 : $740 was raised on Tuesday. So far the grand total raise for Haiti is $1,590.

UPDATE #3 : $686 was raised on Wednesday. Total raised is now over $2,000!!

UPDATE #4 : $756 was raised on Thursday.

UPDATE #5 : $810 was raised on Friday, bringing the total contribution to $3,842!

Thanks again to everyone who participated. I’ll be making the donation to the Red Cross Haiti Relief fund next week. (I’ll post confirmation once the money has been donated)

Donation has been made (CLICK HERE)

Please continue to keep the People of Haiti in your thoughts and prayers as they continue to rebuild their lives from this tragedy.

Hello Armor Gamers! It’s that time of year again for Jay is Games Best of Casual Gameplay 2009 awards. Jay is Games reviews the best of online games, and with that said, many of Armor Games’ games have made the list of nominees! So first and foremost, congratulations to our talented group of developers! We would appreciate your support in voting for our developers, who put a lot of hard work in making the highest quality games for everyone to play for free. To make voting a bit easier on you (there are A LOT of entries this year!), we have put together a voting guide with a selection of popular AG games.

Action or Arcade:

• Hedgehog Launch 2 (Jmtb02)
• I Love Traffic (Jmtb02)
• Super Sloth Bomber (Megadev)

Interactive Art or Webtoy:

• How to Raise A Dragon (Gregory Weir)

Interactive Fiction:

• Llama Adventure (Jmtb02)

Physics:

• Crush the Castle (JoeyBetz)
• Fragger (Harito)

Platform:

• This is the Only Level (Jmtb02)

Puzzle:

• Knightfall 2 (Megadev)

Shooter:

• Upgrade Complete (Tony)

Tactical or Strategy:

• Bubble Tanks Tower Defense (Hero Interactive)
• Gemcraft Zero: Gem of Eternity (Gameinabottle)
• Phage Wars 2 (JoeyBetz)
• Warfare 1944 (ConArtists)

Make sure to head on over to Jay is Games, and show some love for Armor Games! You can vote HERE every day until the end of the voting period. Thanks for your support, and again, congratulations to the Armor Games developers!!

Voting ends Sunday, January 17, 2010 at 11:59PM.

Hi, Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?
My name is Danny Yaroslavski, ie Coolio Niato. I’m an undergrad Computer Science student living up in the cold reaches of Canada (*cough Toronto) and make online flash games, some of which include Lightbot, Streamline and RhythmWorld.

How did you come up with the name Coolio Niato?
Much like many other developers who start with a strange alias (see The-EXP or Jmtb02) it tends to stick after a few years and gets to the point that you can’t really change it anymore. As such, Coolio Niato came about when I was in elementary school, I had no e-mail address and my best friend had one called Coolio-Viato. Now being the unimaginative child I was, I changed one letter and kept using this name for animations/games I made. As to what Viato means, neither my friend nor I now have a clue to what it was.

How did you become interested in Flash gaming, and how did you begin developing games in Flash?
It started with enrolling in an animation class. There, maybe a few weeks in, the instructor showed us how to make buttons and use tellTarget for simple interactions. When I realized that I could make my own games, games of the likes of Thing Thing and Ultimate Flash Sonic, I was extremely excited. My first game, “Falling Objects 1” was horrible; it used keyPress and shoddy collision testing. My second, “Stench of Blood” was no better. But seeing the kinds of games on Armorgames (then called Games of Gondor) and Newgrounds; games including Marvin Spectrum and Short Circuit, it inspired me to work at coding more to finally complete my first big break, “Streamline”. Nowadays, ByteJacker and Tigsource are my greatest motivation.

Many of your games have themes relating to song or music. Is this something you have a background or interest in?
Much like the creator of Wii Music, Miyamoto and I have one thing in common. Neither of us have any talent when it comes to playing/making music. But in the same ways that Guitar Hero and Singstar allow people to overlook this fact, I try to get gamers to enjoy music in an interactive environment. I try to test myself; combining different genres with rhythm games. Mouse Avoider, Shoot em Up, Platformer, these were all different challenges I set to combine with rhythm and it worked out fairly well. Whenever I run out of game ideas, I often just listen to music until something pops into my head. And often at times, a song may just be so crucial in the development of the idea, I then have to make the game based on the song, sort of as a tribute to it and the artist behind it.

Which of your games do you like the best? Which game did you have the most fun developing?
I feel like Lightbot is my best accomplishment. It started with trying to combine the preliminary concept behind Bill the Robot (on Newgrounds) and then adding on to it. First I created a user-friendly interface that allowed for concepts like functions and recursion to be implemented. Later, it grew to be an educational experience. This was often at times a first for players, trying to think about the backbone of functional and procedural programming (on a very basic scale). The fact that I created a puzzle game that was enjoyable and sort-of-in-a-small-way taught programming makes me proud.

Besides Lightbot, I would have to say Rhythmworld and Music in Motion are my other favorites. Rhythmworld allowed players worldwide to submit songs and sync them on their own without any complicated interfaces much like some music/ddr game sites require. And Music in Motion was proof that platform games and music can mix. I felt like I used up all of my creative juices on that game, haha, I couldn’t think of any new ideas for months.

You are a young developer, what are your plans for the future? Do you plan on continuing Flash development, or are there other goals?
I’m definitely planning on continuing game development. Flash games, possibly later also iPhone/XBLA as well. Either way, I don’t think I’m ever going to leave Flash behind simply because it’s a great way to reach a large amount of people and let them play your own games for free. In the end that’s all any indie developer wants. I am working towards a degree in Computer Science to broaden the scope of my programming knowledge to make more technically advanced games, and maybe in the far future when I grow old and bitter and have no more game ideas I’ll get some boring office job. *shudders* Until then expect to see more!

Are there any games you have in development or any plans for future games?
Lately I’ve been making lots of engines and prototypes. Platformers, Dynamic Lighting, 3D, Multiplayer Online. It’s fun to experiment with engines but in due time they will all be put to good use.

Lightbot 2 is always on my mind and I’m thinking of ways to make it more of a learning experience without just slapping on new gimmicks like enemies and whatnot. But there is a working level editor for user levels and I plan to release the game by 3rd Quarter 2010.

People often ask if I’m going to make a new rhythm game, and to answer… who knows? It’s often a matter of finding the right song that inspires me in a new way. Either way, keep a look out.

Do you play any console games? What are your favorite types of games?
Lets start with the fact that I’m a Nintendo enthusiast. I own a Wii and enjoy playing basically any game with the name Mario in the title. (New Super Mario Bros, Mario Galaxy, etc) But besides these, I tend to stick to games on the Gamecube or N64, favorites being F-zero GX, Fire Emblem Path of Radiance and Smash Bros. Oh and LOZ Ocarina of Time. Whew, almost left that one out.

What are some things you like to do when you are not developing Flash games?
I enjoy playing Tennis, Squash… any racquet sport really. I also enjoy dance, Latin being my favorite style but having Michael Jackson be my biggest inspiration. On occasion I will try to see a Raptors/Blue Jays game (Basketball and Baseball for you non-Canadians) or catch a play.

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions!

My good friend Kevin Willson directed a video that was submitted to the ‘Doritos’ Crash the Super Bowl contest. The video is now one of the 6 Finalist. The name of his video is ‘Casket’ and its by FAR the best video in the contest. Click through to watch the video and vote for it. You can cast a vote everyday between now and Jan 31st.

Our buddy Mark Carr did an awesome Video Review of Sonny 2.

Click Here for Video Review

Make sure to leave a comment on his blog if you enjoyed it!

It’s been a while since we posted an official ArmorGames.com update, so I thought I’d let everyone know the exciting stuff we having going on.

A couple months ago we launched our new AGI (Armor Games Interface) into BETA for developers. Currently our AGI offers the following.

1.) Hi-Score system

The Hi-Score’s are in game (No more ArmorBot) and lets you compete against your friends. It stores your score, rank, country and allows you to post your stats to Twitter or Facebook. Check out the games below to see it in action.

Obey the Game
Wake the Box
zOMGies

2.) Level Share System

Our second feature deals with games that have a level or stage editor. Our Share-System allows you to create a level, save it, browse other levels and even vote for your favorite ones. Check out Crush the Castle and click explore to experience it first hand.

This is just the beginning of what we have planned so make sure to check ArmorGames.com daily to see all the new features we continue to roll out.

2009 was a great year for Flash Games and 2010 should be even better. We continue to look for the very best games to sponsor and license so keep us in mind when developing your games.

We also have a new logo floating around in the wild that will be introduced on ArmorGames soon. Has anyone stumbled across it?

We’re anxious to get feedback on the Hi-Scores and Level-Sharing. Leave comments and let us know what you think.

Happy Gaming!
-The Armor Games Team

Hi, could you please tell us a little about yourself and what you do?

I am the owner of Godlimations.com. I have been working with Armor Games for the last 3 years and it has been a lot of fun. My nationality is Half polish, half Wallisian, a small island in the pacific islands close to Fiji. I work at home and nobody I’ve met ever understood what it is that I do. It’s not a culturally normal job making website games for a company in America, whilst residing in Australia, especially since the title “godlimations” sounds nothing more than an enigma.

How did you get interested and involved in the world of Flash games and animations? What came first? games or animations?

My first influence began with Dragon Ball Z at the age of 5, following other popular anime cartoons as years progressed. The old traditional method of animating (Light box, scanner, computer) was an extremely long process, involving expenses, time and structure that was not affordable for me. Comic book drawing seemed like the way to substitute.

When Flash came into the picture, it offered me the solution to a quick and easy way to animate as an independent developer. It encouraged me to pursue this career path, at no knowledge or anticipation where it would lead me. Eventually, I was offered a job as a supervisor for an animation project, and later down the track, an editor for a church of roughly 2000.

My next move was to work full-time on my website by providing Armor Games with content. This was my ticket out of a socially miserable work life, and more-so the control of my own work, not being told what to do for other people and how to do it etc. The gaming market was, and still is statistically more popular than animation, which lead me to a compromise of continuing story telling/animations inside the realm of the flash gaming industry.

How did you come up with the ideas for and stories behind the Escape series of games? Are there any more sequels or prequels planned?

My first point and click adventure experience was “Broken Sword”, which amazed me. It never crossed my mind (though highly debatable) that a “Point and click” interaction can actually be considered a game. And then came the flash game crimson/viridian room produced by Fasco that also amazed me. The Escape series were produced from particles taken from these games. The idea from Broken Sword that a game can be a good game provided minimal interaction and a heck of a darn good story line. The Fasco games which provide the easy mechanics of a Flash game. Anyone can make a point and click adventure these days now… All it takes is a good story and the point and click genre will never die.

Often I am asked the question of STRANDED, the sequel to Escape, along with many other unsolved questions. Stranded is on stand-by, depending on my schedule. In the mean-time, there are plenty of stories around the bend waiting to be unmasked with my talents. I can make a story a lot better than the escape series. Besides, Escape series has a lot of plot holes, may I begin with the banana knife fishing rope rod?

Which of your games did you have the most fun making?

“Trapped”. Never again will I have the pleasure of revolutionizing the point and click genre, as I do believe “Trapped” was the first of many. It was also my first experience making a game based off one of the greatest games I’ve ever experienced, and succeeding enough in sharing that experience with the rest of the world.

What was your first Flash game?

Oh no… It was never made public. I made a trailer called “LOX” which is based on a fairy tale nightmare. It was turned into a shooter game, where you had to click on the enemy following an animation, since I could not make an enemy life bar due to my subpar code knowledge. I lost the game and wished I didn’t. Zombie Erik was my first public game.

There is a great deal of artwork within your games and animations. Typically, how long does it take for you to produce a game or an animation?

It takes roughly 1-3 months for each game and animation. I find animation a lot faster, since coding is not a requisite. Most of my time is spent on finding solutions to a code error rather than just slapping in code where it needs to be. My longest game in production was Wonderboy Legends. The game was scrambled up with mountains of unnecessary code. It was rather an unfinished experiment that crashed my computer every single time I tried to test it. My 2nd attempt at an RPG was Dragon Boy, which showed major improvements on all aspects, as a gesture to apologize for my previous monstrosity.

What are your future plans when it comes to Flash development?

I hope to commit myself to Flash development for a long time. It’s a good investment. Since the beginning, I’ve wanted to produce my own cartoon series. I love to entertain, tell stories and share the experience. I never really have any “Plans”, so I hope every day for the best to come.

When did your website go live?

It went live in 2004. The Alias known as Inglor was very helpful at the time.

Do you have any changes or further developments planned for your website?

The current look has a few bugs. I will be looking at changing it at the end of next year for introducing a new series which I will hope to achieve. Either that, or I’ll be forming an entirely new website for this cartoon series.

How’d you come up with the name Godlimations? What’s it mean?

I was sitting in my office desk back in 2004 drinking my coffee n biscuits for brekky. The name sparked into my head, godly animations… cut it down, you get godlimations. The context explains my initiation to Christianity, and what I believe in now.

A lot of your games have themes from the Bible. What role has the Bible and your faith played in shaping your games and your beliefs?

I look back at the word of God embedded in my games, some to which I make an irrelevant point about what I believe in. I realize now this wasn’t a good strategy for evangelism. I figure, if I want to convey the message of God in my games, the game needs to come with good morale. I’ve learnt from stories by CS Lewis that came biblically linear. The lions death and resurrection (Christ on the cross) in the Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis’ friend J.R Tolkien, also had a different point of view expressing biblical morals through Lord of the Rings, another great influence.

When you are not working with Flash, what are some things you enjoy doing?

Hanging out with friends, reading, watching movies, messing with my talk box n microKorg, road trips, working out at the gym, basketball, eating, bible studies….

Thanks Patrick for answering our questions. We look forward to seeing more Godlimation Games in the future.

Could you tell us a little about yourself?
I’m Chris Condon, better known as Con Artist. But you can call me Con, everyone does. I live in Melbourne, Australia.

What sparked your interest in Flash gaming and, more specifically, how did you get into Flash development?
My first introduction to Flash was when I dropped out of my horribly boring Computer Systems course at University to join a web design company that my friends had started. The very first Flash lesson I ever recieved was from a 16 year old work experience kid (I was 20 at the time). I spent 7 years in web design doing everything from banner ads in Flash all the way through to multiplayer gaming portals for the Australian Defence Force.

What was the first game you made and what happened to it?
Depends how far back we want to go here. In terms of any sort of game, it would be a board game that was based on Street Fighter II, spent many hours coercing my little brother into playing it with me. First computer game would be a text adventure that I coded in basic on an old Apple II back when I was about 12. But my very first Flash game was a competitive woodchopping game for a state fair website. It was a button masher as you watched your burly woodchopping guy work his way through a lump of wood. Rivetting stuff, it even had multiplayer (two players on the one keyboard). Client loved it we thought it was really average.

What are some things you like about developing in Flash as opposed to development for other platforms?
Being able to do everything myself. While at university I worked as a contractor for Epic Games on a modification for Unreal Tournament called Infiltration as a level designer, the whole 3D game creation frustrated me. The amount of time it took to do anything was enourmous, especially when very few of us were being paid to work on the game. If I needed a smoke animation, I’d have to get the animator to do it, then get the programmers to implement it and then have to have the latest beta updated and then I could get at it. Now with Flash I can do all those steps myself, no middle people involved.

Flash is by far the easiest level of entry for any form of complete “game engine”. It’s flexibility and ease to do all sorts of games is just unmatched.

Your Zombie and War games are amongst the most played on Armor Games and the entire web. Where does your inspiration come from for ‘The Last Stand’ and the ‘Warfare’ series?
The Last Stand came mostly from my love of zombie movies, especially George.A.Romero’s “Dead” series. But the actual inspiration came from a combination of watching 28 Days Later and playing Defend the House. There’s a scene in the movie where the main protagonists have holed up in a country mansion with some remnants of the army. They’ve built a barricade and are manning it, slaughtering zombies as they come towards them. After playing Defend the House I figured I could do it with zombies and that’d be more engaging by having a physical character running around doing the shooting instead of the omnipotent gun.

Warfare came from an old idea of mine to make a First World War modification for Unreal Tournament way back in 2001. After the Infiltration project, the team were throwing ideas around and I was hell bent on us doing WWI, but no-one else was interested. So combine that with playing too much Company of Heroes and my new found aptitude for making Flash games and you get Warfare.

A high level of quality and attention to detail is apparent in all of your games. Is this something you pride yourself with?
I wouldn’t really call it something I pride myself with, it’s more something I obsess about. I spend a lot of time doing and re-doing things, just today I’ve done 3 different melee weapon swinging animations and scrapped 2 of them becuase I wasn’t happy with them. I think coming from a commercial background probably made me this way because the work I did was never for me, it was always going to be for the person paying for it. Everything I made needed to be top notch so as to avoid scrutiny from clients. Now that I’m making the games I want, I’m compelled to make them better than those old games, can’t have only those corporate clients getting all the good stuff now, can we.

Typically, how long is one of your games in production before it’s released?
The ideas for new games brew for a long time, months sometimes and generally before I’ve finished the game I’m working on at the time. But once I get started, I’ll spend 2 weeks or so in pre-production and planning (writing documents, figuring stuff out) and then 3.5 - 4 months of actual production. I’ve found that artwork and animation seems to be the biggest chunk of time, followed shortly by programming and sound design.

Which of your Flash games is your favorite, and what makes it your favorite?
That’s like asking to choose your favourite child! Out of all of them, probably Last Stand 2. I’ve definitely played that more than the others. I enjoy it because there’s not many other Flash games that are similar, it’s just a good old fashion slaughterfest with a bit of management thrown in. I think the thing that carries it though is that the theme is so strong. It’s definitely struck a chord amongst the fans as it seems every one of them has a zombie apocalypse survival plan. The Warfare games I haven’t played much since finishing them, purely because I played them so much during production.

When you are not developing Flash games, what are some things that you enjoy doing?
I play entirely too many video games, I have every console and platform known to man and I purchase pretty much every game that’s any good. I love film, television and metal. Give me something directed by Martin Scorsese, some Deadwood to watch, some Slayer to listen to and I’m a happy man. Besides that, hanging out with my friends eating / drinking / watching films, they’re a fun bunch of writers, musicians, teachers, gamers and generally clever people. They actually have a lot of input into my games too.

Could you tell us a little about some games you have in the works or planned for the future?
I’m currently working on the third installation in my favourite zombie series titled - The Last Stand: Union City. It’s a prequel set about 2 months before the first two games and has a more action RPG style to it. Think Fallout 3 meets Shadow Complex, with zombies. It’s early days yet, I’m looking at a first quarter of 2010 release. There’s some fact sheets on features and character info here: http://www.conartistgames.com/

It’s a fact: Guys are fascinated with Zombies, War, and Robotic Mechs. Are there any other themes you see Conartists pursuing in the future?
I’ve never actually looked at my games that way…I guess I was subconsciously tapping into something there. The themes I choose though do tend to dictate what games I make. I’ve got a few that have been floating around lately: Aliens, Medieval and Theivery. No plans for Ninjas, Pirates or Monkies at this stage.

Do you eat Vegamite?  (It’s Vegemite - Con)
I do. But, I prefer Promite, far superior product. Now excuse me while I go and hide from the Australian food police.

Thansk for answering our questions Con! If you enjoyed the interview make sure to leave a comment or stop by Con’s User Page and Thank Him for all the great games He makes.

We’ve got two new games!  Yes, two games.  Both around the same time, on TWO different platforms: I Hate Traffic on the website and I Love Traffic on the iPhone/iPod Touch.

Golly gee, this project was big.

I Hate Traffic is about smashing cars.  It’s the ultimate tantrum-toddler-causing-ruckus-playground-funtime.  In response to I Love Traffic (see below) a lot of people asked me if I could make a crash-only mode.  So that’s what I did!  I Hate Traffic is about crashing and goal achievement.  One level may be about crashing a 20 cars, another might be about shoving a car into a square target area, and another might be about throwing yourself in front of a semi to save a bus from a cluster of bombs.  Its all up to you.

The best part about this game is that level creation is by YOU.  Like Little Big Planet the entire environment is unlocked to the players.  Through the level editor any player can recreate any of the levels found in the game.  All the tools are there for the taking.  The game even allows you to make your own goals.

And share those levels!  The Game Share made by Armor Games team allows you to take any challenge and allow your friends to try them out.  Send them it by Short URL or browse around the recent levels floating in.  Here’s a level I made, for example:  http://armorgames.com/=An5g

Check it out.  I Hate Traffic is out on Armor Games now!

I Love Traffic came out as a Flash game last year and had a nice reception.  I came up with the game while sitting in traffic, being incredibly patient for the light to change.  I thought to myself, what the heck?  Why is the light taking so long?  Can we do better?  Sort of… if it causes for near collisions and manual light changing (obviously not applicable in the real world, but is in a video game!).  Now, I Love Traffic is ON THE iPHONE AND iPOD TOUCH.

I wasn’t the soul creator of this game.  I had a team of great developers working along side on this project with me.  Christopher Skelton was the big hand here, helped me take this project from AS2 source to iPhone, and he did a tremendous job working out all the kinks in transition as well as providing some of his own level design for a few levels.  Jeff Wofford also helped out by creating the source engine that allowed the transition to take place.  I did about 99% of the artwork as well as the original coding for the Flash game before it got ported.  Music by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com, did music for several other games of mine) was also a fantastic addition to the game.  And of course, thanks to Dan for letting this project evolve from Flash to iPhone.

Anyway, with all credit aside, the game has 40 levels (20 new levels in addition to the Flash ones), a new stats page, and a whole bunch of new random trivia to boggle your mind (who knew a human hair could handle 6kg of pressure?).  The game plays as it does on the computer with cars coming from either direction on the screen.  Use your traffic light to safely navigate X amount of cars through the inspection.  Cause a crash and you have to start over.  Easy as that.  Sort of.  Levels get more and more difficult and intersections go from traditionally seen simple intersections  to devastatingly troublesome forces to be reckoned with.

We’re only charging 99 cents for it and its available on iPod Touch and iPhone (v3.1.2 or later).  If you want to try out the Flash version first to see if you’d like it, go ahead.  It’s the first game I have ever charged money for out of the 50+ titles I’ve made so help support.  Don’t buy that candy bar, buy a game instead!

———

All said and done, a busy week (and month!) with two launches in the tank.  I’m off to go relax and enjoy the rest of my day.  Go make some levels in the new I Hate Traffic and go save some lives in I Love Traffic for iPhone and Flash.  Enjoy.

This week we bring you an exciting Interview with the creator of the Indestructo and Shift game series!

Hi, could you tell us a little about yourself and what you do?
Hello, my name is Antony (or Tony, if we’re friends, and if you’re reading this then we are :p ). I make flash games for Armor games that hopefully people enjoy playing. I live in Cardiff, in the UK with my lovely wife Lucy and lovely daughter Ella, who I plan on raising to be the youngest flash game author of all time, just give it a few years.

What sparked your interest in Flash development, and how did you get into it?
My introduction to Flash development started in late high school when my friend Matt started doing little animations in it and named his online flash persona as “The-EXP”. I joined in on some of the things he did until one day when he showed my a simple game he made using the mysterious “actionscript” part of Flash which I had until then been ignoring. It was about a boat which sailed up and down according to arrow key presses. Well that was pretty much it for me, I decided I had to make a game in it, and found out, to my surprise, that the coding wasn’t very much different to my other love at the time, which was RPG maker, a piece of software I still hold dear to my heart, and something that every budding game designer should play about with. Since I didn’t think I’d be going anywhere serious with my Flash games, I asked Matt if I could just upload them to various sites under his account name, which was usually “The-EXP”, and that is pretty much the stroy of how I hijacked his online presence and to this day feel too guilty about it to change the passwords despite it being very insecure

Where did you get the inspiration for games such as Shift and  Indestructo Tank?Shift and Indestructotank are, for the most part, the games that people recognise my name for, and are probably two of my favourite games to work on. The inspiration for Shift came after playing “Portal: The Flash version” by Ido Tal and loving the idea of a platform puzzler game in that setup, but knowing I’d not be able to top how well Ido had done a Portal game, so looking for another “hook” as such. I remember waking my then soon to be Wife Lucy up at 3am to show her the prototype, which is an activity only ever done when I know I have something good enough to show to avoid being strangled by a grumpy half asleep girl.

Indestructotank started when I played a game called Heavy Weapon on Xbox Live and thought to myself how easy it would be to make something similar in Flash, so I did, not intending to ever release it as a game, but more of a learning experience. Then while working on it I was talking with someone I’d recently met in University called Joel Atkinson, who I was sending the prototype versions of back and forth. One of the versions I sent had a little bit of physics programming in there to make the tank bounce when hit, and if, for example, it hit a helicopter, it would give you a bonus point. On playing this, Joel suggested that each time you hit a helicopter, you should be blasted further upwards, and to make it a side challenge to hit as many as you can before you hit the floor. Then we decided to take the ability to shoot from the tank completley and make the entire objective of the game to rack up “Combos” jumping from helicopter to helicopter. When the game was released and it was rated extremley well, I was pretty much in shock that I stood in for a chance to win the Armor Games contest. In the end, it was beaten to the top spot by some Australian game, I forget its name, I think it was called the Latest Stand or something, you’ve probably never played it…

Which of your Flash games is your favorite, and what makes it your favorite?
My favourite game to play, is actually an old one I made called Ignitopulse, as I can play it for quite a while before getting bored, one of the ones I had most fun making was “Virtual pet reindeer“, as I made it with my wife, so while lacking in a fair few ways, the production of it was lots and lots of fun. Then of course there’s Indestructotank, which I alwasy feel compelled to finish if I start up a game…

Are there any games you currently have in the works or any games planned for the future?
I currently have the BEST version of Shift I’ve ever made in production, it’s also by far the largest game I’ve ever made and should appeal to people alot more than Shift 4, which was, in retrospect, much too hard, and not appealing to newcomers to the series. It will be lots of fun to play. I also have 2 or 3 games mid production that need to be finished, one being a nice simple tower defense based on Turn Based Battle, so I look forward to a bit fo time to finish those after Shift, to increase my overall output.

What do you like about developing for Flash as opposed to other platforms?I think Brad Borne, the developer of Fancy Pants adventure, described it best for me. Flash is the only platform in the world currently that offers both freedom and flexibility. Flexibility  in the sense that it’s powerful enough to make anything you want in, as long as you’re not aiming for Gears of War style graphics and the fact you can basically draw in what you want, and build the game around it, and flexibility in the fact it’s available anywhere in the world, on any operating system, without having to make lots of changes. He told me that the cartoonish nature of Fancy Pants and the fluid ways in which he literally draws the levels would just simple not be possible on other platforms, and I of course agree.
When you are not developing Flash games what are somethings you like to do?
In my downtime I like to take my wife out to dinner and spend time with Ella, who is for the most part, very well behaved while Daddy is doing his work. She has her own laptop, and can already surf the internet aged 3, so she’s well on her way to making her nerdy father proud. I also like to play other peoples Flash games alot as well as play some Gears of War 2 online. Theres nothing better to relax to than shooting up some locust horde.

How do you like living in the UK?
Living in the UK has its problems, everything is very expensive and the weather in Wales, where I live, is pretty much terrible year round. However, for the most part the people here are all very nice, and that’s whats really important I guess.

I hear you’ve visited the Armor Offices. How’d you like CA? Do you have plans to come back?
California was an amazing place, unfortunately first time I visited I underestimated how nice the weather would be, and ended up with rather severe sunburn. The Armor office is a really nice place and I’d visit it again anytime possible. I spent a couple of hours working alongside Dan and John which was alot of fun, and then went go-karting and partook in a medieval style dinner of Meat and Grog and a show in which Knights battled to the death for us, which I can only assume is how every day at the office ends. It really was a great experience and would love to work out there.

Is it true you wear a monocle, have a british accent and enjoy High Tea everyday?
Monacles are so popular in this country that many people wear two at the same time, using a special type of frame that holds them in place. I think they’re either called Dualacles or “Glasses” depending on your standing in society. My British accent, while not as awesome as the Queens or the Super Flash Brothers’ accents, is still rather spiffing, and as for Tea, both high and low, I enjoy as much of it as I can. Sometimes if i’m really lucky I have crumpets as well. The sad thign is I’m not even kidding, Tea and Crumpets rock.