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.

Joey Betz

Dashing and Daring,
Crushing and Fearing,
Faithful and smart,
As He programs along.

Joey Betz
Coding Here and there and Everywhere
His games are beyond Compare,
He is called Joey Betz.

I hope everyone enjoys this interview.

1-  Hi, Could you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do?

I live in Irvine Ca and I work full time as a game developer for Armor Games

2 - What is your educational background?

I got a Bachelors degree in game development, which sounds kind of cheesy, but it’s the best decision I’ve made.

3 - When did you realize that making Flash games is something you would like to do full-time?

Flash games are extremely fast to produce, and realizing that you can make something amazing within just a few weeks, I got addicted really fast.

4 -  How did you get involved with Armor Games?

Dan was interested in a flash developer that was local, and I happened to be on his radar. After the gladiator battle with the other hopeful developers and the final fight against a Rancor monster, I was lucky enough to come out victorious.

5 - You are relatively new to the Flash game world. Did you expect the immense popularity for many of your games would produce?

No, that’s what so funny about it. I just make games that I would enjoy playing, and find it pretty cool that other people like them too.

6 - What qualities or features do you think added to the success of your games?

Addictiveness. I try and put addictive properties in every game I do, and sometimes it’s really successful.

7 - What is your favorite game you have worked on so far? What do you like most about it?

I’d have to say it’s a toss up between Crush the Castle and Phage Wars. During Crush the Castle John and I got to make a real working trebuchet in the office and launched Ball Revamped balls in the parking lot. With Phage Wars I did a lot of research on cells and got to implement a lot of technical charts in Phage Wars 2.

8 - Do you have any games currently in the works or planned for the future? Is there more destruction coming?

I have a some sequels coming up and quite a few new ideas in the works. Destruction aplenty.

9 -  Where did you get the inspiration to make a game about demolition?

My dad actually came up with the idea for Demolition City. He wanted a game where you could blow up buildings with dynamite, and so DC was made specifically for him.

10 -  When you are taking a break from game development, what are some things you like to do for fun?

I watch movies all the time. I especially enjoy anime movies and I think I’ve seen almost everything Studio Ghibli has produced. I enjoy listening to music quite a bit as well.

11 -  Approximately, how often do you eat at Chipotle?

Twice a week and sometimes more. I’ve kind of brought it into the office as well, with Chipotle Mondays for lunch. It’s an addiction, and I struggle with it everyday.

12 - I hear that You and Daniel McNeely share the same birthday, both have a sister named Jennifer and that you use to live 5 doors apart in Newport Beach and never even knew it. Do you think you two are long lost brothers that were separated at birth?

I think Dan and I are one in the same person. When Dan is happy, I’m happy and when Dan gets sad, I feel upset. It’s really weird.

13 - What words of encouragement would you give to someone who is just starting off in game development?

If you aren’t having fun making a game, then you aren’t making a very fun game.

Thanks for taking the time to answer our questions Joey!

Our friends over at Hero Interactive have released a preview video of their upcoming game release, Bubble Tanks Tower Defense!  The project looks like it is coming together.  While you are at it, check out previous versions of Bubble Tanks to get a sense of what you are up against for Bubble Tanks TD.

Their most recent blog post says the team is expecting the game to be done within the month, so check back for release on Armor Games later this month for the full game!

This is a sort of script-heavy post, I apologize in advance. But like I have mentioned in a previous post, I have been working on a level editor for I Hate Traffic.  One of the concerns of the game is somehow storing these levels as something small and compact enough to fit easily into copy and paste bits of code.  We all love those massive million character codes, but since we are planning on making this a game with levels built into a level select system, we decided to make things smaller…er.  Prepare for some geekiness….

I first took the raw code for the level above…

So 2,187 characters… is about ~2.2 kb.  Not much right?  Sort of.  It’s just a tiny bit on this scale, but once you start putting it on a larger level (thousands and thousands of plays) that data transfer can add up.  Every three digit number (displayed back to back) represents a single tile in the system, in case you were wondering.

So in an attempt to shrink down that number a bit I formatted the tiles to write themselves down sort of like a gif file.  Gif files reference a table of data, then run a set of algorithms to eliminate the need to map every pixel independently.  So instead of 109109109109109109 to represent 6 tiles we can put in 109×6 instead, which is much less beafy.  So, after this algorithm runs….

We’re down to 1,802 characters, or 15% streamlining.  Not bad.  And given the circumstances and complexity this precentage can rise up into the high 50-99% compact rate, but since this is a rather complex level it’s not streamlined that heavily.  So let’s go one more.

With the help of Joey we have discovered that dumping the code into a ByteArray makes it even smaller.  ByteArray are containers of bits, as way of accessing and working with binary data.  In this way we can move things around in smaller chunks of data.   Transferring the data into byteArray data and compressing… well…

We’re down to 676 characters, tapping out at only 30% of the original code.

2,187 -> 1,802 -> 676, not bad.  That’s for a level with 625 tiles on it, pulling from a library of about 100+ different tile types.

So in this way we can store much smaller chunks of data.  I’m guessing there’s even smaller ways to store the data beyond these methods but we’re extremely happy with what we have come up with so far.

Programming aside, the game is going well and the tools in the editor should be plenty fun to play with.  Should be done soon!

SSB is coming out soon so here’s a catch tune to get everyone excited!
Enjoy~