The Last and Final Word: Jph Wacheski
Jph Wacheski used Game Maker for years, before moving most of his efforts to ZGameEditor. He has built a reputation for his experimental shmups and quality remakes, although now most of his recent work is displayed in the ZGameEditor forums, rather then his website.
Name?
Jph (jeff) Wacheski.
Age?
41.
Location?
Toronto.
Development tool(s) of choice?
Currently I am working with the ZGameEditor for the most part. I did a little test game recently using LÖVE for the Caanoo, and have many older Game Maker games available. These may get re-worked in the near future to take advantage of the cross platform building that the next GM tool seems to be offering. I recently was able to get a 360 so I am also messing around with some C# / C++ so that I can build for that console.
What do you do?
I am an artist, and a philosopher (at least that is how I think of myself). I have been working as an indie game developer and private contractor for a few years now. I have been on a contract for the last few months working on a music visualizer for FL Studio music production software. Ville K, the ZGE creator, integrated the ZGE openGL engine into the music sequencer, and I have been responsible for creating dynamic 3d and video effects for that system. Quite a lot of fun really.
How were you introduced to game development?
It was on the Atari 800 when my first game was written in BASIC and never released beyond my living room. It was not until many years later on a PC that I started again, this time using Game Maker to build a variety of old-school informed new games. When I found ZGE I jumped over to that for the hardware openGL acceleration, and the procedural nature of it. I love that I can build a full game in 50kb!
What are your goals and aspirations as a game developer?
I keep tryng out ideas that I have, to varying degrees of success. I suppose I am a tinkerer and an experimentalist. As an artist I also work with music, graphic design, photos and electro-mechanical designs. The videogame just brings a bunch of those together in one place. I seem to keep trying to create games that I can see in my mind. I rarely realize them, so this is what keeps me going I suspect; the desire to play the games I can imagine.
I intend to do more games based on the idea of systems balancing (that is creating an intricate interactive digital ecosystem that the player is inside of, giving them that experience of destabilizing and re-balancing these systems) and then building a story around that.
Is game development still a hobby for you?
Started as a hobby, but it seems to become a very consuming hobby, and I eventually began looking for ways to do this full time. I will just keep creating stuff as long as it gives me pleasure to do so. I do intend to offer some for sale to keep me going, as I do enjoy eating food and the odd (or often) beer, however I am not a terribly crafty businessman. The rise of the online store and these systems of collecting payment are a positive development.
I recall when I released my first GM game LockOn, and I saw that it was downloaded hundreds of thousands times after just a few months. I realized then, that if I could get just a dollar, from even a fraction of those people, I would be quite happy. So I am working towards an eventual Steam release, and something for the 360 in the near term.
You used Game Maker for some years, before switching to ZGameEditor. Why the switch? Without getting too technical, what does it have over Game Maker?
The draw of standard hardware acceleration for the graphics, real-time synthesis for the sounds, and the procedural generation of bitmaps, meshes, and levels was quite compelling. I also like the focus on small file size, 36kb for an ‘empty’ game vs 2.3mb in GM. The real time editor is very fast for developing visual effects, debugging, and testing play.
I was recently updating one of my old GM games, Strategic Oil Reserve for inclusion in a physical arcade machine instillation, being done by the Hand Eye Society here in Toronto (the High Roller is a trackball-based cabinet that I retrofitted to play indie games originally for Nuit Blanche). I was struck by how slow it is for GM to build and to test little tweaks and changes. Many of these I can just see in the ZGE editor without having to build, and even when I build to test, ZGE is many times faster. There are limitations with each system and currently I use both.
You seem to focus most of your efforts on experimental shmups - what do you find interesting about this genre to keep returning to it?
I have been exploring some simple dynamics that I find interesting. I use shmups as they are simple, quick, skill-based games that I enjoy playing. I try to avoid pattern sequence-based play in favor of dynamic AIs and reactivity. I believe this comes from my wanting to enjoy playing the game even as I am building it, and if it is just based on learning the sequence of attack waves that gets boring to me as a developer.
These shooting elements are sort of a base line of game play that the larger meta game dynamics will eventually grow out of. I just have to finish one of these larger games. In fact my original desire was to do adventures or more story driven work. I think I have just been developing skills to create something larger and more detailed (eventually).
You mentioned that you enjoy playing your own games while in development. Does this carry over to when they are done (so to speak)?
Yes, it does. In fact the main reason I make games is so I, myself, can play them. I just decide to release them when I found out that other people enjoy some of the stuff I create (to the point now that I am working on commercial releases).
Do you feel that most of your ideas work?
No. Many of my ideas are unsuccessful experiments, but this is how I learn what works. Going back a few iterations in my development sequence, I sometimes notice that I have spun off in a direction that detracts from my original intentions. Sometimes I develop different branches of an idea and end up with few slightly different games. This is fine for what I have been doing in just releasing many small games for free. Don’t like one, try another, they are free.
Do you ever consider any of your experiments ‘done’ as in finished?
Not really. I just release stuff when I feel it is fun, stable or just plain ‘cool’ enough that someone may find it interesting (at least that is my normal approach). I am now working to focus on finalizing a single project, to make it a fully realized game that can stand well on its own. It’s just a matter of not running with the next cool idea, before finishing the grunt work on the last one.
Is it always straight onto the next project after you finish the previous one?
No. I do go back and re-work things often. Many times, I am surprised by what I have done in the past, and often in a good way. I suppose I forget some of the stuff I have done and when I play it again I am often entertained and then inspired to either re-work it, or just do more to it, and sometimes to build new things based on a part of what I learn from playing with it.
How much time do you feel comfortable dedicating to a project?
There is no time limit. I just work on things until I get more interested in working on else. My website is actually over a year out of date, and I have been remiss in keep it updated with my latest releases, much of which can be found posted in the ZGE forums, in various states of completion.
Which of your experiments do you consider your most successful or accomplished?
I was just playing 100 Invaders, as I had recently started working on a new old-school shooter in ZGE, and realized I was implementing a vary similar dynamic as I had done with that GM one, so I looked back to see what I could learn from it. I still think that it is a great bit of work. Some ideas just keep cropping up. I think it is a combination of trying to fully realize the ideas, and just exploring things that I enjoy in simple game play mechanics.
I think most of my released work has something interesting to offer, however many games are also a tad cryptic, and require the player to figure out HOW to play them (like Cluster Funkedor brainTooth). This is an area of my skills that I am working on (making the intended gameplay clear to the player). I put a lot of work into the sound design of my little games, as well as the simple abstract visuals. In fact, I think games are 1/3 sound, 1/3 visuals, and 1/3 gameplay so I try to give each area a decent amount of attention, although the balance changes on each project.
Who or what are the primary influences on your games?
As a child of the 70s, I spent much of the 80s in arcades, and making trips to find arcade machines located in corner stores, spread around the neighbourhood. I do have a great love for the original games from Bally / Midway (providing much of my formative influence, with games like Joust, Defender, Robotron, etc). Then the games that came for home on stuff like the Atari 2600, 800 and ST.
I suppose people with similar influences have then influenced me. Bill Williams, William Mataga and Jeff Minter, with some fine old school 8-bit stuff. Eric Chahi, Lorne Lanning and Michel Ancel, have all done some amazing work later. There is always a lot of interesting stuff being done.
I gravitate towards the abstract, surreal, and strange, and the things I create lean towards that. I also find creative influences in many things outside of games: nature and my observations of natural systems are my primary source of ideas for most things. I am also I huge proponent of Permaculture as a system for sustaining human life and rebuilding out dieing world, and I think studying that process-based system has spread through all my thinking.
