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| 26 Apr 2014 03:03 PM |
http://blog.roblox.com/2014/04/fame-at-15-clonetrooper1019s-rise-to-game-dev-success/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=fame-at-15-clonetrooper1019s-rise-to-game-dev-success
I think its alright (Although the emphasis on my age was a bit overdone I suppose. Its more in my experience and not in my age. I'll ask Alan if he can tinker with that later)
Here's how the actual interview went down over Skype if you guys are interested:
Max = Me Alan = JacksSmirkingRevenge
[4/23/2014 5:53:11 PM] Max: Mkay. [4/23/2014 5:53:21 PM] Max: Lets gets a move on ;) [4/23/2014 5:53:27 PM] Alan: yeah [4/23/2014 5:53:34 PM] Alan: so we want to write more articles [4/23/2014 5:53:43 PM] Alan: about prolific users [4/23/2014 5:54:02 PM] Alan: like the one we wrote about daxter [4/23/2014 5:54:07 PM] Max: Yup, I read it. [4/23/2014 5:54:20 PM] Alan: so you definitely fall under this category as well [4/23/2014 5:54:30 PM] Alan: tell me a bit about how you got into roblox [4/23/2014 5:54:39 PM] Max: Thats actually an interesting story. [4/23/2014 5:54:48 PM] Max: It was about 5 years ago when I had just turned 10 years old. [4/23/2014 5:54:58 PM] Max: I was addicted to lego and star wars at the time (As my username suggests) [4/23/2014 5:55:15 PM] Max: I was getting this awesome AT-AT set [4/23/2014 5:55:31 PM] Max: So for some reason, I would go looking up dozens of videos related to the set because of how excited I was to get it [4/23/2014 5:55:40 PM] Max: At some point, I ran into a roblox video showing off this AT-AT model [4/23/2014 5:55:50 PM] Max: (You may have seen it, if I can find a link) [4/23/2014 5:56:05 PM] Max: So yeah, I joined roblox because of an AT-AT. [4/23/2014 5:56:08 PM] Alan: haha [4/23/2014 5:56:10 PM] Alan: that's cool [4/23/2014 5:56:10 PM] Max: I didn't really get into game development until around 2011 [4/23/2014 5:56:19 PM] Max: I just played games and did what everyone else did. [4/23/2014 5:56:27 PM] Max: Things have changed quite a bit since then [4/23/2014 5:56:50 PM | Edited 5:56:58 PM] Max: (Heres that AT-AT model btw: http://www.roblox.com/AT-AT-item?id=387897 Its fully rigged and its quite impressive even for today. It works unanchored too) [4/23/2014 5:57:45 PM] Max: If you'd like to pause for a quick second, I could actually show you the first game I ever made in 2009. [4/23/2014 5:57:59 PM] Alan: yeah, sure [4/23/2014 5:58:22 PM] Max: I'm just going to prepare you [4/23/2014 5:58:26 PM] Max: its not pretty [4/23/2014 5:58:31 PM] Max: But hey we all start from somewhere I guess. [4/23/2014 5:58:38 PM] Max: This was just me experimenting with studio for the first time [4/23/2014 5:58:39 PM] Max: http://www.roblox.com/CloneTrooper1019s-First-Place-2009-place?id=142621232 [4/23/2014 5:58:40 PM] Alan: lol no biggy dude [4/23/2014 6:01:15 PM] Alan: so what happened next? [4/23/2014 6:01:27 PM] Max: A lot of its a blur. [4/23/2014 6:01:38 PM] Max: But around mid 2010 [4/23/2014 6:01:48 PM] Max: I discovered my best friend at school also played roblox [4/23/2014 6:02:00 PM] Max: He was actually developing some small games at the time [4/23/2014 6:02:03 PM] Max: His username is TheOne33 [4/23/2014 6:02:12 PM] Max: And he kind of kickstarted my career of game development. [4/23/2014 6:02:18 PM] Max: At first, I wasn't interested in programming [4/23/2014 6:02:19 PM] Max: And believe this [4/23/2014 6:02:23 PM] Max: A quote from me [4/23/2014 6:02:26 PM] Max: "I will never program ever!" [4/23/2014 6:02:31 PM] Max: Here we are now, haha. [4/23/2014 6:02:39 PM] Max: So he was making a game called Deathmatch at the time [4/23/2014 6:02:46 PM] Max: And eventually I started playing with his code [4/23/2014 6:02:56 PM] Max: I experimented with things and tried to see how they worked. [4/23/2014 6:03:15 PM] Max: Eventually, I launched my first programmed game KOOL KILLER VI [4/23/2014 6:03:27 PM] Max: I was making games before hand, but it was mostly just role playing stuff in giant maps. [4/23/2014 6:03:43 PM] Max: So Kool Killer launched around January of 2011 [4/23/2014 6:03:59 PM] Max: http://www.roblox.com/KOOL-KILLER-VI-The-Final-Inception-place?id=44723955 if you want to pause (This is one of the first versions in archive) [4/23/2014 6:04:20 PM] Max: A lot of what I make today derived from what I learned while making this game. [4/23/2014 6:04:47 PM] Max: I wasn't aiming for success really, I just wanted to make something that people enjoyed. [4/23/2014 6:04:55 PM] Max: My KOOL KILLER game was inspired by Reasons 2 Die. [4/23/2014 6:05:09 PM] Max: (Im not going too much into detail right? haha) [4/23/2014 6:05:38 PM] Max: So I worked on KOOL KILLER for about a year, and then came Spleef. [4/23/2014 6:05:51 PM] Max: Which I decided to make after playing Minecraft too much. [4/23/2014 6:06:12 PM] Max: I was kind of getting tired of KOOL KILLER and I wanted to make something new. I wanted to experiment with new ideas and see what other kinds of games I could make [4/23/2014 6:06:19 PM] Max: Because before Spleef, KOOL KILLER was the only game I focused on. [4/23/2014 6:06:34 PM] Max: Spleef was one of the first games favored by some admins [4/23/2014 6:06:43 PM] Max: And it actually got me into the Alpha test for Roblox Mobile. [4/23/2014 6:06:57 PM] Max: Spleef was going to be one of the games they tested before they released all games [4/23/2014 6:07:22 PM] Max: Blur blur fast forward [4/23/2014 6:07:35 PM] Max: I was interested in making another game called PropHunt after playing the Team Fortress 2 mod for awhile [4/23/2014 6:07:49 PM] Max: The game was mostly a proof of concept [4/23/2014 6:08:06 PM] Max: I wanted to see if making a game where you could turn into models was possible, and I pulled off something basic. [4/23/2014 6:08:30 PM] Max: That game never really took off, but its been getting a little bit of attention lately because some youtubers have been playing it [4/23/2014 6:08:32 PM] Max: VenturianTale I believe. [4/23/2014 6:08:45 PM] Max: Alright, now to the good stuff. [4/23/2014 6:08:51 PM] Max: The Stalker1!1111!1 [4/23/2014 6:09:16 PM] Max: The Stalker was the first game I actually based off of a Garry's mod gamemode. [4/23/2014 6:09:42 PM] Max: It started out extremely simple and got onto the front page for about 4 days on November 11th, 2012 [4/23/2014 6:09:48 PM] Alan: which Garry's mod? [4/23/2014 6:10:01 PM] Max: I'm gonna go off topic for a second since I don't think you've played Gmod [4/23/2014 6:10:07 PM] Max: Garry's mod is kind of like roblox, but in the source engine [4/23/2014 6:10:23 PM] Max: You can create games using tons of API that Garry provided to us with the source engine. [4/23/2014 6:10:35 PM] Alan: ah, got it [4/23/2014 6:10:37 PM] Max: The Stalker is one of the community made gamemodes I found one day by looking at the server lists. [4/23/2014 6:10:53 PM] Max: I was actually just browsing random games [4/23/2014 6:11:11 PM] Max: If I can find a video of the gmod version, I'll post it here. [4/23/2014 6:11:38 PM] Max: I almost abandoned The Stalker because of how simple it was [4/23/2014 6:11:59 PM] Max: But eventually, I started working on the shop and inventory system, and that pretty much changed the game forever. [4/23/2014 6:12:17 PM] Max: I started drawing in attention, and a larger fan base than I anticipated. [4/23/2014 6:12:23 PM] Max: And I began developing this strategy. [4/23/2014 6:12:59 PM] Max: Where if you give players a reason to play a game, and something good to work towards as well as fun gameplay, you can keep players in longer thus increasing player counts and that cycle kind of repeats itself. [4/23/2014 6:13:16 PM] Max: I just continued to pile the game with content until I decided I was satisfied with what I had [4/23/2014 6:13:46 PM] Max: And I learned a lot about maintaining players through The Stalker. [4/23/2014 6:14:13 PM] Max: And then came the christmas game that never was. [4/23/2014 6:14:21 PM] Max: I suppose I can tell this story because Murder derived from its code. [4/23/2014 6:14:28 PM] Alan: haha, ok sounds good [4/23/2014 6:14:48 PM] Max: So you remember all that community made christmas game stuff going around right? [4/23/2014 6:14:56 PM] Max: I think I started that trend. [4/23/2014 6:15:06 PM] Max: I was talking to Sorcus just as they were closing the witching hour. [4/23/2014 6:15:20 PM] Max: And I was asking if they would possibly make a christmas game [4/23/2014 6:15:41 PM] Max: He said they were too busy, but he basically gave me the ok to start organizing some community made event. [4/23/2014 6:16:04 PM] Max: I was experimenting with collaborative game efforts, and how creating a game as a team worked. [4/23/2014 6:16:27 PM] Max: Now I did some things right, and I did plenty wrong, and it definetly gave me some experience with mixing ideas around. [4/23/2014 6:16:42 PM] Max: The first thing I did wrong was [4/23/2014 6:16:46 PM] Max: Hiring 10 people to help out [4/23/2014 6:16:55 PM] Max: Its impossible to divide a project among 10 people, I'm telling ya. [4/23/2014 6:17:29 PM] Max: Secondly, I took full charge on the project and stressed my self out on the deadline. [4/23/2014 6:17:38 PM] Max: While the others just helped me out in some minor ways. [4/23/2014 6:17:49 PM] Max: I was basically putting the game together into something playable. [4/23/2014 6:17:55 PM] Max: With the bits and pieces we had. [4/23/2014 6:18:10 PM] Alan: what would you say is the best amount of people to work on a roblox title together [4/23/2014 6:18:17 PM] Alan: and why that number [4/23/2014 6:18:24 PM] Max: I'd say at the most 5 people. [4/23/2014 6:18:52 PM] Max: Once you start getting too many people, it can be hard to control it, especially over a chat board and Dropbox. [4/23/2014 6:19:13 PM] Max: You don't actually need 5 people, but if you are going to need that many, just try to keep it under that [4/23/2014 6:19:34 PM] Max: Otherwise things start spinning out of control and the organizer gets stressed out because he can't properly divide a project [4/23/2014 6:19:36 PM] Max: ;) [4/23/2014 6:19:48 PM] Max: If you want to see the unfinished state of our game, I put it up here [4/23/2014 6:19:49 PM] Max: http://www.roblox.com/Alpha-Trouble-in-Wonderland-place?id=137818960 [4/23/2014 6:19:56 PM] Max: We might try coming back to it this winter, but idk. [4/23/2014 6:20:18 PM] Alan: ok cool [4/23/2014 6:20:19 PM] Max: Its not really playable, but the idea of gameplay is present. [4/23/2014 6:20:36 PM] Max: It was January 6th when we reached this state. [4/23/2014 6:20:47 PM] Max: And there was just too much left to do for us to get the game done in 2 days [4/23/2014 6:20:52 PM] Max: So we just gave up. [4/23/2014 6:20:58 PM] Max: Twas a labor of love. [4/23/2014 6:21:03 PM] Max: And we were all happy to go back to our own things [4/23/2014 6:23:15 PM] Alan: it's funny [4/23/2014 6:23:19 PM] Alan: that you started the whole initiative [4/23/2014 6:23:24 PM] Alan: and didn't end up finishing the game [4/23/2014 6:23:37 PM] Max: It was kind of like a table flip moment [4/23/2014 6:23:58 PM] Max: There was not enough time to make the game playable especially under sorcus' evil filtering system [4/23/2014 6:24:18 PM] Alan: you mentioned that developing it lead to the development of murder? [4/23/2014 6:24:21 PM] Max: Right right [4/23/2014 6:24:24 PM] Alan: how is that? [4/23/2014 6:24:25 PM] Max: I was getting to that haha. [4/23/2014 6:24:39 PM] Max: So Murder started just after I ditched the project. [4/23/2014 6:24:50 PM] Max: The trouble in christmas town game as well as Murder [4/23/2014 6:24:59 PM] Max: Were the first two games I worked on using a different strategy [4/23/2014 6:25:06 PM] Max: You know how my older games use the text above the screen thing. [4/23/2014 6:25:15 PM] Max: I wanted to take my games to the next level [4/23/2014 6:25:39 PM] Max: I didn't want lobbies or text guided gameplay anymore, I wanted to make games that play out like a regular multiplayer game should. [4/23/2014 6:25:52 PM] Max: So I started changing my style of code. [4/23/2014 6:26:03 PM] Max: Into a more client/server divided system [4/23/2014 6:26:26 PM] Max: Where the client handled all the visuals and client things while the server took care of the game and communicating with the clients [4/23/2014 6:26:55 PM] Max: If I show you a picture of Murders workspace and I compare it to The Stalker's workspace, you'd probably get the idea :P [4/23/2014 6:27:04 PM] Max: I started trying to make my games more secure [4/23/2014 6:27:14 PM] Max: And more easy to work with in the long run [4/23/2014 6:27:25 PM] Max: Murder is essentially a tech demo of my multiplayer game engine. [4/23/2014 6:27:40 PM] Max: And the code I wrote for this game will allow me to create dozens of other games easily. [4/23/2014 6:27:44 PM] Max: Its pretty modular. [4/23/2014 6:28:08 PM] Max: It took me a long time to get the game working as well as it is today. [4/23/2014 6:28:31 PM] Max: Since the server has to take care of all game operation as well as spawning players with little to no lag, it took some time [4/23/2014 6:28:42 PM] Max: There are no values, everything is stored in the server, including loot counts [4/23/2014 6:29:01 PM] Max: So getting the game to run as functional as it is today took me about 2-3 months [4/23/2014 6:29:11 PM] Max: Which was longer than I anticipated, but I wanted to perfect the game. [4/23/2014 6:29:18 PM] Max: The game is almost identical to the gmod version. [4/23/2014 6:29:28 PM] Max: And now that I'm done mirroring it [4/23/2014 6:29:36 PM] Max: My plan is to put my own creative twists onto it as I did with the stalker [4/23/2014 6:29:42 PM] Max: and no that does not mean billions of hats. [4/23/2014 6:29:49 PM] Max: (although there will be hats c;) [4/23/2014 6:29:55 PM] Max: I'm planning to turn Murder into a universe. [4/23/2014 6:30:05 PM] Max: Where the hub place is like the main menu [4/23/2014 6:31:01 PM] Max: And you can select what map you want to play as well as inviting friends in the hub, a shop that lets you buys hats, different clothes and skins for the knife among other things [4/23/2014 6:31:25 PM] Max: Just a lot of crazy stuff in general [4/23/2014 6:31:39 PM] Max: I want to make it easier for people to match up with their friends [4/23/2014 6:31:53 PM] Max: As well as more freedom in terms of how you play the game. [4/23/2014 6:32:03 PM] Max: And I guess thats me today. [4/23/2014 6:32:47 PM] Alan: ahhh very interesting [4/23/2014 6:33:06 PM] Max: And yeah, the future of my games is going to be crazy. [4/23/2014 6:33:13 PM] Max: I don't have plans to leave roblox anytime soon. [4/23/2014 6:33:34 PM] Max: Shall I jump into the debate between me and Nikilis? Lol [4/23/2014 6:35:02 PM] Max: I think I've said too much and I have no idea how you are going to summarize all of this into a blog post lmao. [4/23/2014 6:36:37 PM] Max: If you need any screenshots regarding some stuff I talked about, I have plenty of them. [4/23/2014 6:43:09 PM] Alan: tell me a bit about what you have in store for the future [4/23/2014 6:43:46 PM] Max: I'm not too sure about any specifics regarding whats next for me. [4/23/2014 6:43:51 PM] Max: But I'll be around, and time will tell I suppose. [4/23/2014 6:44:04 PM] Max: I'll probably try making more games, and I might try forming a team again after learning from some of my mistakes in the christmas game. [4/23/2014 6:44:44 PM] Alan: how's dev ex changed your mentality about game developoment on roblox? [4/23/2014 6:44:54 PM] Alan: or has it at all? [4/23/2014 6:45:14 PM] Max: Its definitely a motivation [4/23/2014 6:45:26 PM] Max: Don't get me wrong when I say this. [4/23/2014 6:45:37 PM] Max: But I've been around on roblox for 5 years, and I suppose things become tiring after awhile. [4/23/2014 6:45:42 PM] Max: Especially when code becomes more complicated [4/23/2014 6:45:46 PM] Max: And Im putting more stress on myself [4/23/2014 6:46:02 PM] Max: So its nice to get a bonus out of what I do. [4/23/2014 6:46:11 PM] Max: The main thing that drives me is the motivation of the community. [4/23/2014 6:46:23 PM] Max: Just the feeling that someone likes what I've created drives me forward to keep making more. [4/23/2014 6:49:06 PM] Alan: do you think you're going to be a programmer when you grow up? [4/23/2014 6:49:26 PM] Max: Oh yeah, I think I'm going to try pursing this. [4/23/2014 6:49:42 PM] Max: I'm really good with Lua, and I'm currently expanding my horizons to other languages such as Java and C++ [4/23/2014 6:50:01 PM] Max: I'd actually like to try a summer internship at roblox one day if Sorcus be willing. [4/23/2014 6:52:14 PM] Alan: Yeah man. you're extremely well spoken for your age [4/23/2014 6:52:26 PM] Alan: thanks a lot for talking to me about all this [4/23/2014 6:52:29 PM] Max: No problem. It was nice talking to you again. I'll stay in touch ;) |
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sgroff
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| Joined: 04 Jun 2012 |
| Total Posts: 1873 |
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| 26 Apr 2014 03:04 PM |
that's nice, any by nice I mean 109% uninteresting. |
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Abel20032
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iiObey
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| Joined: 25 Oct 2013 |
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| 26 Apr 2014 03:05 PM |
He expects. Us to read all that?
Hi clone. |
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| 26 Apr 2014 03:06 PM |
I wish we had BBCode so I could put all of that into a spoiler. Its about an hour long interview.
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| 26 Apr 2014 03:06 PM |
| clone i thought you knew better to know this isn't yo personal blog |
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| 26 Apr 2014 03:06 PM |
you wasted some time
uh you could play a game |
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Vertial
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| Joined: 22 Jan 2013 |
| Total Posts: 2786 |
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| 26 Apr 2014 03:07 PM |
We get it, your awesome.
Firmly Grasp It |
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| 26 Apr 2014 03:09 PM |
| read most of it. i remeber kool killer :) |
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| 26 Apr 2014 03:09 PM |
tl;dr (To Long Didn't Read) |
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| 26 Apr 2014 03:10 PM |
| read it all, read it all, i actually read it alllll |
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| 26 Apr 2014 03:14 PM |
| I read the whole thing, and I have to say, it's very interesting. Especially the part about the Christmas game. |
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| 26 Apr 2014 03:15 PM |
| I'm really interested in the idea of building modular code, as opposed to what I guess you would call monolithic code. I'm curious as to how that will affect the way games feel when you play them. When you build a game using all new code from scratch, it is bound to have a different feel from a group of games that are built using the same base of code. |
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Sherknock
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| Joined: 07 Oct 2012 |
| Total Posts: 31628 |
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| 26 Apr 2014 03:22 PM |
| This isn't the place to post this kind of stuff lol. |
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BeausaHD
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| Joined: 24 Nov 2012 |
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Solstafir
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