AppTalk - Interview with Tak Fung, Developer of Mini Squadron
by Staff Writer
November 18, 2009
Tak: Just before I was developing for the iPhone, I was a Senior Graphics Coder for Sony London, working on shared 3D engine technology and shaders for the PS3. I had been working in the games industry since I graduated from University in 2001 (oh my days I'm OLD), and even before that when I did an internship with Electronic Arts as a junior coder. You might think I was probably tinkering with computers since an early age (or maybe you don't!) but I wasn't a particularly computer savvy kid - I grew up *playing* games on the NES/Megadrive/SNES rather than *coding* anything until I was actually at university itself at the age of 18. Even though I had a Commodore Amiga I really only used it to play games - I just never got round to buying that AMOS BASIC package but instead spent my paper-round money on games like Syndicate and Cannon Fodder. Since university however, I had progressed on to specialize in Physics, then Special FX, then eventually Graphics coding for games such as the Fable series (1, The Lost Chapters and 2) and The Movies (on PC) - both at Lionhead Studios with Peter Molyneux. After 6 years at Lionhead I then spent some time in Cambridge with a company called Geomerics and helped them on their Real-time Radiosity demo - more graphics wizardry!
After working for so long in big budget games, I decided to take a risk and test myself by going off as a freelance contract coder in the slightly different world of Post Production/High End Graphics. I had a really good time doing that - its always a buzz to be working on TV/Movie productions for the illogical reasoning that you may end up meeting someone half-famous. Through the work and contacts I then built up I eventually ended up at a place called UnitedVisualArtists. They specialize in interactive installations and art pieces utilizing light - with realtime graphics driving a lot of it. It was a great place to be and certainly taught me a lot about breaching the "real world" with tech as opposed to always just pixels on a flat screen! Highlights there included working on the Massive Attack concert lighting in 2008 and also a really cool interactive installation called Array for a museum in Yamaguchi - very random and exciting!
Throughout this time, I was always thinking up stupid ideas for games. Ideas that were amusing or cool or just plain daft, ideas that were simply along the lines of "hey wouldn't it be cool if game X was redone like this?", and having silly conversations about them with friends. These ideas started turning into a mental itch, and I became more and more restless with these things in my head until one day I decided to do something it!
How did you come up with the idea for Mini Squadron. Also how hard was it to turn that idea into a reality, and how long did it take?
Tak: I spoke a bit about this on my devblog, and basically the idea for MiniSquadron came about from the very simple and selfish idea of porting the Amiga game Bip (http://www.allegro.cc/depot/bip/) to the iPhone for my own amusement and education. There was a mad plan to make a game every 4 weeks for the iPhone - and a port/remaster of Bip felt like a good project.
Although the game was utterly rubbish at that point (it even used the Accelerometer for "control") I suddenly had a vision of where I can take this. I started to "get" the iPhone more and more as I developed on it, and as I got more confident, I felt I didn't need to hold back many of my silly ideas. It was about now that I just MAXED OUT on it and basically implemented anything I thought would be cool to do in MY version of Bip. This period of development was brilliant and I learned so much from it. It was extremely hard work - I think at one point I was working 15 hour days/nights - but I knew it would be worth it, and crucially I knew there was no one forcing me to do this and I could stop anytime.
It's hard to explain where the ideas for MiniSquadron comes from. There's always the ideas that come from other games that I played and enjoyed - and also gameplay mechanics in other games that fit the "oh if only this was done like this it would be brilliant" description. Specifically for MiniSquadron - I did enjoy Jetstrike with its many planes to choose from, and I also liked Pokemon - so I started to mash these ideas together to come out with lots of little cute planes. Mostly it's just being very silly and thinking about anything that either amuses me or would be "cool" and talking to friends about it. In particular it was really fruitful brainstorming with Dave Ferner, the artist for the game, about random gameplay ideas/cool things we wanted to see.
As for how long it eventually took, well a bit more than 4 weeks - about 5 months in total in the end!
Why did you choose to develop for the iPhone?
Tak: I chose the iPhone because it was the easiest platform to develop for which could get my ideas out to as many people as possible at the current moment. I was up and running literally in weeks for a modest cost of a second hand mac and the dev license. I want to refute the point where some people are saying that it still costs lots of money to develop for the iPhone as you need to buy a Mac. If you are smart you can always find a cheaper way, and if you want something bad enough you'll always make a way. In my instance I bought a cheap second hand MacThing ( I still don't know what it's called as I'm not interested but apparently it's "The Small One"), moved in with my parents and sacrificed any and all social appointments! The story of 2D Boy and World of Goo was very inspirational for me, as are people who have also developed great games on their own like James Brown with Ancient Frog on iPhone (totally original game!!).
