Interview No. 180

Interview By: @The-Great-One

Patreon Post Date: Mar 16, 2022

Every tenth interview we touch on an underrated, deserving, or up-and-coming talent on the site. This interview will be no different. Today's guest has been a huge hit on the site with their works on Olive's Art-Venture, Wordly Defence, and recenlty 360 Degrees. Their first entry on Newgrounds was also their first Daily Feature win, Gun Knight (by Stepford). I am most pleased and privileged to welcome @Stepford.

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]

Q: How did you find Newgrounds and why did you join?

A: When I was around 10 to 12, I was a huge fan of the animated content that would make its way to Youtube. Madness Combat, Eddsworld, Happy Tree Friends, etc. I remember sitting in after school care in the computer lab in primary school where a lot of websites were blocked including Youtube. My friend had found a way around it though, by going to Bing and searching for the titles of videos and then using the embedded Bing player they had for the video links. That's where we would show each other these cartoons and I specifically remember watching SKYRIM IS EPIC by psychicpebbles. We were too poor to have internet at home, so I would try and get in after school care as often as I could to use the internet they had. On the laptops they let us take home, it had a copy of Flash so I tried making my own clone of Eddsworld that had all of my own friends instead of the main cast. I remember exporting it but having trouble uploading it to Youtube ( probably because it was a flash file instead of an MP4 but I was too much of a stupid child to figure that out. ) With my love for all the previously mentioned media that also had its roots embedded in Newgrounds culture AND conveniently needing a website that I could upload FLA files to, I'm sure it's no surprise that I'd eventually register an account here.

In the Newgrounds dump, there are still some files that I uploaded back when I was a stupid little goblin child. This was one of the characters for the Eddsworld clone. This was when I would have been 13 when this was uploaded.

Q: What was the first video game you ever played?

A: I remember being at my dad's place when I was around 7 or 8. Nobody was in the house except my stepmother who I disliked at the time. My dad had gone to work and I can't remember if I was crying because I missed him or because I wanted to go home to my actual mum's place. Either way, my stepmum asked me if I wanted to play on the Playstation 2 to make me feel better. She put in "Men In Black II: Alien Escape", and I remember it being that because the loading logo practically drilled into my brain. I was holding onto the controller, heart racing. I had watched my older brother and dad play the Playstation, but never had it all to myself. Watching the logo spin over and over... and nothing happened. The game just didn't load. I watched it spin for about 10 minutes before knocking on my Stepmum's door and telling her that nothing was happening. She then put in "Futurama" for the PS2 and I specifically remember trying to hit literally everything with the hammer. I also remember how difficult it was to move around in a 3D space with an analog. I was sliding against the walls to move where I wanted to go and I don't think I even got anywhere in the game, but I remember it being so fun I could feel my chest expanding and lowering.

Q: What inspired you towards being a game developer?

A: I really wanted to be a porn artist initially. Having free access to the internet at such a young age infected my brain with all kinds of maggots. At the time, I looked up to people like Spazkid, Shadman and ZONE. The fact they were so artistically talented that they could SURVIVE off drawing hot ladies sounded like the perfect career choice. (The brain of a 15 year old is a very rudimentary one. (I'm going to be 22 this year.)) I remember buying a WACOM tablet and trying my best to become an artist. I would have tutorials playing on one side of my screen with a pirated copy of Paint Tool SAI on the other. I tried to draw just about everything but it honestly felt like trying to light a match on a windy day. There would be times when a drawing would start out amazing, or there would be glimmers of something I really liked - and then POOF. Gone. Unsalvageable. I would trace over other artist's works with my own changes, remove their layer and feel tears form in my eyes as I looked upon the monstrosity I had created. Even while cheating, it was impossible for me.

This trend continued in my other mediums as well. I tried to learn piano but could just barely follow along with the simplest of Youtube tutorials. Learning very little about playing the piano, rather just learning how to play specific notes in a specific way to make it KINDA sound like this one song. I might as well have been playing Guitar Hero instead. I tried all kinds of creative mediums but anything I would make would disappoint me so much that I no longer wanted to attempt it. 

I was in Year 9 at High School when I attended an IT class, where I would be learning how to make games in Gamemaker 8. I was familiar with Gamemaker 8 because years and years ago my older brother had also gone through this class, taking the program from the school computers and putting it on our home computer. I watched him make a platformer once and I drew the sprites for it. It was called 'SuperFly' and it had Superfly by Curtis Mayfield playing in the background. From that experience, I was familiar with the interface and I was able to make games faster than other people in the class. I enjoyed using the program so much that I would do class work at home and show my teacher/friends the next day. 

Even though I was bad at it (just like drawing/music/etc), this time it was different. I didn't hate my creations despite them being bad. Even though they were buggy, awful and downright UGLY, they were still games to me. When I drew poorly, it wasn't art to me. When I played poorly, it wasn't music to me. But coding poorly didn't make it any less of a game. My friends would laugh and were excited to try my games. That's what made this medium click for me. I had been on this super long and depressing journey of hatred and self doubt, but I finally made it to the ending. And I haven't looked back! That feeling of watching someone else play my games has never left me, hearing their reaction to the little details. There is nothing like it. Why am I on this Earth if it's not to leave a positive feeling in the minds of my friends? The fact that I can make them experience something with nothing but my bare hands, a computer and enough time, it's fucking magic!!! I don't care if nobody remembers my name when I die. I don't care if my obliterated corpse is never recovered and nobody learns what happened to me. As long as there is a singular person out there who plays something I made, and it provokes them. It makes them think that they can make something. That they WANT to make something. Just like how other games inspire me every day, that butterfly effect is nitrous in my fucking veins.

Q: You have a Bachelor's Degree in Game Design. What school did you attend?

A: I don't have a bachelors YET. I'm currently studying at SAE in Melbourne. I hope to have my bachelors by the end of this year. I put that on my profile just to show what I am currently occupying myself with study-wise and don't doubt that I will get that bachelors... with enough time. It's difficult to stay focused on studying while things have been prolific online. Why do I need to learn how to make games when I am already doing it, y'know? But I need that piece of paper. I need to show my family that this isn't just me sitting in front of a computer for nothing. 10 follows, 100 follows, 1000 follows, hundreds of thousands of views. It means nothing to people outside of the space. But that piece of paper will mean a lot.

Q: When Butzbo was here, we talked about the education Newgrounds members attain from school versus Newgrounds. What would you say the differences are?

A: As someone who dropped out of highschool, uni has been incredibly useful for me in terms of my skills as a person rather than a creative. Setting deadlines, waking up at the right time every day, eating well, good hygiene. If it wasn't for uni, I'd waste away. I'd sit in the corner of my dark room in front of a screen, living off of delivered food - sleeping at 11 AM and waking up at 9PM. I still struggle with that stuff but uni forces me to try and be better. I've heard stories about drunks who still manage to make their way home every night because they have a dog/cat that needs feeding. Even if we'd rather just live our lives as hedonistic sloths who do whatever the hell we want, it's useful to have promises we must abide by. Rules we set for ourselves don't mean squat without consequences and I don't want to fail my classes (any more than I already have) so I gotta kick myself up the ass and continue to try to be a contributing member of society.

Newgrounds is where you find people who are interested in the same things you are and have the same creative drive. If I need someone to make music for my game, I can rely on a member of Newgrounds more than someone I've met in person simply due to the fact that this Newgrounds member will be making music every day REGARDLESS of whether it's on my project or not. Due to the much smaller pool of possible people you're able to meet in real life, it's unlikely that they will be as skilled and self motivated as someone you can DM online. They're there to learn, but it hasn't consumed their life yet. Newgrounds is full of people who have found their ignition and you can truly make something special when you're both on the same wavelength. And of course, due to the nature of it being an online platform - you need to learn how to market yourself. Use proper capitalization, use aesthetically pleasing formatting, inviting people to follow you and your content. It's the kind of stuff being in a classroom doesn't teach you, you just need to jump into the water and drown in it. Choke on the water, lights becoming stars, vision turning colors. Are you going to die or are you going to start trying all kinds of things until you start lifting back to the surface? Classrooms wont put you in those situations.

Q: Your first submission to the Portal and your first Daily Feature win would be for Gun Knight (by Stepford). What can you tell us about this game? Looking back on it, what would you have done differently if you made it today?

A: I had played Friday Night Funkin on Newgrounds a few days prior to posting it onto the website. In my mind, Itch.io was the only viable online gaming platform - but here I was, getting addicted to a game on Newgrounds, a website I hadn't used in ages! I had never successfully built a game for HTML5 because Gamemaker 1.4 was so rife with bugs for the online platform. It took a lot of guesswork and finagling. But I was determined!!! I wanted to try and get my games online rather than being downloadable. I took my most popular game on Itch.io, that being Gun Knight and spent 4 hours trying to make an online build for it.

Gun Knight was a game I had made when I lived out in the Bendigo bush. I had ran away from my mother's home and was living with a friend whose parents bought a plot of land in the outback. I didn't have a job and I wasn't studying. They were just letting me live there because they felt bad for me. There was rarely hot water and I would wake up with bats or massive spiders near my bed. I applied for a few different unis but I would have to go in person on different days, so I spent a LOT of time on the train between Bendigo and the middle of Melbourne while applying for these schools. The only thing I had on me at the time was my phone so I would write down game ideas on these super long train trips. I remember writing something like "vertical resolution, it's kinda like gungeon but the runs are way shorter. just move upwards. roguelike item hoarder but items change gun parts rather than the character." I got home from being in Melbourne that day and told my roommate all about the idea and they were like "Go on then." encouraging me sarcastically. I got a build of the game running the very next day. You could only change between three triggers and it only had slime enemies, but the shooting was already feeling good. 

It was my first game to get any attention, as it received a banner position on Gamejolt after it had officially released. It got lots of views and downloads on Itch as well. It motivated me to keep updating the game. I showed the game to the representatives at SAE, and despite me not passing Highschool, they let me on an "Experience Based Entry". So I have Gun Knight to thank for me getting into school as well! The game only had one boss originally, but I came back a year later to add two extra ones and a lot of new items.

About half a year after that is when I started working on the HTML5 build for the game to upload to Newgrounds, and I would never have guessed how many more eyes would see it once a web version had been uploaded. It still gets about 1.5k views daily on Itch, which is insane because I had never had a game go over 200 views in total prior to posting games for the web platform. Just the fact that Tom Fulp had seen it made me go crazy. Those 4 hours I spent making a web build was the greatest decision of my entire life. In terms of minimum input to returned output, nothing will ever top what I got out of posting that game to Newgrounds and I will be forever thankful. I have been the happiest I have ever been all of my life since that day.

The one thing I would change about the game is the art. It's so disgusting. So many different mismatching styles and sprite sizes and color palettes. It's vile. When you aren't an artist and you're a small fry, nobody will collaborate with you. You either have to suck it up and use your own crappy drawings or use free art packs from across the internet. Gun Knight used some of those and I truly hate looking at the game because of that fact. Nowadays, I do the art all myself or I get a friend to collaborate with - something I'm so thankful to be in the position to do.

Q: When Piconjo made his return, a holiday for him came with it. You would participate with Piconjo: AFK. Why a fishing tycoon game?

A: I really wanted to make an idle game and just apply as much juice as possible. The next holiday didn't really matter too much to me. I'm sure if Clock Day was up next, we would have got Strawberry Clock AFK instead. Piconjo being the main character worked extra well due to his inherent hatred for traditional Newgrounds culture, so him fishing them out/exploding them didn't seem too random. And due to the fact he had been gone for so long, the whole "GONE FISHING" thing just worked. So it could have been any character, but I'm glad it was Piconjo.

[ PART 1 | PART 2 ]