Q: Can you introduce Sploder to our readers?

Sploder is a social gaming site where users can not only play games, but make their own using an interactive drag and drop game maker. They can share their games on Sploder or embed them on their MySpace profile or blog.

Q: Is the game free to play?

Free as the wind!

Q: What are the minimum requirements for playing the game?

All you need is a web browser with the Flash 8 plugin installed. Oh, and a keyboard.

Q: How many people worked on it and how much time did you invest in the project?

I did it all myself. I've been working on the game itself off and on for the last 2 years. The level editor took about a week to complete.
The site itself took a few weeks.

Q: Can you tell us a bit about you? When did you start enjoying game development? How did it evolve?

I'm a designer and developer with a background in architecture. I've always enjoyed building things, and I love the instant gratification of the web - especially Flash. I started enjoying game development when I built the first version of Zanpo, an online virtual city, first
launched in 1999.

Q: What were the sources of inspiration for the game?

I've always enjoyed Atari games. There was one I played as a kid where you were a ship attacking star bases that had barriers much like the obstacles in my game. Unfortunately I can't remember the name. The inspiration for the missile contrails comes from the new
Battlestar Galactica series.

Q: What is the main game objective?

Most of the time, it's a melee. Destroy all enemies. If users add crystals - a special game objective object - then the object of the game changes to "capture the crystals" - kind of like "capture the flag".

Q: There are various enemies in the game, each one with its own special characteristics. Can you give us more details?

There are three kinds of ships. A Cruiser that fires bullets and missiles, a Speeder that moves very fast and only fires bullets, and a Guard that is pretty much like the cruiser except they stay near their home to guard it.

There are also stand-in-place enemies. Turrets, Missile Launchers, and Mortars. They pretty much do what you think. Mortar shells can go over playfield edges and barriers.

Q: What about the ship weapons?

Your ship has an array of weapons. The bullets, of course, a ray gun, which I use a lot - very effective at close range. Missiles are good for shooting far away things or around corners. Mortar shells are good for taking out targets in other rooms. Finally, there are mines, which are good for clearing swarms or getting rid of tailgaters.

Q: The game features realistic physics and precise collision detection. Can you tell us more about the engine?

Sure. The engine is really the core of the site. It took a very very long time to figure out how to optimize the collision detection to run well with a lot of sprites in the Flash player in AS2. When I started the game, there was no AS3. In fact, it started in AS1 using prototypes and initclips. AS2 was very young at the time.

The system uses several optimization techniques, and is highly optimized. I believe that when I upgrade it to AS3, it will be able to handle very complex war simulations.

Q: Could you also point us to some resources that were helpful during the development? (Articles etc...)

Unfortunately I couldn't find many good resources out there that fit my needs. I looked
at a lot of geometry books, some math sites. Flashkit also has some neat collision detection movies that got me started.

Q: It looks like some of the nice particle effects in the game take advantage of the latest Flash 8 filters. Which one did you use more? Do they hit the performance?

Hah! Fooled you! Those are radial gradients with alpha. They hit performance sometimes. When framerate gets low I turn them off.

Q: The game comes with an online level editor. Can you tell us more about it?

The level editor is loosely based on my Slideroll slideshow creator framework. It's an interactive drag and drop playfield editor that has zooming and panning. I built a system for creating and modifying polygons using the Flash drawing API so playfields could be completely
customized and stretched to any size. There's also instant live testing, so you can test your creations as you work.

Q: Suppose I am new to the website. What are the steps I should follow to start playing the game and create my own maps?

First, you should join so that you can save your creations. Once you join, just click "Make a Game". I recommend playing a few first to get familiar with what the objects do, and to see what others have made. Oh, and don't forget to vote!

Q: How did you handle the server side communication? Xml? Flash remoting?

PHP and XML. Nothing fancy.

Q: What were the main difficulties that you had to overcome during the development?

Time. I did most of this between the hours of 11pm and 3am. I miss sleep! Seriously though, the main difficulties were with the collision detection and optimization. The polygon editor was pretty tough, too.

Q: Can you tell us a little bit about your application design approach? Do you use the paper-and-pencil approach? diagrams? uml?

I use pen and paper - a ballpoint and a Roaring Spring quad-ruled composition book. They are the best.

Q: Flash games are constantly getting more complex as the flash player evolves. Do you use any additional softwares for managing the project? (editors, versioning, debugging tools etc...)

Yes. I use FlashDevelop. I couldn't live without it. It is the best.

Q: Now for the "If only I knew..." question. Is there anything that you wished you had known before, during the development?

I wish I had payed more attention in Trigonometry and Physics class.

Q: A Flash 9 / Actionscript 3 preview is already available. Did you experiment a bit with the new framework? What are your impressions?

Not yet. I'd love to use it, but I wanted this to work in Flash 8. I'm waiting for Flash 9 to become more prominent. It's gaining fast!

Q: What are your future plans for Sploder?

I'm hoping that it catches on with creative types who like playing and making games. I'm going to see how people react to the game, add a few more objects, then spin it off to create different genres. I also want to add more collaborative and multiplayer features. There's a
ton of potential for Sploder!

Thank you very much for your interview. It was great chatting with you!