Sabtu, 24 Maret 2012
I recently had the opportunity to conduct an e-mail interview with Hugo Smits of Goodbye Galaxy Games! You may be familiar with some of his DSiWare games; these games being Flipper and its sequel Flush the Goldfish. I contacted Mr. Smits after the release of the Ace Mathician trailer to see if I could find out a bit more about the game. Hope you enjoy this interview!
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Hi Hugo! I wanted to thank you for taking time out of your schedule to answer a few questions about Ace Mathician. I just recently ran into the trailer for the game and must say, it is a very intriguing concept. I knew I just had to hit you up for an interview, and here we are!
Play Nintendo: Ace Mathician is your latest DSiWare Game. Can you briefly explain what Ace Mathician is about for our readers?
Goodbye Galaxy Games: It’s a puzzle platform game where you can change the levels to your advantage by using math!
Most people don’t like math in school.. so why like it now ? well first off, there’s no wrong answers in this game! Anything you can come up with will have an effect on the world.
If you can’t find the right solution, you can make up with your mad Mario skills by jumping and running!
On the bottom screen you will see 4 buttons/symbols. Those are the symbols you can use to create a formula with. You can only use a symbol once in a formula. Because of this, you will have some freedom in creating your own thing, but at the same time the scope stays limited. This means you can also guess the formula quite easy.
And of course you can reset the formula and try again as much as you like!
PN: Could you tell us a bit about how you came up with the idea for Ace Mathician?
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| One of many possible solutions to obtain the fruit! |
GGG: I was trying to figure out why I liked math so much! I hated it in school, REALLY hated it. So how come I enjoy it now so much in game programming ?
I think it’s because game programming makes things visual! Also, there isn’t really a wrong answer. Everything I enter in will have an effect (maybe not the effect I wanted).
And I saw how this was similar to art class. I mean, if the teacher asked you to draw what you did over the weekend.. everybody could do that! Sure, not everybody had the talent to become a artist at Disney or something.. but they could draw. It was impossible to do that assignment wrong!
And that’s what I tried to do in Ace Mathician. Every formula you can enter will have an effect! And the math will be visible! On top of that, you can use your oldskool super Mario platform skills by running and jumping. So if you can’t place a platform in the right position to cover a pit, jump over the pit!
PN: Using Math as one of the main gameplay mechanics is a bold choice, but was it the first choice when you started developing this game?
GGG: Yes, I want to make math a fun thing to do. It works really good in this game, it’s almost impossible to get yourself stuck.
At the bottom of the screen you have 4 buttons/symbols you can use those symbols to create a formula with. You can only use each symbol once per formula. So you have some freedom in creating the formula, but the scope stays limited enough that even really casual players don’t get lost!
PN: This is a unique, fun and intelligent application of Math in video games, but how do you think it will be received by gamers?
GGG: Everybody is interested [in the] concept, not everybody likes the concept. Most gamers don’t like math! But in this game it’s really different. There’s no wrong answer, anything you can come up with will work!
And you can always make up with your platform skills!
PN: Will the game be solely controlled with the stylus?
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| Puzzles will become more complex as you progress in Ace Mathician |
PN: Will the game be solely controlled with the stylus?
GGG: No, you enter the math formula at the bottom with your stylus. The platforming part is with the buttons and d-pad.
PN: Apart from the mathematic functions, are there any other gameplay mechanics that we can expect?
GGG: There’s a lot of platforming involved. And there are quite some cool puzzles to solve with the math. Especially in the later levels when the monkey enemies get introduced.
PN: Is there anything else you’d like to add?
GGG: I would really like to thank all the gamers that have bought my games and supported me! It really means a lot to me. I work day and night in a small dark room to complete these titles, but it’s all worth it once I see other people play my games!
If you would like to learn more about my games for DSi-Ware or for 3DS-Ware you can follow me here:
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I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Hugo once again for providing us a little insight on his new DSiWare game Ace Mathician! You should also check out the official Ace Mathician website to learn even more about the game.
I'd like to take this opportunity to thank Hugo once again for providing us a little insight on his new DSiWare game Ace Mathician! You should also check out the official Ace Mathician website to learn even more about the game.
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