Planet Freeplay Interview.

[fog]

Is up.  As usual Mike gets the last word

http://www.planetfreeplay.com/interview/10/

Date: 2006-02-24
Title: Binary Zoo, the creators of D U O and mono.
 
WELCOME TO THE ZOO

There is no doubt many of you have heard of D U O and mono. For those who love the innovative approach and haven’t encountered these superb creations, I suggest you do so. Binary Zoo are the group responsible and I must say that their creations grabbed my attention from the time I laid my eyes on them. I have spent countless hours playing their games and will probably spend countless more. Aside from having stand-out gameplay, they also manage to have jaw-droppingly crisp, colourful and stylish visuals to boot. This interview has been a long time coming. So let’s get straight to it! Read on and enjoy…

Moshboy: Introduce yourselves to the readers..

CHRIS: Hi, I'm Chris Jeffels and, having been reminded how old the rest of the team are, I'm now feeling very, very old (35 for the record). I live in Newcastle, England where I'm a full time draughtsman and very part time coder.

LAURI: Well, my real name is Lauri Suoperä (have fun pronouncing that!) and I'm 21. I'm a student at the Turku University of Applied Sciences in Finland, even though I'm sort of a wannabe-graphics designer.

AARON: My name is Aaron Frensley and I'm 20 years old. I am a composer and the co-founder of FKD Reality, the group (if you can call two people a group) that does all of the original music for Binary Zoo games. I am currently attending my local college full time and working on a Masters certificate in music production at Berklee Music online.

MIKE: My name is Michael R. King, I'm 18 years old (the kid of the zoo) and the other half of FKD Reality, studying engineering at college (ranging from mechanics, electronics, 3d architectural design etc, etc.)

MOBEEN: Hi, my name is Mobeen Fikree, but everyone calls me Mo. I'm 19 years old and am studying Computer Science at the University of Waterloo.

Moshboy: How did you meet and form Binary Zoo? Do you all communicate purely over the web or do any of you live close to each other?

CHRIS: We had known each other for some time before we joined together as we were all members of the same development forum. When I first joined I remember commenting on some projects Lauri had posted (we really must get him coding again), then when I was working on DUO he returned the favour, giving me some great constructive feedback. Soon afterwards I hassled him into agreeing to help me out with some graphics. He's never said anything but I guess it must be pretty frustrating working with me at times. I have a pretty clear vision of how I want things to look and that usually involves simple geometric shapes meaning he rarely gets the opportunity to show off his true graphical skills. Hopefully we can address that in the future.

Anyway around the time I was finalizing DUO I finally came to the realization that writing my own music was out of the question on account of me being both tone deaf and utterly talentless. This resulted in a desperate plea on the forum which, luckily for me, Aaron answered providing the thumping soundtrack.

Later Aaron teamed up with Mike to form FK'D Reality Compositions (available for births, weddings and funerals) with Mike providing the music for mono.

More recently I was play testing something for Mobeen when I found out he also coded in a couple of other languages, most notably Java. I'd wanted versions of our games written for mobiles for quite some time as I thought they'd convert well so asked if he'd be interested in helping out. He agreed and the results so far are way better than I imagined was possible. So good I've wasted valuable development time doing some intensive mobile "testing".

Right now we do most of our communicating through our own development forums with a regular get together on MSN.

Moshboy: If there was one game that you felt that inspired you to start coding games what was it?

LAURI: There was never any one game that inspired me to code, just a bunch of really bad ones.

MOBEEN: I'm not very sure. Although I distinctly remember being stunned by both Prince of Persia and Super Mario World.

CHRIS: I'd say growing up in the 80's I was more excited and inspired by the constant high quality output of developers like Jeff Minter and Andrew Braybrook than any specific games. They certainly influence a lot of what I'm trying to do now. Other than that, what Lauri said.

Moshboy: Who comes up with the ideas for the games or is it a group effort? Where do your ideas come from – any specific influences? Were Tetris and Columns big influences on D U O tris?

CHRIS: Most of the gameplay ideas just come through experimentation, putting a twist on an established genre, not being afraid to try something a little different and the occasional big slice of luck.

Let's be honest, it would be pointless us knocking out clones or copies of other games as our version would undoubtedly be inferior so we have to do things a little differently. Plus even the thought of actually doing a clone or copy of an existing game bores me silly.

DUO was a case of me getting back into coding after a break of many years and wanting an excuse to throw loads of things around on screen (just because of the relatively awesome power I now had at my fingertips since my days coding on the Vic20, C64 & Amiga). What better way than to have 2 of everything? I wasn't sure the dual screens idea would work as I thought it may be impossible to concentrate on both at once but a quick demo proved even my aged brain could cope.

DUOtris obviously takes more than a little influence from Tetris among others but I think the dual play screens added enough of a twist to justify doing it. I'd like to claim it was a genius flash of inspiration but in truth it was just the logical progression from DUO. Having proved that the "dual" concept worked transferring the idea to a puzzle game seemed obvious.

mono was equal parts experimentation and luck. I only wrote it to test out some routines I was working on for another as yet still incomplete game. The coloured background was intended to be nothing more than a fancy effect but I soon realized it could be the focus of the game with the result that it changed the gameplay noticeably. Even then as I considered it nothing more than a demo, we nearly didn't release it which, based on the feedback we've been getting, would have been a big mistake. Inspired by this we're currently working on what I would call the proper version. With different game styles, different levels and a boat load of different enemies and a fancy new background routine. In fact pretty much every routine has been rewritten.

Although I have come up with the basic ideas behind the games I don't write design docs or do a great deal of planning so the development process tends to be very fluid allowing for everyone to have some input. I might not always agree with what the others have to say but 99% of the time I know they will turn out to be right. That's where having people around you whose opinions you trust and respect is essential.

LAURI: I think Chris deserves the most credit for the ideas. I may throw some ideas in the mix but usually he has thought of them already. A Lot of things can influence our games, but I think we might not even know where the influences come from.

AARON: We all try to throw in ideas from time to time, but Chris is really the mastermind behind all of the games.

MIKE: Would have to agree to say Chris is the main melting pot.

MOBEEN: This is definitely Chris! He's really the designer behind our games.

Moshboy: Did any of you complete any projects before you formed Binary Zoo?

CHRIS: No. Although I'd coded on and off for 20 years (more off than on) I'd never completed anything of any worth and, reasonably, some people might argue I still haven't. DUO was my first proper game. It took a painful 6 months and after the first month I was seriously beginning to regret not tackling something sensible like Tic-Tac-Toe first.

LAURI: I had a bunch of semi-finished projects before joining, but I never got around finishing them.

AARON: Most of the projects I wrote music for before I joined Binary Zoo never got finished, unfortunately.

MIKE: Lots of semi-completed games.. music wise, loads and a fair share of software.

MOBEEN: I have a little under a dozen completed projects under my belt, but nothing very impressive.

Moshboy: What was development like on games such as Mono and D U O – was it generally smooth sailing or were there any hick-ups along the way?

CHRIS: We'd love to make out it's a difficult, often torturous process but it's not. I don't think we have had any real problems that I can remember. Lack of time is our only real enemy.

We just try something, if it doesn't work for whatever reason then we just drop it and try something else. Boring answer but true.

Moshboy: Do you plan your projects or is the end result a lot different from what you envisioned?

CHRIS: Hmm. I'm getting better but it's fair to say that as a project planner I'm pretty hopeless. I must be a nightmare to work with for the other guys at times.

My design process and often the extent of our "design document" is to fire up Paint Shop Pro and produce a single rough image of what I want the game to look like highlighting all the gameplay elements. If I'm feeling particularly creative I might even open up notepad and jot down a few additional comments. I believe this makes me a bad games designer.

I love developing the games like this though as it allows you to be a lot more creative, adding or removing elements as you go along. It's all part of the fun. I'd see a proper design doc as very restrictive.

Moshboy: Do you guys get time to play any games? What type of games are you typically into? Anything from the independent scene?

CHRIS: I think we all struggle to find time to play as much as we'd like, juggling real life, coding and gaming. When I do find time I'm loving the XBox360 or more specifically X-Box Live Arcade right now, Geometry Wars 2 being an obvious highlight. Also I'm really enjoying the PSP (Katamari Damacy, multi-player Burnout, Lumines) and the DS too (Meteos, Animal Crossing) as they allow me to grab some valuable gaming time at work... purely at lunch time obviously.

Not forgetting checking out Kenta Cho's latest and gems like Every Extend, Warning Forever and of course Gridrunner++

LAURI: These days I usually don't have much time to play any games. The latest game I played was Civ4 - but it was just too addicting. I had to stop playing after I found myself clicking the 'next turn' button at 4 am.

Finland had a very strong demo and game dev scene in the late nineties so I did play my share of indie games.

AARON: I play lots of different games, but my current favorites are Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid (all 3) and Resident Evil 4.

MIKE: I think the only game I bother to play anymore is "Operation Flashpoint : Cold War Crisis" online.. or perhaps "Emperor : Rise of the middle kingdom"

MOBEEN: I don't get time to play games, I make time! As for what type of games I'm into ... I'm into games. Any kind, as long as it's good.

Lately I've been playing Ikaruga (DC), Rez (DC), Mario & Luigi : Partners in Time (NDS), Meteos (NDS) and Lumines (PSP).

I'm in to the indie scene as well. I've been having a blast with Rag Doll Kung Fu.

Moshboy: Top. 5 videogames – who likes what best and why?

CHRIS: Elite - Free roaming gameplay still not bettered.

Rez - More of an amazing audio visual experience than a game.

FFVII - I was just drawn in by the story more than any other game before or since.

Gridrunner - The original version was the first game that really made me go "wow" and arguably got me hooked on gaming and coding.

Paradroid - I continue to play it after some 20 years but I still can't quite put my finger on why it works so brilliantly.

LAURI: The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind - This game stole 1½ years of my life!

Fallout 2 - This is just pure gold. Best rpg I've ever played.

Indigo Prophecy / Fahrenheit - Under appreciated modern game that combined a good movie script and a game into interactive drama.

Adom - Legendary text-based dungeon hack. The level of detail in this game has always amazed me.

Triplanes - a classic Finnish freeware game. Best multiplayer game on a single computer.

MIKE: Not in any particular order:

Halo 2 : Graphics and gameplay inspire me.

SplinterCell : Same as above.

Worms 3D : Because its worms that blow each other up! Who wouldn’t love that?

Operation Flashpoint - Cold War Crisis : Incredible gameplay online.

Doom : Who wouldn’t?

MOBEEN: 1) Grim Fandango -- simply the greatest game ever written. Amazing art style, witty dialogue and a storyline that grips you right from the start. No matter how many times I play this game, there's always something new I notice, and it never fails to blow me away.

2) Half Life 2 -- most exciting FPS I've ever played. Most get dull after a couple of hours, but HL2 threw something new at you at an alarmingly fast rate. And then there was the storyline that was told completely in first-person view, without Gordon uttering a word.

3) Psychonauts -- Everything I loved about Schafer's last game (Grim Fandango) is present in Psychonauts. The story isn't quite as strong as Grim Fandango's, but the levels are so damn inventive that it more than makes up for it!

4) Worms Armageddon -- the pinnacle of the series. Blowing up worms has never been this fun, or this strategic.

5) Rez -- Music based, shooty bliss! This is one of those games where the experience makes the game.

What's in the pipeline for you guys? Anything you'd like to share about new projects that you are working on?

CHRIS: Well apart from the previously mentioned full version of mono and hopefully mobile versions of our 3 games to date, we have a bunch of other projects in hand. Quite a few of the more experimental ones will probably never make it past the demo stage (but then I said the same about mono) but some like a sequel, in the very loosest meaning of the word, to DUO will definitely be released.

I'd rather not say too much about the others but we certainly aren't short of ideas. Whether they are actually any good though is another matter.

MIKE: No secrets, just surprises.

Our thanks to Steve.

[Michael_King]

Available for weddings?? 

[fog]

Available for weddings?? 

lol.  So you're still up for the births and funerals then? 

[AaronF]

hell yes we're available for funerals.

[SiN]

Cool ! 

Predictably, I rambled on the longest about our favourite videogames.

And for the "what videogames inspired you" question, I really should have had an answer similar to Chris ... I remember from a young age that the names "Bullfrog", "Maxis" and "Epic Megagames" meant QUALITY. Played whatever they made, and was rarely disappointed.

Who is this "Andrew Braybrook" fellow then? The name sounds familiar, but I'm not sure what he did.


Mo

[fog]

Who is this "Andrew Braybrook" fellow then? The name sounds familiar, but I'm not sure what he did.

You don't know who Braybrook is?  Well I guess you have a reasonable excuse as he was around before you were born (I assume you know there is a mini tribute to both Braybrook and Minter on our webpages?)

He did a load of great stuff in the good times when one man pretty much did everything.  Check out Uridium which for it's time was pretty sensational and Paradroid which, IMO, still feels fresh now and needs a PSP or DS remake.

[SiN]

You don't know who Braybrook is?  Well I guess you have a reasonable excuse as he was around before you were born (I assume you know there is a mini tribute to both Braybrook and Minter on our webpages?)

I've done a fair share of reading up on 80s developers and such ... I know quite a few names, but yeah, Braybook had me lost. Except now that you mentioned Paradroid, I still have that "Birth of a Paradroid" link on my desktop you gave me a long time ago!   Wasn't aware of which of our games he influenced though ... by the looks of it, it was DUO, wasnt it?

He did a load of great stuff in the good times when one man pretty much did everything.  Check out Uridium which for it's time was pretty sensational and Paradroid which, IMO, still feels fresh now and needs a PSP or DS remake.

Which system is best for each game? I've got a PSP thats been itching for some emulated goodness!


Mo

[fog]

Except now that you mentioned Paradroid, I still have that "Birth of a Paradroid" link on my desktop you gave me a long time ago!   

It's a great read.  Even if a lot of the stuff he's talking about doesn't apply now some of the little tricks he mentions to save a couple of bytes are great

Wasn't aware of which of our games he influenced though ... by the looks of it, it was DUO, wasnt it?

Not really. Looks and gameplay wise I've definately been influenced by Yak more than anyone else.  I don't think there are any real similarities between Braybrook games and ours.

What I liked about Braybrook, and where he has a lot in comon with Minter, was how different his stuff was to everyone elses.  Minters stuff was way out there and Braybrooks was just so polished, playable and had some lovely original elements.

Uridium used bass relief graphics long before everyone else started using them.  Nailing the control of the craft so you could swoop between the buildings was hugely satisfying.

The way you hijacked other robots in Paradroid was pretty stunning at a time too when every other shooter was a straight Defender, Gorf or if you were lucky R-Type clone.  The transfer mini-game is still brilliantly simple but you can never fully master it.  And unusually even the updated version for the Amiga is really good.

Then you get some of his other stuff like the platforming brilliance of Gribblys or the scale of Morpheous.  A shmup where you could bolt pieces onto your spaceship until it was half the size of the screen.  Sadly the technology wasn't up to it at the time so it was incredibly hard to play.  A lovely if flawed piece of design. (Trivia: I have a part written game which was going to be a cross between Morpeous & Elite in my projects folder)

Which system is best for each game? I've got a PSP thats been itching for some emulated goodness!

Not sure what you'll make of them but they should run without any problems on the PSP with the C64 emulator.  (I run mine on the Zodiac so I have to admit I haven't tried PSP emu stuff for months)

[SiN]

It's a great read.  Even if a lot of the stuff he's talking about doesn't apply now some of the little tricks he mentions to save a couple of bytes are great

Ha, says you! Here's the beauty of optimization : it's *always* needed. When everyone was saying "ASM is useless, dont learn it" along came pixel shaders that (at the time) could only be coded ASM. When people said memory optimization wasn't required, games like Republic and Black & White came around which were only possible because of all those crazy optimizations ...

... and hell, saving a "couple of bytes" is very, very relevant to what we're doing ... think DUOtris mobile ... you know how I store blocks?

Code:

block[x][y] = colour + (powerup << 4);

BAM! One byte used instead of two.

Not really. Looks and gameplay wise I've definately been influenced by Yak more than anyone else.

Well then what was this about?

I assume you know there is a mini tribute to both Braybrook and Minter on our webpages?

I assumed you were talking about our games.

You're gonna kill me but ...

Uridium used bass relief graphics long before everyone else started using them

Wozzat?

The way you hijacked other robots in Paradroid was pretty stunning at a time too when every other shooter was a straight Defender, Gorf or if you were lucky R-Type clone.  The transfer mini-game is still brilliantly simple but you can never fully master it.  And unusually even the updated version for the Amiga is really good.

Then you get some of his other stuff like the platforming brilliance of Gribblys or the scale of Morpheous.  A shmup where you could bolt pieces onto your spaceship until it was half the size of the screen.  Sadly the technology wasn't up to it at the time so it was incredibly hard to play.  A lovely if flawed piece of design. (Trivia: I have a part written game which was going to be a cross between Morpeous & Elite in my projects folder)

All of that sounds very, very cool.

Not sure what you'll make of them but they should run without any problems on the PSP with the C64 emulator.  (I run mine on the Zodiac so I have to admit I haven't tried PSP emu stuff for months)

Gonna do this when I get home today ... very excited!   I'll let you know what I think of em too (that, along with Darwinia & Electroplankton ) ... hell, if I like em enuff I may be inspired to write my own shmup


Mo

[fog]

Ha, says you! Here's the beauty of optimization : it's *always* needed.

lol.  I wasn't implying that optimization wasn't needed anymore just some of the funky methods he used.  Like little tricks to get around the fact the max number of sprites you can have on screen is 8

I assume you know there is a mini tribute to both Braybrook and Minter on our webpages?

I assumed you were talking about our games.

Nope it is and always has been in the footer of every page (excluding the Forum ).  Nobody else knows it's there but I do and that's what's important

Uridium used bass relief graphics long before everyone else started using them

Wozzat?

Technical name to describe 2D gfx that look 3Dish.  After Uridium everyone had an obsession with it (it was probably the 80's equivalent of cell-shading )  Which sounds pretty easy now but back then they could only use 3 colours (you had a fixed palette of 16 colours)

http://homepages.tesco.net/~parsonsp/html/uridium.html

yeah they look poor now but there's some impressive variety there for just 16 colours.

Gonna do this when I get home today ... very excited!   I'll let you know what I think of em too (that, along with Darwinia & Electroplankton ) ... hell, if I like em enuff I may be inspired to write my own shmup

Cool.  Some have probably aged very very badly but to fully appreciate them you have to compare them to what everyone else was doing at the time.

Minters stuff still holds up pretty well IMO and some of it is perfect handheld gaming fodder.

EDIT:
When did you get Electroplankton?  Be very interested in your views

[SiN]

lol.  I wasn't implying that optimization wasn't needed anymore just some of the funky methods he used.  Like little tricks to get around the fact the max number of sprites you can have on screen is 8

Ah yeah, thats true. In that sense I totally agree with you, its useless stuff, but it's so damn cool!

That's what I hate about PC development ... you can't do crazy hacks like that because it will almost certainly not work the same way on all systems. Although admittingly, even if I was doing console development, I don't think I'd be smart enuff to pull off some of the more insane hacks.

Nope it is and always has been in the footer of every page (excluding the Forum ).  Nobody else knows it's there but I do and that's what's important

LOL!   Just took a looksie in paint ... very cool!

Technical name to describe 2D gfx that look 3Dish.  After Uridium everyone had an obsession with it (it was probably the 80's equivalent of cell-shading )  Which sounds pretty easy now but back then they could only use 3 colours (you had a fixed palette of 16 colours)

Yeah, that is impressive.

Cool.  Some have probably aged very very badly but to fully appreciate them you have to compare them to what everyone else was doing at the time.

Minters stuff still holds up pretty well IMO and some of it is perfect handheld gaming fodder.

Well, you always have to look at these things with the understanding that its not gonna be quite as impressive as todays games. The graphics I find pretty easy to get over, but it's alot harder to get over things like shoddy collision detection.

Last I tried some of Minters 80s stuff, I didn't come away too impressed. This was when I'd just heard of Unity and wanted to see all his stuff. I wasn't quite into shmups at the time though, so I get the feeling if I check out all the stuff now, I'll appreciate it much better. Recommendations?

When did you get Electroplankton?  Be very interested in your views

I got it along with Lumines ... none of the EB Games had either in stock, but VideoGamesPlus had em both, so I drove there and blew $90 in a matter of minutes. I took off the wrapping on plankton a couple of weeks ago ... most impressed. I can see what your saying about there not being enough, and the fact that theres no save is kinda annoying (im guessing it was to keep cartridge manufacturing costs low). But its absolutely great ... play it more-or-less every night before going to bed, and on the streetcar trip to work ... very theriputic


Mo

[EricT]

Do you mind if I legally change my name to Mobeen? Thats a kick ass name.

Hmm, and Aaron didn't get a chance to name off his top5 games, though I could probably guess what they are:

Silent Hill 2
MGS 3
Silent Hill
MGS
MGS 2

How close am I? Haha.

[AaronF]

well I did list my favorites in one of the questions, lol.

[SiN]

Do you mind if I legally change my name to Mobeen? Thats a kick ass name.

Literally, LOL!

Thanks ... we'd have issues around here though ... I'm sure we could be called Mobeen and Mobeen2 or "The Original Mobeen" and you'd be Mobeen.

FYI, it's an Arabic/Pakistani name ... and a rare one too. I've never actually met another Mobeen ... would be surreal to work on the same team as one


Mo

[fog]

I've never actually met another Mobeen ... would be surreal to work on the same team as one

Well we do work on the same team as one....and trust me, it is surreal (and a few other words i could think of)