Stick War Developer Interview

This game has been in the making for at least 3 - 4 years! Long ago I wanted to make this game but I did not have the ability programming wise, I asked twoDimensinalArray if he wanted to help me get the job done and we set out to make a game which would be almost a part 2 of Champion Archer with a lot more to do. However 2Darray became very busy with other projects and felt like he had to walk away from this one before we got off the ground. It must have been at least a year of the project sitting around with no one to breathe life into it until I asked my good online friend Brock if he was interested in taking on the massive task of programming Stick War. It seemed to be perfect because Brock had been wanting to make a game very similar but was just as pathetic at art as I was at programming, and we both had a passion for RTS games! It was a perfect match. Brock had the challenge of starting from scratch on the engine while ideas rolled back and forth, we knew this game was going to be truly great fun, at least for us. The issues came with Brock being in UNI, he wouldn't have much time for side projects like this, and progress was very slow some times we wouldn't touch the game for months! Eventually as the YEARS went by we realized a new problem, I was getting better at art and animation and he was getting better at programming and we found ourselves re-doing things, and other things not looking good together. We decided enough was enough and we had to finish this thing. I live in Canada and Brock lives in Australia, I told him that next time he has a break from school I would fly him to Canada and we would finish this game. In Dec 2008 Brock flew all the way to Canada and stayed at my office for two and a half months! We thought this our chance we could get wrap up Stick War in a week and have another 2 months to make a even bigger better game, oh man we were wrong! What ended up happening was we kept coming up with more and more ideas to add to the game that by the time he had to fly back we still weren't finished! That and playing Street Fighter and table tennis all day! It's now May 2009 and we are just putting the final touches on it. It has been a great experience and alot of hard work and fun making this game, but I'm very happy with the result. And meeting Brock in real life who would have thought, I made a great friend for life out of it. I can see us putting out more great games in the future.

I love thinking about games I could develop or just games that would be kool. A long time fantasy of mine had been to create a game where you were a warrior in an actual battle that was taking place around you.

So naturally when we began this project I was excited. It was the sorta thing I had always wanted to make (although in the future a 3D game along these lines would be great to work on aswell) and I got alot of the code written in the first set of Uni holidays. As I moved on to my next year of Uni however I had less and less time to work on the project and this meant that the development of the game ended up dragging on for a long time.

It was at this point (at the end of my second year at Uni), that I travelled over to Canada to met Jay and do some work on Stick War. This trip to Canada would have to be the highlight for me, as I got to work with Jay directly within the office.

The best video game ever was Ultima Online, I also love Age of Empires 2, and Marvel vs Capcom 2.

I don't think I will be able to limit this to three. I basically went through periods in which I played a few games heaps. The games that I played the most are:

Golden Eye/Perfect Dark: I put them under one heading as they were sort of similar games and I played them heaps around the same time.

Age of Empires II: my friend introduced me to this before I even had a computer. This game got me addicted to the RTS game genre.

Operation Flashpoint: this was a game that many people didn't warm to because of it being to realistic. For some reason I did and subsequently played it for hundreds of hours.

Halo series: had awesome fun at LAN parties in my last few years of high school.

Rome Total War: probably as a result of my obsession with ancient warfare this would have to be my favorite game of all time.

Jay first contacted me about 4-5 years ago about another game I was making at the time. Most of my contact with Jay has been over msn chatting about the games we are making or ideas for new games. We also had the occasional game of chess (most of which I won :p ).

I got the chance to meet Jay when he invited me over to Canada to work on Stick War. In real life Jay is pretty much the same as he was on msn. Playfully competative about everything :p . One of the first things I did upon arriving at the office over in Canada was to play everyone in a game of table tennis. Yes there is a table tennis table in the middle of the office... There was also an arcade machine too. We probably spent too much of our time between these two things while I was over there, delaying the release of Stick War.

Unless you are from Australia and even then you might have a hard time understanding what he is saying, his accent is very strong and he seems to say entire sentances all at once. He is a health nut and every time I turned around he would be making salads. He is very bright but can't focus on one thing for very long is distracted easy, like a new puppy, but he pees on the floor less. I will never forget when I took him sledding and pushed him full speed and he flew 10 feet off the jump straight on his back... OUCH!

Honestly I have tried hard to not think about other projects, but I can't wait to start another big game when this one is done, most likely a stick figure game.

I've got a few ideas floating around but nothing for sure yet.

I'm not modest, Stick War! It's a real challenge even for me.

I like a few of the tower defence games. My favorite one would have to be Desktop Tower Defence.

Most of the time spent on Stick War is focused on finding bugs and fixing things, when I get a chance to play it strictly for the fun it really is a lot of fun, the music is really great and doesn't get old very fast, like some. My favorite strategy would be getting fire arrows as fast as I can, I also love the get gold for nothing upgrade.

I would of played Stick War a million times by now, and any game after this many plays starts to get repetative. However, I have not tested insane mode nearly as much so this is still quite fun for me as its challenging.

I have a few favourite levels... I like the last level because the boss giant is awesome, Jay did a good job of making it crack out of the statue. I also enjoy playing the magikill level as I like owning minions with my archers. The head shot animation when the minions get hit by archeres is very satisfying.

My favourite unit would probably have to be the spearton. It looks awesome when you get a group of them and form a phalanx across the field.

My favourite strategy is to build a giant on the last few levels and use them to defeat wizards and enemy statues easier. Its satisfying to charge a giant in while taking lots of damage and get to the enemy statue and take it down while all there units are attacking your giant.

Yes, we don't get much snow back here in Australia (only at a few locations). It was a great experience though, spent a fair bit of time slipping over while walking around outside. :)

Jay also took my taboggoning at this park he used to visit when he was younger. There was a large crowd of kids tabogoning off this jump they had set up.

Jay told me I had to do that before I went back to Australia so after some convincing he got me to do it. However while descending the down ramp he chased me and pushed me, this resulted in me getting to much air and doing a sort of half backflip flail move that resulted in me sliding down the rest of the hill on my backside. Moral of the story Jay can not be trusted!!! Nar j/k :p

 Play Stick War - Game 

 Exclusive Stick War Strategy Guide