Sigh, here's the interview. Apologies for any typos or, if, this breaks any rules stipulated by future publishing.
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Pestering the jammiest jobsmiths in the business!
We speak to American programmer Tom Fulp who created run-'n'-gun game Alien Hominid (released on GameCube, Xbox, PS2, PC and Game Boy Advance). He's now working on the forthcoming Xbox Live beat-'em-up Castle Crashers.
So Tom, you created your own game?
Back in 2002, Dan Paladin (the artist) and I teamed up to make Alien Hominid for the web. A few months later, the game company Dan was working for shut its doors and his co-worker John came up with the idea of forming a new company to make a console version of it. Some 15 months later, we had achieved our dream of making a console game. It was a difficult but rewarding process, so we decided to do it again with Castle Crashers. Three years later, it's almost done.
Was the transition from making webg games to programming console games difficult?
I wouldn't say it was a difficult transition, but it was on a much larger scale and required a lot more discipline. With web games, you can wrap things up in anywhere from a few days to a few months, or never. With a console game, you need to work hard every day, for years if necessary, and you can't quit because it would let too many people down.
What happens in your typical day?
A lot of the time I juggle both running Newgrounds.com (his website hosting Flash games) and programming. The past five months has been 99% Castle Crashers for the sake of getting it done. It's required 12-18 hours of non-stop programming every day (including most weekends), depending on how crazy and obsessed I'm feeling.
How much of your input goes into the games themselves?
If I can program my idea, I put it in the game, unless anyone else thinks it's a bad idea and convinces me otherwise.
