shalinor

Exactly as boring as he is in film, I suppose.

Sup

The conversation system, and the branching it had in it.

... but what I didn't like was most of the rest of it. The driving was cool but didn't mesh with the rest of the game, and the shooting was about the same. If they could have somehow made it end-to-end conversations without that being dull, I'd have dug it WAY more.

(also, it bugged me how sometimes you'd pick a sane sounding option, and then your dude would dive down the lady's throat. It was like "wow, wow! I just... wanted to know where she was last night, don't go yelling at her man!")

I got started in games by just, well, making games. I learned C when I was 11 from this old, terrible book ("C For Rookies"), and somewhere after that, I started playing with modding Doom, then Duke 3D, then finally Quake. Eventually, around age 14, I started making actual games in C/C++, and then it took off from there.

I can't remember what triggered me getting the book. I know I't told my parents that I wanted to make games when I grew up - I knew that's what I wanted to do back when I was 6, I bet my grandpa and everything (and I WON that bet! :D) - so I'm guessing one of them explained that programming is how you make games, pointed me at the book, etc.

As for how to get started making games today, seriously, DOWNLOAD UNITY 3D. I'm using it from the angle of an advanced developer, just like I did GameBryo back on LEGO Universe, but what makes it such a good tool is that anyone, regardless of skill level, can sit down and start to figure it out.

So go grab it, and play with it, and see what happens! The best way to learn to make games is just to try to make games.

... as for what my kid self would say, heh, I think they'd be too shy. I used to be a real shut-in nerdy kind of person for a variety of reasons, abuse and so on. These days, I project myself a lot more, and would probably intimidate young me ;) (I'm still a huge geek, mind, I'm just a bit less shy about it)

A bunch of us worked together on LEGO Universe, but not all of us. Everyone but Michael and Folmer was on the LU team, though we were all on different sub-teams / didn't necessarily work directly together.

Jones On Fire was just me, Folmer, Nathan and Michael. I did all the art and such in-game, Folmer did the 2D promo stuff, Nathan and Michael did music/sound.

For Hot Tin Roof, we added Ellory and Will for 3D art and Blake for animation. Those were things I did myself on Jones, but my skills were insufficient to do it, well, better - we needed better art this time, something more stylistic, not just programmer art faking stylistic.

... as for how I met the other two - Michael's someone who I'd crossed paths with multiple times pre-Jones On Fire, just as part of the local dev community. I kept wanting to find some excuse to work with him, and Jones On Fire provided it.

Folmer... I honestly have no memory of how we met. We just both realized our style as a good fit for the other's, and suddenly he was doing the promo/splash/etc art for Jones On Fire.