Interview With Jonathan Cummings

Wednesday 17th 2017, percisely at last period, my media classs interviewed a game developer of Proton War, Jonathan Cummings. We received some very informing information on developing games. We asked him a bunch of questions in order to get feedback to improve on how we, developers improve our games. It was coolios.


what influenced you to create Proton War?
As a child, i was always involved with computers, and my father was a computer programmer and majority of my influences came from the games Doom and Quake. My father taught me how to program and i found games fascinating.


I learnt from this, that your surroundings can be very influencial. I did not expect a game developer to be influenced by games at a young age and to want to create one, i figured that it is every boys fantasy to play games and make one too. I thought game developers were told (by some big boss or something) to make a game for a particular audience then they learn as they develop it.


How long did it take to develop Proton War?
Protonwar has been in development for about 2 1/2 years so far. It is still in early access, im unsure how much longer i will work on it. As with all arts, it will be done when its done.

Ok, when he said it was still in development, my reaction to it would probably had him laughing, i was in shock like mouth-open-googley-eyes jaw-dropping shock.i assume it is because i am facinated about the fact that it is still under development. I knew games will take a while to develop but i didn't realize that when the game is released to public, it can still be under development. I thought once it is released, it is finish. All you do then is observe and take notes and improve by tweeking bits of it to make the game better. This changes my perspective of developing games as my career for the long run lol. How do you know as a game developer that your done? Don't audience feedback keep coming your way to improve your game?

Where did you get your inspiration?
Mainly from a company called ID Software, and the programmer John Carmack. They made all the doom and quake games. Most of my recent programming knowledge (c, and c++) was all learnt from reading code that he had shared.
I grew up playing id software games, commander keen, wolfenstien, doom, quake. I always idolised them, there was just something so pasionate about the way they made games, it inspired me from a very early age.

I don't know any of those games but i get where he is coming from. When your passionate about something you'll strive for it to get there. This relates to myself and this assessment i am doing, i am very passionate about NOT getting N/A's and i will strive to not get there. totes lol

What skills/dispositions are needed to develop a game?
-Many, and those skills are constantly changing as technology changes.
I honestly think that anyone can develop a game, the main thing for me is to have passion for what you are doing. With passion and dedication you can do anything ;)
If you are looking for skills that would get you hired i think the most valuable are probally art skills, environmental art, 3d modeling programs like 3d studio max. Art is getting better and better in games and more complex, Art and level design is the most time consuming parts of making a game from my experience.

I have alot of assumptions, i guess its because i watch alot of films and judge film characters to reality situations. what i heard from him, was that you don't really need to learn codes to make a game. this fascinated me, because i thought codes are a key component to make a game. Like creating a website, must learn different types of coding to style the game and to get it working on different browsers. 


What were the challenges/barriers?
The biggest challenge for me has been marketing, getting people to know about your game. I feel like you could spend 50% of all your time just on marketing and it still wouldnt be enough. Its very hard to break through these days with the ammount of games being made. Its hard to get noticed, particulary being an indie dev.

I didn't know marketing was going to be a big problem for gaming, because, gaming is intentionally a teenage or child's peak eye. And they crave for new technology games which is something that i was suprised about.

What learning do you think happens when gaming?
It depends on the game obviously. But i think the biggest thing would be problem solving skills. Your brain is a muscle, the more you solve problems the better you get at it!!
Also reaction time is quite a big one.

Yes. i agree with him. Alot of games, are generally problem solving skills. i have experienced this type of skill while playing candycrush or angry birds (strategy/logic games). You do develop quite good problem solving skills when using this skill for other things, e.g Maths (Probability), communication (conflicts) and others.

What do you love about the industry?
Im a very creative person, but also a very technical person, video games is truly a medium which nurtures both of those things, which i think is why i love it.

Cool.

What are your concerns about the industry?
I have some concerns about how larger studios deal with staff, and feel that people need to take personal issues such as depression and stress much more seriously, it is very common in the industry. I think it would help if people talked about these things more. I worry that the big companies don't treat these personal issues seriously enough because they are too focused on money. Personal well being should be more of a focus.

I as an indivdual teenager, have never thought game developers tend to fall in depression, it sounds really serious too. i think it is important to treat depression or stress because it is something to take care of, not only for themselves but also for future game developers, so they know how to handle situations like this.

This is our on going conversation with Mr. Cummings who helped us understand what we need to do, in order to develop our own game. So i did a little slim research on Proton war. Web Link, Getting scratch images and few information on the development on Proton War, (Couldn't exactly play Proton war, we don't have the technology for it), Proton War looks almost like Call Of duty, instead it had a more mellowed feel zone oh and it looked like a male gender game. But it looks pretty cool overall.

I learnt ALOT from Mr. Cummings. Especially how he didn't need papers to qualify being a creator of a game (well sort of, but still). This is really captivating for me, because then it actually tells me that i can do it. I can do it and i don't need anyone to tell me i am not good enough.