"I Do This For Fun", Interview With PaulHamx - Pico-View #3

PaulHamx:
H = Hamx

Marina:@MarinaMakes
M = Marina

Their games:
Zoo Keeper (click link)

Pico-Droid (click link)

Interview:

M: So, @PaulHamx who are you and what have you done?

H: Haha, that's pretty broad!

Okay, I'm Paul Hammond and, before Pico-8, I've gone through a few other fads of remaking games over the years, starting on the C64.

For some reason, remaking really appeals to me. A lot of my enjoyment of gaming comes down more to seeing how a game's mechanics work more than actually playing it.
I've been a software developer in some shape or form for most of my working life and I find it really relaxing just to program for fun in the evenings, even though I'm doing it all day. Pico-8 in particular is a great escape from being in Visual Studio all day. I guess some of its probably nostalgia but I think it goes deeper than that.

In the past 3 or so years, I've made quite a few games, all in Pico-8 and all can be played from Pico-8 Splore or from my itch.io page.

M: 21 games actually.

H: 21! wow, I have been busy! And, especially late last year and most of this year, I've had a fair bit of down time.

M: YEAH. It's really amazing, but I'll get back to that late. And that's fair when you've made 21 games.

H: By down time, I mean time when I haven't been able to do my hobby stuff!

M: We all send loove and prayers. I actually first discovered you when you were making a port of "Berzerk", and really loved the minimalist aspect of it. It wasn't until later on that found your other games.

H: Thanks. As soon as I heard speako8, I knew I had to try berzerk. I remember seeing in an arcade in Brighton (or somewhere like that) years ago and being absolutely rubbish at it and kind of intimidated by the speech!

M: That sounds so cool, I've only actually been to one arcade, and it was pretty small. I do remember it had a table that doubled as a HUGE nes controller. On which you could only play Super Mario 3, but with the nes is there anything better?

H: Yeah, can't remember the last time I visited one with old-school games in although when I first moved to New Zealand, one of the local fish and chip shops had what looked like an original Galaga machine! Long gone now though.

M: Oh yeah, here, most arcade that pop up usually cater to 80s kids, but I live in a relatively secluded area where video games are considered evillll.

H: Never had an arcade where I lived as a kid either. Had to rely on the fair coming to town once or twice a year. Probably the reason I love old games so much: I was a deprived child 😆

M: I'm on the opposite side of the spectrum. I grew up in the 2000s with a hand-me-down game boy color. But, it was already so old when I got it that most of the cartridges I had just outright wouldn't work. Pacman and Super Mario Bros, did though. For atleast a few years. Super Mario Bros never quit working until the game boy itself bricked.

H: I missed out on the initial hand-held stuff (too old and too young if that makes sense) and only really got back into that sort of gaming when the original DS game out.

M: I loved the DS... When I got it in 2015. Anyways, I am sure that the most graphically impressive of your games is "Pico-droid", would you like to talk about that game, and what inspired you to do a remake of it?

H: Sure. Having a C64 as a kid, I loved Andrew Braybrook's Paradroid but was always jealous of my mate who had a Spectrum and could play Quazatron. Decided to do a mash-up of the two. I'd never done anything isometric before (I shy away from anything that might involve more than very basic maths) so that was an appealing challenge. It was a real struggle to fit it in to a single Pico-8 cartridge but I'm really pleased with how it turned out. The grapple game almost killed me though. I don't know how many times I had to rewrite it!

M: And, my personal favorite of your games is, "Zoo Keeper", I keep playing it on my miyoo mini whenever I go out. It's really AMAZING. I love how much content it has, and to master it is the best part.

What's your favorite mechanic of that game, and what inspired you to remake it?

H: Firstly, thank you. Secondly, I'd never even heard of Zoo Keeper until about a year ago. I was remaking Robotron and a guy call Shane R Monroe offered to test it and suggested my next project should be Zoo Keeper. Robotron dragged on for a while and I'd almost forgotten about Zoo Keeper but then noticed it in an old tweet. The fact you run around the outside of a square kind of reminded me of Tempest of Gyrus but with completely different mechanics. Spent a fair time thinking about how I could achieve that and in the end it was pretty simple and once I'd got that bit working (including filling in the bricks) I was hooked. My main struggle is always the graphics and I spent loads of time looking at the original and an Atari 2600 version trying to get something that looked half-decent in Pico-8's super low resolution. I almost left out the platform levels because I don't think they add a great deal to the game. Glad I didn't though since they add a bit or variety and give the player a bit of a break.

M: Also... you've been spotted with an infamous, up and rising pico-8 composer. Do you recognize this image?

Note-Head (Pico-8 Composer)

H: Infamous? Uh, oh, what have I missed? They wrote some music to go with a GIF I posted of Beamrider and I thought it was fantastic and asked for permission to use it. I usually do my own music. I'm not great at it but its a part that I really enjoy and the main area I can add my own touch.

M: Ah they're amazing. IN FACT... I thought they were so amazing that... They're working on my current game's music. So, thank you for indirectly introducing me to their work.

H:I've seen the GIFs of your game. Love the style. I envy people that can come up with original ideas AND amazing graphics (those chasing creatures are very cute).

M: Oh thanks! I plan to have quite a few more of them in the final version. Anyways, on to more pressing matters... TWENTY ONE GAMES?! HOW'D YOU DO IT?! WHEN IN YOUR DAY DID YOU DO IT?! WHAT'D YOU LEARNED?! DOES YOUR MOTHER KNOW?!

H: I really don't know! That is over the course of 3.5 years though, starting with Boulder Run which was probably far too ambitious to be my first attempt at Pico-8!

I think the trick is that I'm never starting from scratch, I always take a recent project as a starting point. Also, because of Pico-8's limitations, I don't get hung up on writing particularly reusable code. It's a breath of fresh air from my day job!

I generally only do a couple of hours a couple of evenings a week, sometimes more, sometimes nothing for weeks. Also, I try to mix in smaller projects once in a while. After spending months on Bubble Bobble, the next project I did was a version of Gridrunner that only took about 2 days!

M: Speaking of using starting points...
https://twitter.com/paulhamx/status/1585523702979973120?cxt=HHwWgMCqsYna9IAsAAAA

H: Yeah, I cleaned out my Loderunner code and hashed out a few sprites the day before I went on a 3 week trip back to the UK. I do have the odd false-start. With this one, I liked the idea at first but couldn't think how to expand on the original and got bored. I have quite a few unfinished (and barely started) projects.

M: I really appreciate your drive to innovate on everything you work on. You really make a lot of games stronger and better than the originals, aswell as opening them up to a whole new audience.

H: Thanks. I used to just go for accuracy but that ends up being really time consuming and invariably pisses people off when they expect something to play EXACTLY like the original.

From my POV, Tutankham was probably the first game I intentionally tried to vary from the original. I really liked the idea but just didn't like the way the original played. That's made me change my attitude to remaking. I no longer feel I need to stick too close to the original. It's kind of liberating.

M: To quote you, "I do this for fun, I do this for me."

H: Haha, that was probably the first time I got even mildly peeved on twitter. I was having a bad day!

M: HA, I removed all the bad parts from the qoute. You didn't have to give yourself up. T-T
In your defense, people forget that there are "pixel-perfect" online versions for all of the games which you've made better. Everyone gets angry sometimes.
https://twitter.com/paulhamx/status/1583173563812495360

H: Realised I might have come across a bit precious but some people's expectations of what a free game should be are pretty puzzling! Yup, if you want to play the original, use an emulator!

M: This is no interview for old men.

H: Haha. The problem is, most of them are probably younger than me!

M: You're probably right now that I think about it... And finally, to wrap up said amazing interview, what do you plan to do next with pico-8?

H: Just playing around at the moment, waiting for some inspiration. Also waiting on Picotron, the successor to Pico-8. I'm always looking for inspiration and really enjoy doing stuff like Zoo Keeper and Tutankham of which there seem to have been very few (if any) remakes done in recent years.

M: Thanks for the interview and I meant what I said about your innovation. I look up to you for inspiration, and hope to one day be half as good as you are at making innovative games. Thanks one more time for the interview and the good time.

H: Thank you so much. Just do game stuff for FUN and see where it goes. I'll look out for your progress on Twitter.

PaulHamx:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/paulhamx
Lexaloffle: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?uid=33292&mode=carts
Itch: https://pahammond.itch.io/

Marina:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/MarinaMakes
Lexaloffle: https://www.lexaloffle.com/bbs/?uid=70079