WELCOME TO THE ZOO

There is no doubt many of you have heard of D U O and mono. For those who love the innovative approach and haven't encountered these superb creations, I suggest you do so. Binary Zoo are the group responsible and I must say that their creations grabbed my attention from the time I laid my eyes on them. I have spent countless hours playing their games and will probably spend countless more. Aside from having stand-out gameplay, they also manage to have jaw-droppingly crisp, colourful and stylish visuals to boot. This interview has been a long time coming. So let’s get straight to it! Read on and enjoy…

Moshboy: Introduce yourselves to the readers..

CHRIS: Hi, I'm Chris Jeffels and, having been reminded how old the rest of the team are, I'm now feeling very, very old (35 for the record). I live in Newcastle, England where I'm a full time draughtsman and very part time coder.

LAURI: Well, my real name is Lauri Suoperä (have fun pronouncing that!) and I'm 21. I'm a student at the Turku University of Applied Sciences in Finland, even though I'm sort of a wannabe-graphics designer.

AARON: My name is Aaron Frensley and I'm 20 years old. I am a composer and the co-founder of FKD Reality, the group (if you can call two people a group) that does all of the original music for Binary Zoo games. I am currently attending my local college full time and working on a Masters certificate in music production at Berklee Music online.

MIKE: My name is Michael R. King, I'm 18 years old (the kid of the zoo) and the other half of FKD Reality, studying engineering at college (ranging from mechanics, electronics, 3d architectural design etc, etc.)

MOBEEN: Hi, my name is Mobeen Fikree, but everyone calls me Mo. I'm 19 years old and am studying Computer Science at the University of Waterloo.

Moshboy: How did you meet and form Binary Zoo? Do you all communicate purely over the web or do any of you live close to each other?

CHRIS: We had known each other for some time before we joined together as we were all members of the same development forum. When I first joined I remember commenting on some projects Lauri had posted (we really must get him coding again), then when I was working on DUO he returned the favour, giving me some great constructive feedback. Soon afterwards I hassled him into agreeing to help me out with some graphics. He's never said anything but I guess it must be pretty frustrating working with me at times. I have a pretty clear vision of how I want things to look and that usually involves simple geometric shapes meaning he rarely gets the opportunity to show off his true graphical skills. Hopefully we can address that in the future.

Anyway around the time I was finalizing DUO I finally came to the realization that writing my own music was out of the question on account of me being both tone deaf and utterly talentless. This resulted in a desperate plea on the forum which, luckily for me, Aaron answered providing the thumping soundtrack.

Later Aaron teamed up with Mike to form FK'D Reality Compositions (available for births, weddings and funerals) with Mike providing the music for mono.

More recently I was play testing something for Mobeen when I found out he also coded in a couple of other languages, most notably Java. I'd wanted versions of our games written for mobiles for quite some time as I thought they'd convert well so asked if he'd be interested in helping out. He agreed and the results so far are way better than I imagined was possible. So good I've wasted valuable development time doing some intensive mobile "testing".

Right now we do most of our communicating through our own development forums with a regular get together on MSN.

Moshboy: If there was one game that you felt that inspired you to start coding games what was it?

LAURI: There was never any one game that inspired me to code, just a bunch of really bad ones.

MOBEEN: I'm not very sure. Although I distinctly remember being stunned by both Prince of Persia and Super Mario World.

CHRIS: I'd say growing up in the 80's I was more excited and inspired by the constant high quality output of developers like Jeff Minter and Andrew Braybrook than any specific games. They certainly influence a lot of what I'm trying to do now. Other than that, what Lauri said.

Moshboy: Who comes up with the ideas for the games or is it a group effort? Where do your ideas come from – any specific influences? Were Tetris and Columns big influences on D U O tris?

CHRIS: Most of the gameplay ideas just come through experimentation, putting a twist on an established genre, not being afraid to try something a little different and the occasional big slice of luck.

Let's be honest, it would be pointless us knocking out clones or copies of other games as our version would undoubtedly be inferior so we have to do things a little differently. Plus even the thought of actually doing a clone or copy of an existing game bores me silly.

DUO was a case of me getting back into coding after a break of many years and wanting an excuse to throw loads of things around on screen (just because of the relatively awesome power I now had at my fingertips since my days coding on the Vic20, C64 & Amiga). What better way than to have 2 of everything? I wasn't sure the dual screens idea would work as I thought it may be impossible to concentrate on both at once but a quick demo proved even my aged brain could cope.

DUOtris obviously takes more than a little influence from Tetris among others but I think the dual play screens added enough of a twist to justify doing it. I'd like to claim it was a genius flash of inspiration but in truth it was just the logical progression from DUO. Having proved that the "dual" concept worked transferring the idea to a puzzle game seemed obvious.

mono was equal parts experimentation and luck. I only wrote it to test out some routines I was working on for another as yet still incomplete game. The coloured background was intended to be nothing more than a fancy effect but I soon realized it could be the focus of the game with the result that it changed the gameplay noticeably. Even then as I considered it nothing more than a demo, we nearly didn't release it which, based on the feedback we've been getting, would have been a big mistake. Inspired by this we're currently working on what I would call the proper version. With different game styles, different levels and a boat load of different enemies and a fancy new background routine. In fact pretty much every routine has been rewritten.

Although I have come up with the basic ideas behind the games I don't write design docs or do a great deal of planning so the development process tends to be very fluid allowing for everyone to have some input. I might not always agree with what the others have to say but 99% of the time I know they will turn out to be right. That's where having people around you whose opinions you trust and respect is essential.

LAURI: I think Chris deserves the most credit for the ideas. I may throw some ideas in the mix but usually he has thought of them already. A Lot of things can influence our games, but I think we might not even know where the influences come from.

AARON: We all try to throw in ideas from time to time, but Chris is really the mastermind behind all of the games.

MIKE: Would have to agree to say Chris is the main melting pot.

MOBEEN: This is definitely Chris! He's really the designer behind our games.

Moshboy: Did any of you complete any projects before you formed Binary Zoo?

CHRIS: No. Although I'd coded on and off for 20 years (more off than on) I'd never completed anything of any worth and, reasonably, some people might argue I still haven't. DUO was my first proper game. It took a painful 6 months and after the first month I was seriously beginning to regret not tackling something sensible like Tic-Tac-Toe first.

LAURI: I had a bunch of semi-finished projects before joining, but I never got around finishing them.

AARON: Most of the projects I wrote music for before I joined Binary Zoo never got finished, unfortunately.

MIKE: Lots of semi-completed games.. music wise, loads and a fair share of software.

MOBEEN: I have a little under a dozen completed projects under my belt, but nothing very impressive.

Moshboy: What was development like on games such as Mono and D U O – was it generally smooth sailing or were there any hick-ups along the way?

CHRIS: We'd love to make out it's a difficult, often torturous process but it's not. I don't think we have had any real problems that I can remember. Lack of time is our only real enemy.

We just try something, if it doesn't work for whatever reason then we just drop it and try something else. Boring answer but true.

Moshboy: Do you plan your projects or is the end result a lot different from what you envisioned?

CHRIS: Hmm. I'm getting better but it's fair to say that as a project planner I'm pretty hopeless. I must be a nightmare to work with for the other guys at times.

My design process and often the extent of our "design document" is to fire up Paint Shop Pro and produce a single rough image of what I want the game to look like highlighting all the gameplay elements. If I'm feeling particularly creative I might even open up notepad and jot down a few additional comments. I believe this makes me a bad games designer.

I love developing the games like this though as it allows you to be a lot more creative, adding or removing elements as you go along. It's all part of the fun. I'd see a proper design doc as very restrictive.

Moshboy: Do you guys get time to play any games? What type of games are you typically into? Anything from the independent scene?

CHRIS: I think we all struggle to find time to play as much as we'd like, juggling real life, coding and gaming. When I do find time I'm loving the XBox360 or more specifically X-Box Live Arcade right now, Geometry Wars 2 being an obvious highlight. Also I'm really enjoying the PSP (Katamari Damacy, multi-player Burnout, Lumines) and the DS too (Meteos, Animal Crossing) as they allow me to grab some valuable gaming time at work... purely at lunch time obviously.

Not forgetting checking out Kenta Cho's latest and gems like Every Extend, Warning Forever and of course Gridrunner++

LAURI: These days I usually don't have much time to play any games. The latest game I played was Civ4 - but it was just too addicting. I had to stop playing after I found myself clicking the 'next turn' button at 4 am.

Finland had a very strong demo and game dev scene in the late nineties so I did play my share of indie games.

AARON: I play lots of different games, but my current favorites are Silent Hill, Metal Gear Solid (all 3) and Resident Evil 4.

MIKE: I think the only game I bother to play anymore is "Operation Flashpoint : Cold War Crisis" online.. or perhaps "Emperor : Rise of the middle kingdom"

MOBEEN: I don't get time to play games, I make time! As for what type of games I'm into ... I'm into games. Any kind, as long as it's good.

Lately I've been playing Ikaruga (DC), Rez (DC), Mario & Luigi : Partners in Time (NDS), Meteos (NDS) and Lumines (PSP).

I'm in to the indie scene as well. I've been having a blast with Rag Doll Kung Fu.

Moshboy: Top. 5 videogames – who likes what best and why?

CHRIS: Elite - Free roaming gameplay still not bettered.

Rez - More of an amazing audio visual experience than a game.

FFVII - I was just drawn in by the story more than any other game before or since.

Gridrunner - The original version was the first game that really made me go "wow" and arguably got me hooked on gaming and coding.

Paradroid - I continue to play it after some 20 years but I still can't quite put my finger on why it works so brilliantly.

LAURI: The Elder Scrolls: Morrowind - This game stole 1½ years of my life!

Fallout 2 - This is just pure gold. Best rpg I've ever played.

Indigo Prophecy / Fahrenheit - Under appreciated modern game that combined a good movie script and a game into interactive drama.

Adom - Legendary text-based dungeon hack. The level of detail in this game has always amazed me.

Triplanes - a classic Finnish freeware game. Best multiplayer game on a single computer.

MIKE: Not in any particular order:

Halo 2 : Graphics and gameplay inspire me.

SplinterCell : Same as above.

Worms 3D : Because its worms that blow each other up! Who wouldn’t love that?

Operation Flashpoint - Cold War Crisis : Incredible gameplay online.

Doom : Who wouldn’t?

MOBEEN: 1) Grim Fandango -- simply the greatest game ever written. Amazing art style, witty dialogue and a storyline that grips you right from the start. No matter how many times I play this game, there's always something new I notice, and it never fails to blow me away.

2) Half Life 2 -- most exciting FPS I've ever played. Most get dull after a couple of hours, but HL2 threw something new at you at an alarmingly fast rate. And then there was the storyline that was told completely in first-person view, without Gordon uttering a word.

3) Psychonauts -- Everything I loved about Schafer's last game (Grim Fandango) is present in Psychonauts. The story isn't quite as strong as Grim Fandango's, but the levels are so damn inventive that it more than makes up for it!

4) Worms Armageddon -- the pinnacle of the series. Blowing up worms has never been this fun, or this strategic.

5) Rez -- Music based, shooty bliss! This is one of those games where the experience makes the game.

What's in the pipeline for you guys? Anything you'd like to share about new projects that you are working on?

CHRIS: Well apart from the previously mentioned full version of mono and hopefully mobile versions of our 3 games to date, we have a bunch of other projects in hand. Quite a few of the more experimental ones will probably never make it past the demo stage (but then I said the same about mono) but some like a sequel, in the very loosest meaning of the word, to DUO will definitely be released.

I'd rather not say too much about the others but we certainly aren't short of ideas. Whether they are actually any good though is another matter.

MIKE: No secrets, just surprises.

Binary Zoo's website.