Date: 2006-01-17
Title: Max Abernethy, creator of Madness Interactive
MAD MAX
In 2003, a great game was released - a game that was flash, open source and freeware all in one. It contained guns, bullet-time, a unique style of 2D gameplay and an over-the-top dose of hilarious over-the-top violence. It was called Madness Interactive and it was developed by Max Abernethy. The game was directly inspired by the already popular ''Madness Combat'' flash animation series, developed sometime before this point by Krinkels. It didn''t take long for the its popularity to spread far and wide across the Internet. It is with great pleasure that I have been allowed this interview with the wonderful Max Abernethy. On with the show..
I would like to start by saying thanks for the opportunity to interview you... it is a great honor and I thank you for your time.
My pleasure.
Give the readers a little bit of background about yourself...
My name is Max Abernethy, I was born in 1986 and was 17 when I finished Madness Interactive. I grew up in a more or less normal family in the suburbs of Philadelphia. My parents aren''t especially technical people but my dad did spark my interest in computers at a young age and despite a lot of arguments about my priorities during high school (I was far more interested in working on my own projects than schoolwork), they have always facilitated what I do. Right now I'm a second year undergrad majoring in CS and Math at the University of Rochester.
What systems did you own growing up and what games did you play?
I played a little bit of everything. I didn't have any systems until well into the N64's life, since my mom didn't like the idea of my brother and I rotting our brains with a game console. Eventually I caught up on the classics - the SNES had a huge impact on me. I'm still a few years behind the curve, brand new games and hardware are too expensive!
What sparked your interest in coding? What age did you start and what projects did you work on before Madness? When did you start to take it more seriously?
I always wanted to make games. When I was in elementary school, we had Power Macs with Hyperstudio and I remember naively trying to make games essentially frame-by-frame, with the very minimal logical control and nanimation that Hyperstudio allowed. Obviously, that didn't work very well so I gave up for a while. Seeing peoples' Flash work on sites like Newgrounds and realizing "hey, anyone can do this" got me started on actual coding. I made several Flash games of varying quality before Madness and abandoned countless projects in between - it took a long time and lots of trial and error for me to develop enough skill to actually get anything done.
How did the idea of Madness Interactive come about? Judging from the style of violent action within the game, it seems to get influences from modern action flicks - which movies, if any, specifically motivated the ideas for the game? Were there any games that served as inspiration?
The initial inspiration was, of course, Krinkels' animation! I saw "Madness Redeemer" and knew I could make a video game of it so I e-mailed him and we worked from there. Mid-way through development, I picked up a used copy of Max Payne, played it for two days straight, and decided bullet time was the coolest thing ever and Madness had to have it. I don't watch a lot of action movies, but I supposed in that way John Woo influenced Madness by proxy. I still think slow motion is a really fascinating game element - it provides a new dimension of control, allows a player to gain greater comprehension of a scene than they possibly could in real time, and just plain looks cool.
How long did Madness Interactive take to create from start to finish? Were there any obstacles in the way of getting it finished and released? Was it fun or frustrating?
It was developed over the course of about six months. There were no huge obstacles except, of course, high school. For the most part it was a really fun process because I knew it was far better than anything I had made before and I was really excited about it. There were definitely some frustrating moments towards the end, however. It's really hard to keep a big project organized in Flash, not to mention I was quite inexperienced at it so as the complexity of the code increased it started taking much longer to make progress.
Was Madness a full-time project? What was the average day like working on Madness?
I did have school to go to but I spent a lot of time working on Madness nonetheless, mostly late at night. Having that completely silent, isolated time to work when everyone else was sleeping became a sort of ritual for me; I've been a nocturnal sort of person ever since.
Madness Interactive has a very steep difficulty level - was this an intentional aspect of the game? Do you feel that commercial games today lack the challenge that older games used to have?
Looking back, I think it's too hard. I didn't really understand that when I was developing it, since I spent a huge amount of time play-testing it and it was easy for me. Variable difficulty levels would have been a bright idea.
It has often been noted that they just don't make games as tough as they used to. Speaking as a fairly casual gamer (my schedule requires this), I'm kind of glad. No, there isn't the same sense of accomplishment, but I'm not sure that's what I'm looking for in a game anymore. Modern games are so content-rich and I want to be able to experience them in their entirety without driving myself crazy. I think I first realized that playing Rayman 2 on the N64 - it was easy enough to just coast through with minimal effort but really beautiful and satisfying the entire way. To bring up an over-used example, Katamari Damacy is another game that is fun without being particularly challenging.
Did you expect the immense success of this project and how have you taken it? Has it changed your life much (given you new opportunities, etc)?
Immodestly, I did expect it to be popular. I didn't expect that I would ever make any money from it though, which I did - a couple of websites still send Krinkels and I advertisement revenue generated by the game. It prompted me to take game-making a little more seriously. I've spent a lot of time developing my technical skills since completing Madness in order to open up new possibilities for myself as a designer. It is quite certain that what I'm working on now would be completely infeasible in Flash.
Do you get time to play any other games nowadays (anything from the freeware or open source communities perhaps)?
I do from time to time. Most of my gaming time goes to freeware and cheap games - I recently played Cave Story, which was superb, and Rag Doll Kung Fu, which is beautiful but a little bit boring. I also managed to squeeze in Metal Gear Solid 3 and enjoyed it quite a bit.
Madness Interactive, while not being an explicit game, still features outrageously over-the-top violence - what is your opinion of violence in the media and specifically in videogames? Do you think it has any influence over people committing crime or do you think people are just trying to find a scapegoat? Have you had any complaints from people about the voilence in your game?
To me, there is a huge distinction between the sort of cartoon gore in games like MI, which I see as being funny in an "Itchy and Scratchy" sort of way and more realistic depictions. Some of the violent scenes in recent movies have made my stomach turn, absolutely more than I care to see. Personal tastes aside, I think it is important for parents to keep their children from viewing excess violence, as I do believe that the media we consume affects our minds in subtle ways. That said, to blame video games for the behavior of sociopaths seems to me an absurd and extreme application of that idea.
My parents would not let me play games they thought were too violent when I was young. Needless to say, I was not happy. I have no way of knowing whether it has really made me a better, more empathetic person but I think it was a responsible thing for them to do.
Are you a retro games guy or a modern games guy? What is your opinion of the commercial gaming industry at present - do you think it is progressing?
I like everything! I have a lot of nostalgia for old games, but I haven't gotten bored of the new ones yet. I do think that there are a lot of bland, repetitive commercial games being published, but I don't see it as a threat. Video games are mainstream now. Consider another form of mainstream culture, music: the rise of huge record labels producing pop hasn't made the niche/indie stuff for the rest of us go away. I suspect that, just as four record labels now sell 90% of the music in the United States, a few big publishers will eventually sell 90% of the video games, but I am very excited about the other 10%.
In the immediate future I think we will see some very interesting new developments in gameplay. The DS is pretty neat, the Revolution is intriguing and there are plenty of other commercial developers making a genuine effort to do something new. Long-term, I am optimistic that games will mature as an art and that many wonders not yet conceived still await!
What's in the pipe works for you? Is there ANYTHING you can share about your ''secret'' project, using Trans2D?
There are too many things I'm interested in! Academic work consumes a lot of my time and has sparked a lot of new fascinations for me. Game development will still get priority in my free time, though. I don't want to give a way much detail about the ''secret'' project, but I promise lots of shooting, explosions and vehicles, which I am sure is a relief to Madness fans. Expect more detail in early January, once I've had some winter break time to smooth things over a bit.
Do you have a definitive top. 5 videogames?
Far too hard a question :)
Again, thanks so much for your time.
Max Abernethy's homepage.
Title: Max Abernethy, creator of Madness Interactive
MAD MAX
In 2003, a great game was released - a game that was flash, open source and freeware all in one. It contained guns, bullet-time, a unique style of 2D gameplay and an over-the-top dose of hilarious over-the-top violence. It was called Madness Interactive and it was developed by Max Abernethy. The game was directly inspired by the already popular ''Madness Combat'' flash animation series, developed sometime before this point by Krinkels. It didn''t take long for the its popularity to spread far and wide across the Internet. It is with great pleasure that I have been allowed this interview with the wonderful Max Abernethy. On with the show..
I would like to start by saying thanks for the opportunity to interview you... it is a great honor and I thank you for your time.
My pleasure.
Give the readers a little bit of background about yourself...
My name is Max Abernethy, I was born in 1986 and was 17 when I finished Madness Interactive. I grew up in a more or less normal family in the suburbs of Philadelphia. My parents aren''t especially technical people but my dad did spark my interest in computers at a young age and despite a lot of arguments about my priorities during high school (I was far more interested in working on my own projects than schoolwork), they have always facilitated what I do. Right now I'm a second year undergrad majoring in CS and Math at the University of Rochester.
What systems did you own growing up and what games did you play?
I played a little bit of everything. I didn't have any systems until well into the N64's life, since my mom didn't like the idea of my brother and I rotting our brains with a game console. Eventually I caught up on the classics - the SNES had a huge impact on me. I'm still a few years behind the curve, brand new games and hardware are too expensive!
What sparked your interest in coding? What age did you start and what projects did you work on before Madness? When did you start to take it more seriously?
I always wanted to make games. When I was in elementary school, we had Power Macs with Hyperstudio and I remember naively trying to make games essentially frame-by-frame, with the very minimal logical control and nanimation that Hyperstudio allowed. Obviously, that didn't work very well so I gave up for a while. Seeing peoples' Flash work on sites like Newgrounds and realizing "hey, anyone can do this" got me started on actual coding. I made several Flash games of varying quality before Madness and abandoned countless projects in between - it took a long time and lots of trial and error for me to develop enough skill to actually get anything done.
How did the idea of Madness Interactive come about? Judging from the style of violent action within the game, it seems to get influences from modern action flicks - which movies, if any, specifically motivated the ideas for the game? Were there any games that served as inspiration?
The initial inspiration was, of course, Krinkels' animation! I saw "Madness Redeemer" and knew I could make a video game of it so I e-mailed him and we worked from there. Mid-way through development, I picked up a used copy of Max Payne, played it for two days straight, and decided bullet time was the coolest thing ever and Madness had to have it. I don't watch a lot of action movies, but I supposed in that way John Woo influenced Madness by proxy. I still think slow motion is a really fascinating game element - it provides a new dimension of control, allows a player to gain greater comprehension of a scene than they possibly could in real time, and just plain looks cool.
How long did Madness Interactive take to create from start to finish? Were there any obstacles in the way of getting it finished and released? Was it fun or frustrating?
It was developed over the course of about six months. There were no huge obstacles except, of course, high school. For the most part it was a really fun process because I knew it was far better than anything I had made before and I was really excited about it. There were definitely some frustrating moments towards the end, however. It's really hard to keep a big project organized in Flash, not to mention I was quite inexperienced at it so as the complexity of the code increased it started taking much longer to make progress.
Was Madness a full-time project? What was the average day like working on Madness?
I did have school to go to but I spent a lot of time working on Madness nonetheless, mostly late at night. Having that completely silent, isolated time to work when everyone else was sleeping became a sort of ritual for me; I've been a nocturnal sort of person ever since.
Madness Interactive has a very steep difficulty level - was this an intentional aspect of the game? Do you feel that commercial games today lack the challenge that older games used to have?
Looking back, I think it's too hard. I didn't really understand that when I was developing it, since I spent a huge amount of time play-testing it and it was easy for me. Variable difficulty levels would have been a bright idea.
It has often been noted that they just don't make games as tough as they used to. Speaking as a fairly casual gamer (my schedule requires this), I'm kind of glad. No, there isn't the same sense of accomplishment, but I'm not sure that's what I'm looking for in a game anymore. Modern games are so content-rich and I want to be able to experience them in their entirety without driving myself crazy. I think I first realized that playing Rayman 2 on the N64 - it was easy enough to just coast through with minimal effort but really beautiful and satisfying the entire way. To bring up an over-used example, Katamari Damacy is another game that is fun without being particularly challenging.
Did you expect the immense success of this project and how have you taken it? Has it changed your life much (given you new opportunities, etc)?
Immodestly, I did expect it to be popular. I didn't expect that I would ever make any money from it though, which I did - a couple of websites still send Krinkels and I advertisement revenue generated by the game. It prompted me to take game-making a little more seriously. I've spent a lot of time developing my technical skills since completing Madness in order to open up new possibilities for myself as a designer. It is quite certain that what I'm working on now would be completely infeasible in Flash.
Do you get time to play any other games nowadays (anything from the freeware or open source communities perhaps)?
I do from time to time. Most of my gaming time goes to freeware and cheap games - I recently played Cave Story, which was superb, and Rag Doll Kung Fu, which is beautiful but a little bit boring. I also managed to squeeze in Metal Gear Solid 3 and enjoyed it quite a bit.
Madness Interactive, while not being an explicit game, still features outrageously over-the-top violence - what is your opinion of violence in the media and specifically in videogames? Do you think it has any influence over people committing crime or do you think people are just trying to find a scapegoat? Have you had any complaints from people about the voilence in your game?
To me, there is a huge distinction between the sort of cartoon gore in games like MI, which I see as being funny in an "Itchy and Scratchy" sort of way and more realistic depictions. Some of the violent scenes in recent movies have made my stomach turn, absolutely more than I care to see. Personal tastes aside, I think it is important for parents to keep their children from viewing excess violence, as I do believe that the media we consume affects our minds in subtle ways. That said, to blame video games for the behavior of sociopaths seems to me an absurd and extreme application of that idea.
My parents would not let me play games they thought were too violent when I was young. Needless to say, I was not happy. I have no way of knowing whether it has really made me a better, more empathetic person but I think it was a responsible thing for them to do.
Are you a retro games guy or a modern games guy? What is your opinion of the commercial gaming industry at present - do you think it is progressing?
I like everything! I have a lot of nostalgia for old games, but I haven't gotten bored of the new ones yet. I do think that there are a lot of bland, repetitive commercial games being published, but I don't see it as a threat. Video games are mainstream now. Consider another form of mainstream culture, music: the rise of huge record labels producing pop hasn't made the niche/indie stuff for the rest of us go away. I suspect that, just as four record labels now sell 90% of the music in the United States, a few big publishers will eventually sell 90% of the video games, but I am very excited about the other 10%.
In the immediate future I think we will see some very interesting new developments in gameplay. The DS is pretty neat, the Revolution is intriguing and there are plenty of other commercial developers making a genuine effort to do something new. Long-term, I am optimistic that games will mature as an art and that many wonders not yet conceived still await!
What's in the pipe works for you? Is there ANYTHING you can share about your ''secret'' project, using Trans2D?
There are too many things I'm interested in! Academic work consumes a lot of my time and has sparked a lot of new fascinations for me. Game development will still get priority in my free time, though. I don't want to give a way much detail about the ''secret'' project, but I promise lots of shooting, explosions and vehicles, which I am sure is a relief to Madness fans. Expect more detail in early January, once I've had some winter break time to smooth things over a bit.
Do you have a definitive top. 5 videogames?
Far too hard a question :)
Again, thanks so much for your time.
Max Abernethy's homepage.