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« on: February 20, 2013, 10:58:22 AM »
Hello backers!!! You all are awesome!!
I just wanted to introduce myself to you and let you in on a little bit of my history with AGS and give you some insight into the programming side of the development of QFI. First, a bit about me. I am a school teacher living in Maryland. I have taught high school math and computer science, ESL, web development, and I am currently teaching middle school technology in a magnet school. I love teaching and it is my "real job" so to speak. I didn't always want to teach though. I actually got my undergraduate degree in computer science and realized in an internship that life in a cubicle was not for me. I quickly looked for other options. I took a job working at a funeral home while finishing my degree and worked there for about a year more before deciding on transitioning to education. Working at a funeral home, I had much time to reflect and think and it game me some perspective into the importance of being happy instead of wealthy. In high school, I liked the idea of teaching, but I ruled it out because of money. Attending many funerals for unhappy, wealthy people, made me realize I needed to do something that would make me enjoy what I was doing (not that you can't have both, but I needed to do what I wanted to do).
Ok, so I became a teacher, but I still love programming (I just hated being in a cubicle). I have always looked for creative programming outlets. I dabbled in homebrew on the psp for a while, but never really got into it. I always wanted to do more, the opportunity just never arose. That is until about 3 years ago when IA asked for testers to help with SQ2. I happened to check the forum that day and emailed Bt immediately. He took me on as a tester, which led me to becoming lead tester, and the rest took off from there.
While working with SQ2, I talked quite a bit with Jason Mearls (programmer for SQ2 at the time, and current programmer for Mages at Himalaya). He suggested to me that I download AGS and play around a bit. I SUCKED!! I didn't have a clue how games were put together in AGS. I looked at the demo game and struggled. The code made sense, but how everything comes together was like a foreign language to me. He didn't let up and with him and a few others, we started a small side project that we never completed (and has since been completely abandoned), but doing so gave me some insight into how AGS really worked.
After releasing SQ2 at IA, and after Jason moved on to Himalaya, I was asked to take the reigns on another project that was in production (sort of) at the time. I guess I was able to impress Bt and Klytos enough that shortly thereafter I was let in on the secret that IQ has been established and they needed a lead programmer for the game. Without having ever made a game, they put a lot of trust in me that I could pull it off. I was shocked really. I had done some testing and showed that I could be counted on to put in the time, but I had only shown a few small pieces of programming. The side project I had worked on, as far as I know had never even made it to anyone else at IA. I had done a few screens and pulled off a few animations somewhat decently. But really, to make a game, from scratch it is a much larger endeavour.
I accepted the offer to work on the game. This was back in December of 2011. There were some Steve Sketches floating around, and some ideas for the game, but not much. As a programmer, without much in terms of resources, I decided I needed to work on setting up the game's basic shell. I also new I had a little bit of time to learn AGS. We completed the demo a little over 6 months later.
In those 6 months, I learned tons about AGS, and game making in general. If you guys are interested, I would love to add some insight into the programming behind QFI and how the game really comes together. Any questions, ask away!
-chucklas