Hooka: Who are you and what are you about?

 

Ruckage: I'm a 32 year old GP2X fan living in the UK with an addiction to making games.

 

Hooka: When did you attain a GP2X?

 

Ruckage: 14/11/06.

 

Hooka: What was you're main reason for getting one?

 

Ruckage: Emulation originally, and the hope that I might be able to make a few games.

 

Hooka: You mentioned you used to use DIV, how hard was it for you to learn fenix having that prior experience?

 

Ruckage: Not too difficult at all actually, I didn't get to use DIV very much at all really as it doesn't work under XP and shortly after buying it I upgraded from Windows 98, so It ended up just gathering dust. I was put off of using Fenix for ages as it all seemed quite daunting to begin with due to the lack of English documentation and support sites, but once I took the plunge the little bit of experience I'd had with DIV really helped, as did the DIV instruction manual as most of it applies to Fenix as well.

 

Hooka: Are you done Blingo, or is there more work you intend to do on it?

 

Ruckage: The new version of Blingo - 'Blingo 2008' will be ready very soon. It will feature full touchscreen support and AI players to play against and should hopefully be far better than the original despite being basically the same game.

 

Hooka: Not too much of a fan of Apple products, are ya?

 

Ruckage: Are you trying to get me lynched J. It's very tempting to rant but I think all I'll say is that it's not really the apple products but the hype that surrounds them and the way that apple fanboys will forgive apple for just about anything. And the fact that they charge extortionate prices doesn't help matters.

 

Hooka: Why did you decide to make Monkey's for your donators?

 

Ruckage: Basically because the domain name I had was muddymonkey.co.uk so it seemed to fit and because I thought it would be a good way to thank donators. I've updated the site now and the monkeys have left but they may return at a later date.

 

Hooka: Was it surprising to see Yuan Works do a similar sprite deal for their preorders?

 

Ruckage: To be honest it hadn't even occurred to me until you said it. I'm sure it's just coincidence though, and if it isn't its good to start a trend.

 

Hooka: Are you more gfx oriented, or do you find yourself to be a good balance of gfx artist/coder/whatever else? (I dunno if you make all you're own music too... or something else like that)

 

Ruckage: I would say I'm more graphics orientated and nearly all my games start with the graphic design. I do enjoy the coding as well though and try to make my games as much fun as possible, graphics are nothing if the game isn't fun. The Music in Protozoa and Ruck-man was by the very talented Pat Ferguson.

 

Hooka: Nice work on the carbon skin, you seemed to put a good deal of effort into it! What was your inspiration?

 

Ruckage: Thanks. The inspiration was actually the original GP2X menu, and the colour scheme of the GP2X logo. I really liked the icons in the original menu but wanted something more personal.

 

Hooka: Were you happy to place #2nd in the pdroms.de coding compo 3.666 for Dastardly Dungeons?

 

Ruckage: Absolutely, it made my week. I was really surprised as I didn't think I'd have much of a chance as part of the scoring was based on file size and as it was made in fenix there was no way of keeping the file size small.

 

Hooka: Have you ever tied the decline of Zoltan machines in arcades to the disappearance of the hippies?

 

Ruckage: Not really thought about it lol, I think those kinds of machines were at their height way before hippies were about.

 

Hooka: Those Marquees for gnuboy are pretty awesome! Can we ever expect another batch?

 

Ruckage: Thanks. I may do some more when I have time. I was waiting for suggestions for themes but so far I've only received a few.

 

Hooka: Whadda Fa? Protozoa! And only in one day of coding! How do you pull it off?

 

Ruckage: To be honest I don't know - not sleeping helped.

 

Hooka: Good choice on the music for it! Who is that?

 

Ruckage: The music was by Pat Ferguson. He's made some new music for when I make the promised sequel which is even better than the original music.

 

Hooka: So, Blingo is based on a game named Slingo, and Protozoa is based on flOw (and some snake-type game from timesplitters 2)... so that little bar in your signature would be hinting at clue(do) for GP2X... right?

 

Ruckage: Kind of. The game is based on Cluedo but is designed solely as a single player game.

 

Hooka: What's your opinion on the game that is "adjust ratings on the GP2X Archive"? (I'm meaning how the archive ratings are always bouncing around to make everything all skewed...)

 

Ruckage: It's annoying. Everyone is obviously entitled to their opinion but it seems that many votes aren't genuine at all. It's a shame as if it was used as intended it would give a good indication of how good a title is. I tend to ignore the ratings now and just try the games as otherwise you can miss out on some great titles - as I did when I first got my 2X.

 

Hooka: Were you surprised to see the GP2X cradles that were formed from your lego query?

 

Ruckage: A little. I thought it was a cool idea but wasn't sure anyone else would agree.

 

Hooka: Have you done any work on Prospector Pete, or your breakout clone lately?

 

Ruckage: Not for a while, but they will be done.

 

Hooka: Do you think it would be handy to have the fenix runtime included in the Open2X firmware eventually?

 

Ruckage: Yes and no. It would obviously be beneficial as far as file size is concerned but unless everyone switches to Open2X I would still include the runtimes with the game to make it easier for those who have the standard firmware.

 

Hooka: Heh, I can't believe somebody else remembers Rescue on Fractalus! I used to play that on my CoCo3 all the time... how far did you get in the game? (I didn't get very far at all :P)

 

Ruckage: I honestly can't remember. I do remember it getting very difficult in later levels though. Rescue on Fractalus and Star Raiders on the XE were my favourite games as a kid.

 

Hooka: Are you happy with how Ruckman turned out? (It had some stiff competition at GBAX07)

 

Ruckage: I'm really pleased with it, I can honestly say I put my all into it. It obviously would have been nice to place in the top 3 but you can't win them all and there were lots of great titles this year. Judging by comments on the forums it's a popular game and that makes me happy.

 

Hooka: Ok, spill one of your good drinking moments, you know you've got a funny story to tell!

 

Ruckage: Well a few years ago I went out clubbing in my local town. It's known for being a bit rough so I was a bit on edge but I soon settled down after a few drinks. Towards the end of the night and many more drinks later I was standing at the bar and I noticed this guy staring at me from the other side of the room, I decided to ignore him and just look away. I left it a minute or two and looked back and he was still staring and it started to get my back up as I was convinced he was looking for trouble. I decided I wasn't backing down so I put on my meanest face and stared right back. It carried on like this for a bit longer and I could see he was angry so I decided that I'd confront him and find out what his problem was, I staggered across the room trying to do an impression of a sober person and then realised I'd spent the last 10 minutes giving evils to a mirror.

 

Hooka: What's the third part in the murder mystery trilogy? So far we know there's something like clue(do), and a fruit machine...

 

Ruckage: The third part will be a remake of an old dos game called Sleuth with many improvements and new features.

 

Hooka: Was it nice to have Squidge help you recover your work when your HDD failed?

 

Ruckage: Definitely. I'm extremely grateful and without his help Sleuth Slots would never have been released

 

Hooka: What are some of your favorite GP2X homebrew, emu's, etc.?

 

Ruckage: There are so many, some of the homebrew titles I play regularly are: Ghostpix, Methane Brothers, Blast Riot, Unicolor, and Beat2x. For emulation my favourites are Picodrive, and the just released Temper.

 

Hooka: Have you tried setting up your games with Puck2099's new beta of fenix to check performance?

 

Ruckage: I haven't really given Ufenix a go yet, but I'm currently using beta 6 as it supports the touchscreen.

 

Hooka: Do you have any other projects on the go?

 

Ruckage: Loads. I have a couple of games due out soon that support the touchscreen, one of them is exclusively touchscreen. The 2 games are 'Space varments' which is a touchscreen gun game and 'Animatch' which is a 'Zookeeper' clone.

 

Hooka: How'd you score the nick Ruckage?

 

Ruckage: The origins are shrouded in mystery and may be a bit rude.

 

Hooka: What would you like to see more of on GP2X?

 

Ruckage: More great homebrew games, things have picked up on that front over the last year and I hope the trend continues. For emulation it would be great to see some improvements for the Gameboy, and SNES emulators.

 

Hooka: Is there anything I missed? Do you want to add something? Will you do what Johnny Don't Does?

 

Ruckage: I think you covered everything and I probably will do what Johnny Don't does.

 

Hooka: Thanks again, can't wait to see your incoming releases!