This month we chat with Cornutopia head Mark Sheeky.  Mark has been hard at work on his new game Flatspace.  This chat was really broken into two sections as first we got some more background about the history of Cornutopia, which is fascinating to say the least, and then we moved on to questions about the new game...Flatspace!  For an exclusive look at current pics of Flatspace, click here!
 
 How many years has Cornutopia been creating games?

I always enjoyed writing games more than playing them, but my main motivation is still to play the end result. I started writing games initially aged about 11 or 12 on the Dragon 32 and later moved on to the Commodore 64 where I wrote in machine code (not assembler!) but none of those games were worth playing.

I started writing shareware games in 1991 on Amiga with a game called The Challenge of the Matrix, the grand daddy of Yinyang. That was under the title of Scorpius Software. I had 25 releases on Amiga, including a few that made it to publication but I got ripped off a lot by unscrupulous publishers. I switched to PC in one go in September 1998 and changed the name to Cornutopia soon after.  The name came from a tune I entered into a mod authoring competition... it came second!

 How many games has Cornutopia released?

I've had 12 PC releases since 1991, some shareware, some freeware, some nowhere:  Thermonuclear Domination, Arcangel: The Legacy Of Peace, Roton, Martian Rover Patrol, Trax, Noise Station 1, Radioactve, Breakout Velocity, Bool, Yinyang, Outliner, Noise Station 2, Firefly.

If you count Scorpius releases too, the total is 38.

 How many people have worked on your games? (engine/sound/graphics)

Artist Andrew Cashmore did most of the graphics for Hilt 1 and 2 on Amiga but for the rest I do it all myself. I find it more efficient that way. Certainly progress seems to slow down with more people involved. My good friend Andrew Williams serves as a consultant on any game design issues but even he doesn't see a game until it is complete.

 Have you ever contracted out work on your games?

No. Sometimes it's faster to learn how to do something yourself, and it's always cheaper. Never say that you can't do something. Learning something new and doing it is much better that getting someone else to do it.

 Not including the game you are working on right now, what is your personal favorite among the games you've created?

On Amiga, Hilt 2. On PC Radioactive, then Outliner, then Arcangel. Game design can be a hit and miss affair. I'm not 100% happy with any of my PC games so far.  Noise Station 2 though (which is music software and not a game) is definately the most wonderful thing I've done. After the merely 'okay' version 1 got pirated without selling a copy I decided not to release NS2 but I use it for all of my albums, game music and sound effects.

 Not including the game you are working on right now, what was the most ambitious game you have created?

The one that made it is Arcangel. It took 18 months and that included buying a PC, learning C++ and DirectX (I programmed in Assembler on Amiga) and 3D rendering lots of graphics. In the end the game turned out okay but by the end I was already too tired with the project to care much. The game play is still on par with Hilt 2, it's predecessor but the graphics and effects look a little primitive. I wasted about 2 years chasing a publishing contract with some of my old Amiga days contacts. The game finally went on sale on my website a year ago but by that time it was looking dated. If I did something similar again I would make a lot of changes.

The most ambitious game I didn't create was The Heart of Aorkhan in 2001, a rogue clone that used fully 3D graphics and had more monsters and objects than even ADOM. I didn't have a PC capable of running the 3D engine so had to design and texture the graphics without seeing them. Every monster and item was scripted using a language I had to invent. The dev folder is 35Mb. A year later when I got the new PC, the graphics were done but they didn't look very good. I couldn't cope with having to redo them so at that point I vowed never to do a big game again and decided to make small games and try to sell them myself online. Up until that point I was still handing things to my (bad) publisher.

 What got you involved in making video games?

Hmm... I can't remember not doing it. Of course on old computers when BASIC -was- the operating system, programming was easy for anyone to try.

 How much time does a typical game take for you to do?

Most of the small games, Bool, Radioactive, Firefly and that sort of thing take about 4 weeks full time. Outliner took 10 days, because the simple graphics took just one day. Graphics and level design are the real time-eater, that's why Arcangel took so long.

 What in your mind sets Cornutopia games apart from other games?

Nothing. Although I always make sure the AI can do everything the player can and does not 'cheat' (like give the computer privileged info that a human opponent would not get).

 How much time do you spend playing other Independent company's games?

About an hour a week, only as a reviewer for Bytten. I don't play many games period but play console games for a couple of hours on Sunday afternoons.  Strategy (particularly turn based) and simulation are my favorite genres but not enough of those sorts of games are made nowadays.  I still play the odd C64 game on emulation. Airbourne Ranger for that platform is still one of the best games ever. I play Shogi Variants sometimes too (freeware: look it up!).

 What do you think when you hear the words "Independent Game?"

A fair trade game, where the developer gets the profit not a middle man. 5 or 6 of my Amiga games got published but I didn't get any money. I'm sure everyone falls for those crappy royalty only deals but a few of my games appeared, and still appear, on shelves without any deal at all. They get cloned and sold illegally. I'm sure it happens all of the time.