Elastic: Hello.
Coder: Hello.
Elastic: Thanks for coming today. You must be busy.
Coder: I’m not actually, the update I released yesterday went smoothly. I have a bit of free time now.
Elastic: Update for what, exactly?
Coder: My main game at the moment, Blood & Iron.
Elastic: What is this game about?
Coder: It’s a FPS that’s based around the Napoleonic Wars. Players use muskets, swords and cannons to battle on historical and fictional maps.
Elastic: How long have you been working on it?
Coder: I started work on the weapons last year, and spent about three months at the start of this year making the game itself. It was released just after Easter.
Elastic: How popular has it been?
Coder: When it first released it may have reached the front page, but I can’t be sure since I was was asleep when it started to get popular. It definitely reached the second page, but only stayed there for a day or so. Now it has a stable player count of about 20k players a week.
Elastic: Have you made any other popular games?
Coder: I did make Contamination back in 2009, which has around 1.2 million visits at the moment. It gets around 2k players per week now. Aside from that, this is my only popular game.
Elastic: To a different topic, how long have you been on ROBLOX?
Coder: I’ve been on Roblox for almost seven years now, I joined in September 2008.
Elastic: When do you think Roblox was at it’s peak?
Coder: I think it’s the best it has ever been right now, and it’ll only continue to get better as they add more features. I’m especially excited for the new lighting features they’re slowly adding.
Elastic: What kind of games do you like to play when you’re not making your own games?
Coder: I mostly enjoy playing FPSs, but I haven’t played much CoD or Battlefield. I’ve been playing a bit of ‘Dirty Bomb’ recently, and I’m about to break 1,000 hours in ‘Team Fortress 2’. I’ve also got a few hundred hours in ‘Skyrim’ and ‘Mount & Blade: Warband’, both of which are greatly enhanced by their modding communities.
Elastic: When did you first start getting into creating games on ROBLOX?
Coder: I started learning how to script just a few months after joining, mostly through the Wiki and by editing free models. So I’ve been making games for pretty much my entire time on Roblox.
Elastic: Are you into any other type of coding?
Coder: I’ve made a few small bits of software in Visual Studio, but that’s mostly because my college (British college, which is the same as American high school) course was taught in VB.net.
Elastic: Do you do any animating?
Coder: Only on Roblox. I’m currently converting all of my weapons over to Roblox’s own system, as it’s a lot smoother than my current one.
Elastic: Why did you decide to make the game about the Napoleonic Wars?
Coder: Well, my friend (SMPeople) made me a musket model. I decided to go ahead and script it, and everything else just followed along. I had to decide whether to use the tech for a group or a game, and I decided a game would be better for me.
Elastic: What was the first game you ever made on ROBLOX?
Coder: I honestly can’t remember. However, it was probably Contamination. All of my other places before that were just small scripting experiments or builds, nothing that could be considered a game. Contamination started out like that, and then grew into an actual game.
Elastic: Do you think you would make another game like Blood & Iron later? Maybe about The Revolutionary War or War of 1812?
Coder: I’d prefer to make a game that wasn’t as similar as B&I. Also, I doubt many Americans would like me recreating the Burning of Washington. It’s possible that I’d make a naval battling game, or a Napoleonic RTS. However, these are just ideas.
Elastic: Would you do something more modern like WWII?
Coder: WWII has already been done well by a lot of developers. Part of the reason I made B&I was because there was no Napoleonic FPS on Roblox at that time (that I know of). There was PspJohn1’s American Civil War game, but that’s hardly authentic.
Elastic: At what point would you start a new game? When will you feel done with B&I?
Coder: When it comes to deciding what game to make, I really don’t do much planning. For instance, I decided to add the Duchy of Nassau on a whim after reading about their regiments at the Battle of Waterloo. However, I know that I definitely want to add musicians, sieges, Austria, and Russia to B&I before moving on.
Elastic: I can see myself charging at enemies with a fife, blaring “Taps”. How many battles do you think you want to have?
Coder: I tend to add 2 or 3 maps for each new faction, so that’ll be about 6 new maps minimum. However, I’m hoping to add more maps over time.
Elastic: Could you give a quick summary of how the game works?
Coder: There’s only one game mode at the moment, which is a team elimination mode. Teams of 12 players fight as infantry, skirmishers, cavalry or artillery. One team has to either kill all of the enemy team, or force them to surrender.
Elastic: Okay, rapid fire time. Donate?
Coder: If I donated to one random person, I’d have to donate to anyone who asked. So, no.
Elastic: Favorite hat?
Coder: My Bluesteel Domino Crown, which I got out of a gift.
Elastic: Favorite ROBLOX game?
Coder: I actually don’t play many Roblox games. Probably CoR 5, or any of Wingman8’s games.
Elastic: Favorite non-ROBLOX game?
Coder: TF2 or Skyrim.
Elastic: What aspect of B&I are you most proud of?
Coder: Definitely the authenticism.
Elastic: That’s all I can think of at the moment. Anything you want to say?
Coder: It’s a bit cliche, but I’d like to thank the people who’ve helped me make B&I.
ImperialBlood, who made most of the uniforms.
IronBrigade, whose manual of arms and knowledge of the era have been extremely helpful.
SMPeople, who made the original musket model.
Cravitus, who made the sword model.
Coder: Thanks for interviewing me!
Elastic: Thank you for coming!
