LOOKING BACK: POKEMON THE EVIL INSIDE 2

Who is Colt?
That would be me. I am a 26 year old Dutch guy, currently employed as production manager of a large aluminum casting facility. It basically has me walking around and telling the entire work crew what they need to do and if they are doing a good job. My true passion lies in martial arts and as such I train/practice it several hours a day; In fact as I am typing this while I am doing some light cardio on a stationary bike.
Videogames are my hobby and main form of leisure activity. I’ve always had a creative side and have brought this forth through various media. I’ve drawn countless comics, made a couple of movies and also a set of videogames. The latter really stuck with me through the past years and at this time it is my main means of expressing myself creatively.
I pride myself on my work ethic; I work on my projects every chance I get between my fulltime job and my training, under the motto: “Take a step forward every day, and sooner or later you will reach your goal”. Plus I’ll finish what I started.
While I haven’t done anything new games since my last release several years ago. I am still going strong at making my game ideas a reality.

How did you start off in the rpg maker scene?
Originally it was something I found when looking for a simple game making software. Earlier I had been working with some simple C++ and Pascal code to make functional games. But those never got any further then an elaborate “Asteroids” clone. When I first found RM2K, which at that time was just recently released in English, I immediately fell in love with it. The way to make a level, to have NPCs fill the ingame world, it was fantastic. It didn’t take long for me to make a massive quantity of custom sprites and tilesets, to make the games look the way I wanted them to… And that was before I actually started looking for custom sets online.
In the beginning I was content with the default battle system. But it quickly became dull and I turned to finding a means to make an action battle system. At that time, it was rather difficult as there didn’t exist any examples aside for a demo featuring a simple knife battle system. With some experimenting, I managed to get a working shooting system and set out to make my very first game that I actually released to the public; Pokemon The Evil Inside, PTEI1.

Why a Pokemon game?
The idea behind it was really simple. If you look at the world the games and the tv-series illustrated, I started to wonder. What would happen if these significantly more powerful creatures rejected they’re masters and even turned against all humans; by any means, be it mind control or a virus, etc. What would humans be able to do to stop it?
I believe I also asked this question in the poorly grammar filled first installment of PTEI, so I can understand how people might have missed that.
To this end I made a demo game featuring the first stages of this described scenario. With an very blunt shooting system, a quickly hashed together pokemon Gameboy game style tileset and a sprite set for all the 151 first pokemon. It was a very short lasting a maximum of 10 minutes, of which half are cutscenes. In my defense Action-Packed cutscenes that took some time to put together.
When I released the demo, I found that allot of people enjoyed it. At the time it was the only RM2K game with a shooting based Action Battle System. To this end I was greatly encouraged to make it into a full game.

How long did it take you to finish both games in the Evil Inside series?
The first game I’d say took about a year, including the original demo. The second installment took more than twice as much, about two and a half years. But then again, it was a much larger game with allot more gameplay and action scenes. Which became a staple for the series. It was also greatly thanks to teaming up with the talented Marco Tundo aka Blackmage#1 that PTEI2 didn’t take longer to make and turned out the way it did. For PTEI2 I can’t take full credit, half of it goes to my buddy BM.

What is your inspiration, what inspires you?
Other games I play, movies I see, books I read. When I am playing a good video game, I think to myself, this would be a great feature for my own project. This combined with a very active imagination, I can put together a game idea very quickly. With the seeds planted, the idea continues to grow as I get more ideas I can combine with the current, or develop as a separated project altogether.

Have your games been a success in your eyes?
For the most part. The PTEI series I can only see a great hit. While the first installment probably got well received because of the novelty value of a shooting system in RM2K. The second installment, PTEI2, is and always will be a solid 2D action game. To this day, if I fire up a copy of the game and start playing, I won’t be able to stop. It gained good reviews and was enjoyed by many who played it.
My last project “World In Danger” didn’t pan out as good as I had hoped. Mostly due to the limitations of RMXP, the gameplay didn’t become what I had in mind. Which is a real shame as it was the first time that I had put real effort in the game’s story instead of making everything up as I went along. It is also the only RPGmaker game ever made to feature full voice acting. The game is decent, until RMXP causes it to crash. I do really encourage people who want to experience the story to bear with the occasional error and play it through to the end. Allot of action to be experienced, along with humor and a good solid story with interesting characters.
Despite all of this, I am happy to say that the games was been downloaded from the website several thousand times. So people have played at least part of it.

What do you personally think of the games you've made?
Personally my favorite has to be PTEI2. A really fun game to play, even by today’s standards. If I had made it on a more suitable platform and replaced the pokemon with random other non-copyrighted monsters I would have submitted it for publishing as an Indie game for PC.
PTEI1 was the original, but it was bad in hindsight. The only real good stuff in there are the action cutscenes. Which probably took up most of my game making time anyway.
While I am not too happy with how World In Danger turned out. It is still by far the most ambitious project I ever made and I still enjoy playing it from time to time. While not a smashing hit, still an okay game with a great story.

What's been the most rewarding thing for you so far?
The greatest reward I get from the games I make is hearing from the people that have played it, that they enjoyed playing it. And in general the sense of accomplishment after completing a project that has spanned a couple of years, brings me great joys also. It is something that I’ve imagined, conventionalized and spend hours and hours of work on; and now it is something real. To realize your idea is also an excellent reward.

What Rpg Maker games do you play/like?
To be honest I don’t play allot of RPG maker games. Mostly because RPG don’t really appeal to me. And the once I have played are basically the classics. I enjoyed “The Way” series and also finished “Romancing Walker” after it was translated to English. That and allot of promising demo’s featuring shooting style action battle systems. I can remember a “Resident Evil” fan game made by Team Orange; for which I also provided gun sprites.
Not a whole lot more than that. Most of the time when I start a RM2K game, I get eager to continue work on my own games. There are certainly a few gems out there I’d love to play, but my free time needs to be substantially more abundant for me to do so.

Have any words of wisdom for the community?
What I’d really like to say is this: “Don’t give up!” It has been so many times that someone contacts me and informs be about a game they want or are making. Usually they ask for advice concerning shooting systems and recently also about npc AI; sometimes to ask if they can use graphics from my released games, which I always allow them to do. Plus a whole lot of good ideas I read and see on forums, that make me think: “Hey, that would be a cool game. I can’t wait to see it in action.”
But in the end allot of people don’t finish they’re intended project. Perhaps do to loss of interest, or free time. Hence, Don’t Give Up!
One other thing I’d like to share with the fellow game makers out there. See RPGmaker as a stepping stone. It is a great learning tool for game design, but eventually you should try to broaden your horizon with more professional game making tools; especially if game design is something you’d like to pursue.
My own choice to switch over to making games using Microsoft Visual Studio and XNA has really opened up new challenges and a whole lot of new possibilities.

What are your aspirations for the future?
My aspirations are plentiful. I have allot of things I plan to do, spread over a variety of hobbies and activities. On the game making front and also my current main priority: I am developing a game using XNA, Microsoft Visual Studio and C# code, with the purpose of getting it released as a retail aka professional game for Xbox and PC (possibly other consoles and a mobile phone variant in the further future as well).
A 2D shooting game with its gameplay inspiration coming from my own PTEI series and the SNES classics like Super Metroid; mixed in with features you’d expect from modern day triple A games, mainly Halo, Resident Evil and Fall-Out.
Progress is going great at this time and I am nearly done with writing a game-engine from scratch.

I always get ideas for projects, allot of which are game ideas. You haven’t heard the last of me in the gaming world