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1. What do you do for a living? I'm currently employed as an "Application Consultant" at a local software development shop that specializes in web-enabled applications. Over the past two and a half years, I've primarily been working on program manangement software for a large client. I'm usually involved in all phases from the design to the last line of code. What do you do for fun? There's only a fuzzy line between my jobs and my hobbies... I do enjoy programming and learning. But, I also like playing console games. (Dreamcast is the best - may it rest in peace.) I prefer sports and arcade games that don't require massive playing time, but I'll also play a good RPG or two. Under the sun though, I do enjoy playing sports such as American football, basketball, and baseball. Have you any programming experience? Ever since I was a little kid I've been interested in programming. I began by just typing in those programs and snippets from magazines like Ahoy! and Compute. So I could argue that I have around ten years of programming experience, although only three years professionally. Explain the first game you ever programmed. Well, I cannot even remember the first game I ever programmed. (It probably would have been something like hangman.) I used to work on dozens upon dozens of little projects in QBASIC, always abandoning them for the next cool thing. The first game I ever came close to finishing was a Monopoly game. It was done in QBASIC, using 80x50 text resolution and ASCII art. It was totally functional two-player game and ran surprisingly well. I was only twelve or thirteen at the time, and I learned a lot about why "SUBs" and "FUNCTIONs" were necessary and how arrays and structures were better than player1name$ and player2name$... Do you have any of your own Allegro games posted at the Depot, or do you have any plans on posting one? I actually have two, although only one is playable - "Sutris" and "Who Let the Blocks Out?". Sutris is a true two player tetris clone with power-ups. There are two separate menu systems, so players can play independantly of each other or join in on each others games. It was progressing fairly well, until late one night I nuked my source code. I had a back-up but it was somewhat dated, so I gave it up. I've since then started over, but not made much progress at all. "Who Let the Blocks Out?" was written in three long days for the SpeedHack 2001 competition. It's an incomplete (but playable) Tetris Attack clone. When and why did you create the Allegro Depot? I didn't ... It was started by Barry Gillhespy. He's from the UK I believe, but I haven't heard anything from him in over a year. I think I can speak for him though; he created it because there was no large-scale site at all dedicated to Allegro games. Tell us about the Allegro Depot's humble beginnings. Well, Barry Gillhespy first started the "Allegro Games Depot" (AGD) - as he called it. The year was 1997 or 1998, I don't recall exactly. It was just a static HTML website, so he maintained it entirely himself. Game developers would simply send him an e-mail and he'd take care of the update. It was a nice site (Barry was a good at graphic design) and became popular via the Allegro mailing list rather quickly. It soon became a chore for him and he was hard-pressed to keep it updated. That's when I stepped in (Summer of 1998). I wrote a VB application that let him store all the project data locally on his pc. With a push of a button, it generated the HTML of the entire site. He then uploaded the generated files, saving him many hours of hand editting all the code. He used that happily for many months, but one day his hard drive crashed (or some tragedy) and he lost his database of projects. At that point, he said he was moving on with life and no longer had time to maintain the AGD. He left it for anyone who wanted to continue the site. I spoke up and took the Allegro Games Depot name and content and proceeded to convert it into a dynamic site via ASP. Another group of people started the "Allegro Vault" or something along those lines - but as far as I know it died after a month or two. From that ASP design it underwent another facelift using Pervasive Tango. As the site became increasingly popular, I worked on a third design (the current one) that would encorporate the "Allegro Games Depot" as just a small subset. Most of the planned features never made it in due to time and energy limits, although the Forums have kept the site very interesting. The Allegro Depot is now a huge site with hundreds of members. Did you ever expect it to become this big? First off, it is no longer called "The Allegro Depot", but Allegro.cc. The Depot is now the section of Allegro.cc that contains programs written with Allegro. But yes, I did expect it to be as big as it is today. In fact, I don't see any reason why Allegro.cc cannot become well known in the independent game developer's circle. There are currently over eight hundred members, with around a dozen more joining every week. By the end of the year I would like to see two thousand members. What are your future plans for Allegro.cc? I'm currently working on a totally new site for Allegro.cc. For stability and speed, I'm using a Linux solution (PHP4 / MySQL). The redesign is primarily to allow for expansion via a "plug-in" approach. I want to be able to add things to help create a community atmosphere. I also am focused on prividing original content to get more traffic. This Pixelate magazine - which will be integrated seemlessly into the new Allegro.cc - will play a big role in that. There will also be a Yahoo-like directory and search engine for Allegro and programming related site. I also plan on creating a "library" to help programmers - especially the beginners. The Depot section will also be vastly improved from a navigation standpoint. There will be a lot more categories, and sub categories to make it easier to find things. Also, I've got a team that is right now going through and rating and commenting every single one of the 500+ games. I am also planning on integrating a steady flow of contests similar to the SpeedHack and SizeHack into Allegro.cc. There are other things I'm hoping to accomplish later on, including distributing Allegro.cc CD-ROMs. What is your favorite game at Allegro.cc? The bad thing about running Allegro.cc is I don't really have much time to sit around and play all the games very long. Johan Peitz writes good software, especially "SpaceHog". Along with the rest of the world, I cannot wait to see the upcoming demo to Kenny's "Fenix Blade". "Crillion '97", "Drops of Light", and "Pure Tetrix" are some of my long-time favorites. The quality of the games seems to be improving, which is good for the future of Allegro.cc and independent game developers in general. Do you have any last words? Just to have fun with Allegro and don't take life too seriously. Interview conducted by Justin Todd (http://justin-todd.tripod.com)
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