Interview de Matthew Hopwood

Puissance Pocket : Can you introduce AGB Games Company ?

Matthew Hopwood : We are relatively newly formed a British based development team, currently attempting to obtain funding for our own projects. Our team members are all industry veterans with 10+ years experience each.

Puissance Pocket : Can you remember to us your projects already realized ?

Matthew Hopwood : As a company we have not created any games thus far, only the technology you see. We have however individually or together in the passed worked on titles across many formats for other developers.

Puissance Pocket : Why are you interested in the GameBoy Advance ?

Matthew Hopwood : It's a fascinating little device, that we really like :)

Puissance Pocket : Is it difficult to develop on GBA ?

Matthew Hopwood : Its not too difficult. The main drawbacks are limited RAM, ROM and CPU speed. Fortunately our technology is designed with cross platform scalability in mind, so our efforts will be transferred to the next generation of the Gameboy when it arrives.

Puissance Pocket : How many people work on WFR ?

Matthew Hopwood : There are now 3 of us, with possibly another 2 highly qualified team members joining us soon.

Puissance Pocket : Does WFR allow up to 4 players to play without any slowdown ?

Matthew Hopwood : WFR is a rendering engine as well as a game engine, however it does not currently support multiplayer communications, this will be something that we will invest time into when the need arises. However from my experience on Doom for GBA, 4-player multiplayer has a slight hit, because all 4 machines have to be synched every game frame.

Puissance Pocket : Can WFR be compared to the Raylight's engine called BlueRoses ?

Matthew Hopwood : Our technologies do share common features with Raylight's, however our renderer is 2 to 3 times faster (based on Raylights 3000 polygons with 60% coverage estimate). Here's a couple of other ways in which they differ:

1) We can render perspective corrected texture mapped polygons as well as affine
2) Smooth and flat shaded texture mapped polygons.
3) Complete freedom in our environments, including creating environments such as Top down GTA style, in-door / out door complex architectural (Doom, Duke, Quake), racing tracks, landscapes, sports stadiums and so on. As we progress we will release shots / video of the different types of environments that we can represent.

Puissance Pocket : Are you in touch with publishers or developers ? If yes, which ones ?

Matthew Hopwood : We have been contacted by numerous developers about licensing our technologies, but we are yet to turn them into a licensable format. We are also talking with a number of publishers about the possibility of creating products incorporating our technology.

Puissance Pocket : What do you think about the "3D games" ( Ecks VS Sever, Doom, Star X...) already released on the GBA ? Can you do something better ?

Matthew Hopwood : GBA Doom's engine is far superior to the likes of Ecks V Sever, but EvS does have better game play, which is more important at the end of the day. However I do find myself more immersed in Doom than EvS. Star X is a great idea that has been let down by a couple of flaws, its 3D engine is primitive but it seems to fit into the game quite well. We are confident that we can produce a game that is far superior to anything you will see coming out over the next year or so.

Puissance Pocket : Have you got other projects for GBA or other platforms ?

Matthew Hopwood : We currently have no commercial projects with publishers at the moment, but we are hoping for the situation to change very soon.