Last Online: 9/18/07
Mark Frohnmayer
I've been making games and games tech for most of my life - first as a hobby, then at Dynamix, and now at GarageGames. Currently I'm working on a variety of projects.
If I've said it once... I've said it. -- Nardo Polo
| Game | What I Did | Difficulty of Development | Anecdote |
|---|---|---|---|
| Primary game programming, game mechanics, level idea sketches, shell | Not Bad | During the course of development I played the game a whole lot -- tweaking physics, testing levels, etc. And I was pretty much the only person who really played and tested the game -- so every time Alex came to me with new maps, I kept saying, "these are too easy... make more hard levels!" since I'd played the game so dang much. Explains the incredible ramp up in difficulty of the levels of the game. Also, the first time I saw 3 fold maze I was blown away. Piece de resistance, Alex! | |
| game design, programming, art, community backend framework | Not Bad | Zap first started life as a fun networked multiplayer 3D space game project I did in college with Gary Grossman (who's currently at Macromedia). It was reincarnated as a 2D multiplayer game on the van ride down to GDC a few years back -- I can still remember me, Garney and Alex all hacking away on stuff on our laptops at night in the minivan, hopped up on Red Bull... fun! | |
| core engine (Darkstar!) work -- bits of sim core, rasterizers, scripting language, gui framework, networking layer | Harder than Planned | My favorite memories from Starsiege date to around the launch of the original multiplayer Advanced Tech Release (ATR) -- lots of in-office multiplayer games. | |
| Lead programmer, much engine design and coding, some map design. | Still having nightmares | About 2 months before we shipped the game, I went to wednesday night hoops at a local gym and broke my left index finger while blocking a pass. After surgery for a spiral fracture I had to keep my hand elevated above my heart for the next three days... the whole time enduring Dave "Diamondback" Meddish asking me repeatedly, "Yes, Mr. Frohnmayer, do you have a question?" Ha ha, very funny. Oh, and I almost went blind. Fun! Actually there was this one match, during the beta -- I think we were playing Slapdash with around 30 people... there were tanks and bombers and shrikes and all manner of crazy action. I thought to myself, "I have never seen this before in a game..." I remember thinking that if we'd had the time and will to truly polish it to finish it would have been a truly epic creation. And I might have had time to find that collision bug! (mad props to the mighty Garney) | |
| mechanics tweaks, multiplayer game design, pinch-hit coding, "producer stuff" | Harder than Planned | Favorite "overall" moment: The first time we played the rough cut of what would be the multiplayer mode we shipped with... and it was fun! I think this point was a real turning point for the mood of the whole project. Favorite coding moment: Finally getting the reticle target following arrow screen cues almost right. Maybe on my next game I'll actually get them really truly and in all ways working correctly. My apologies to those whose arrows freak out on the gravity levels. Also, sorry about the jump away from surface thing... I want to fix that too. Favorite post ship memory: Walking around Holland with Pascal Bos saying "Marble it up!" repeatedly in his Dutch accent. Favorite new level that will blow away the serious multiplayer MBU gamers when they finally get to play it: Spires. | |
| Lead programmer, network engine, software graphics engine, parts of sim core, scripting and gui systems, Snowblind, Raindance | Average | So it was late at night close to ship and I was playing a game of 2v2 CTF on Desert of Death with John "UberBob" Folliard, Dave "symlink" Moore and Scott "CornBoy!" Youngblood. Each team had the other's flags and we were all taking sniper pot shots at each other in the dark across the desert hills. The level of adrenaline was so intense -- I think it was one of the first Tribes games I played where the gameplay polish was really starting to show... it was then that I knew we had something pretty special in the works. And then there was that "tongue twister" that scotty wrote down and had people do -- when Aaron A "nailed it" hilarity ensued. And when a team of 30+ people who've had not much sleep for a month get their first team webcam... well, look out! I actually could go on and on -- this was by far the most fun "big team" game I've ever worked on. |
