Brothers say development of video game worth the effort

Effort includes Top 20 showing in world-wide competition

By Tina Comeau

THE VANGUARD

NovaNewsNow.com

When Jason Doucette was in elementary school he started compiling a game code, which was basically a list of do’s and don’ts when developing a video game.

When he and his twin brother Matthew were in Grade 2 or 3, they were programming computers, and by Grade 4 they were programming video games. “We always had sort of older equipment,” notes Matthew. “We weren’t exactly on the cutting edge of technology.”

When the brothers reached university, however, those around them tried to sway them away from their passion. Playing video games was a waste of their time, they were told, and developing video games was a waste of their talent.

So after university they started an Internet web posting and web design company, even though it wasn’t what they wanted to do with their time or their talent.

A year went by, and then another, and another, and the brothers were getting further away from what they really wanted to do, which was develop video games.

Now in their 30s, the two software developers are fulfilling their passion as they tweak and put the finishing touches on their four-player dual play arcade 2D shoot ‘em up game Duality ZF, which they’ve been working on for the past year.

The brothers entered the game in Microsoft’s 2009 Dream Build Play competition. The challenge is open to independent and hobbyist game developers. Of the more than 350 entries from over 100 countries, the Doucette brothers’ Duality ZF was among the Top 20 finalists. The game appears seventh on the list.

Matthew says the Microsoft competition is a good one for people like them and their company XONA Games. “It was specifically for independent developers, which means people who are unsigned,” he explains, comparing themselves to unsigned musicians who are looking to get signed in the music industry. He says gaming consoles have never been opened to independent developers, so the fact Microsoft opened this door is significant.

In about a month’s time the Doucettes intend to publish their Duality ZF game on Xbox Live Indie Games, which, again, is another door that has opened to independent developers.

Nowadays, some video games are almost comparable to a movie on screen. You could have a group of 50 people spending four years developing one. Other games you can throw together in a short time…and it shows.

The Doucettes are more meticulous in their approach. “The core concept of programming can be done in weeks or a matter of months, but after that you have to actually design a game around that,” says Jason. “You can have something moving on a screen and something happening and it may look to a person that it’s a finished game, but it’s not. You have to make all of the different levels, all of the different enemies, you have to work it all in an interface where you can actually start a game, quit it, pause it, and then there’s the graphics and sound. It takes time.”

And there’s also the issue of dying.

Jason says if you’re going to “die” in a game it should be because the enemy was too hard to battle. It shouldn’t be because you couldn’t see what was happening due to a poor camera angle, or because the game won’t let you move your player. “You shouldn’t be annoyed when you die,” he says.

The game the brothers have developed is an arcade-style game. While they say many people out there are trying to be the next big thing when it comes to video games, their philosophy is a bit different.

They just want to develop games that they themselves would want to play. And hopefully many others will want to as well.

For a link to a trailer of the game Duality ZF, you can visit

http://xona.com/dualityzf/