Indie Persona: Anthony “Mr. Yes” Domenico

Indie Persona is back with Anthony “Mr. Yes” Domenico. A name overshadowed, among with many others in this digital realm… I somehow ran into one of his games and wanted to learn more about this unknown persona. Like many independent personas, Anthony is doing his thing quietly and I have to add, properly. If you are in the mood for trying something quite different; then head over to the humble homepage of Mr. Yes, play his games, listen to his chiptunes and just ignore the rest of this text. Or, read more about what he has to say.

Square Tetromino(ST): Hi, Anthony Domenico… If there were a Wikipedia article about you, how would it start?

Anthony Domenico(AD): That assumes I’ve done something noteworthy; depending on what that is, the first line of the article could be very different. If I’m being optimistic, it would mention indie games or music, but there are many other ways someone can become noteworthy. See, for example, list of serial killers by number of victims or list of inventors killed by their own inventions.

ST : Game making and music making, do you favor one over the other?

AD : Music, because it’s much easier. Game making is more rewarding, but the process is painful. You can get into trouble. With music, whatever happens is probably ok.

ST : Have you contacted any website/blog about your games/music before? How do you feel about self-promotion? You don’t have to give names.

AD : No, I haven’t. It wouldn’t feel good to me, but I’m weird. There’s nothing wrong with self-promotion.

8:Capsule(left), 8:Sound(right)

ST : Would you agree that people tend to overlook freeware games? Do you think the term freeware has negative connotations, especially in terms of quality?

AD : I don’t have enough perspective to say. Maybe. But I do think freeware is seen as being of lesser quality, because it typically is of lesser quality. There’s nothing right or wrong about that, it’s just the nature of making things for free.

ST : Are you optimistic about alternative video game consoles like OUYA?

AD : It’s not really on my mind, so I can’t say I’m optimistic. (I don’t know much about OUYA, but I’ve heard nothing particularly good.)

ST : Do you think trying to meet the expectations of customers causes stagnation in commercial game development or do you think it encourages progression?

AD : That depends on what you consider to be progress. Certainly something is always progressing. Design improves over time. On the other hand, it might tend to make things kind of narrow/less diverse. I think everything that can exist, should exist, even if it won’t sell, is unpractical, strange, or just stupid.

Coobie and the Robots(right), Face Dancer(left)

ST : If your biography were in the form of a video game, what would be the genre?

AD : A video game can’t really be a biography. The game wouldn’t reflect actual events unless the player by chance happened to do everything I did. It could be a visual novel without choices, though. Some people consider those to be games.

ST : Independent game development has become popular but this also means dealing with a large audience for the developers. Do you think becoming a public figure is potentially harmful for an indie developer?

AD : Yes, potentially. It depends on the person. I wouldn’t be able to handle it very well, but some people can. Luckily I won’t have to worry much about it.

ST : Do you think aliens in the game Space Invaders are indeed hostile or it’s actually a CIA false flag operation?

AD : Everything is hostile. I think everything should be killed and destroyed. You can’t go wrong, really.

ST : Nokia 3310 vs Death Star, place your bet!

AD : 3310 is an even number. Even numbers are incredibly easy to break apart. 3313 would have a much greater chance here.

This is the end, sorry. From Rawket Lawncher with best wishes to Anthony…

Anthony “Mr. Yes” Domenico Homepage | @pressedyes on Twitter