Alexis Andújar González (aka Alexitrón) first received positive coverage outside of the GameMaker community for his game, The Power and has since released games such as In a Dungeon and And Everything Started to Fall (an Experimental Gameplay competition winner).

Age?

29 (will be 30 next month).



Location?



Puerto Rico.



Dev. tool(s) of choice?



What do you do?



I cut the grass for a living.



I’ve noticed that you have vented frustrations about game development and decided to give it up on more then one occasion. You have developed and released most of your games with Game Maker - what limitations, problems or frustrations did you start to find that made you want to move onto a different game development tool?

My main frustration with game making is the same as my main frustration with everything else I do: myself. I ask too much of myself and sometimes pretend to please everybody at the same time, which is impossible. Game Maker is a fantastic tool, especially if you’ve never done a game before and have no idea how a line of code is written. It does have its faults and some of them are quite annoying, like the fact that it only works on a single platform at a time (finally, those Yoyo people are working on this) and how sometimes, even within the boundaries of that single platform, some people will get unexpected glitches that others don’t and I never get during development. But in the end the only person that is to blame for all of this frustration is me . I should have focused on what the tool could do instead of what it couldn’t and work my games around those faults. So it was never the tool but the person handling it.



You have also tried Flixel and Flashpunk I believe - how did the learning processes go with these - how far did you get?



Yes, I tried both and didn’t get too far with either. With Flixel, as soon as I finally got a little demo running, I realised it wasn’t for me and quit. With FlashPunk, I almost made a game. It was a little easier to follow than Flixel since Chevy Ray has a Game Maker background and made FlashPunk with Game Maker users in mind (I think). The problem was that I didn’t really “make” this game. I just asked questions all the way through the process and copy and pasted pieces of code from everybody and a kind of functional game came to be. But looking back at all that code, I could hardly figure any of it out and had to constantly ask how things were done, so I wasn’t really learning anything. Very recently I gave FlashPunk another shot but only made it as far as setting everything up and looking at some video tutorials. I do not like programming very much and FlashPunk, awesome as it is, still requires a lot of that, so I guess it is not for me. But I do like it and will keep it on my harddrive and just take baby steps with it whenever I get a chance.



I noticed a post you made over at Braingale the other day, venting some criticisms about the indie community. Care to elaborate?

Yes, I ranted a little bit over at Braingale. It just makes me mad how every time indies want to make their indie games look good, their first argument seems to be how bad the mainstream is. It’s like a bad nutritionist and the only way they know how to show you how good vegetables are is to tell you how bad junk food is. If you can’t convince me that vegetables are good by just telling me how good they are, then maybe they are not as good as you want to make them seem. And then the unavoidable argument had to show up: “the mainstream just make first person shooters and they suck because of that”. If that is true of the mainstream then we can safely say that indies just make platformers and they suck because of that.

I have seen these arguments in many interviews, posts and papers written by well known and respected indies. It’s almost like they are unsure and doubtful of the very thing they are trying to defend. They make their beloved scene seem like it doesn’t have a foundation solid enough to stand on, like it can’t shine in its own light.

That is my sincere opinion, which of course could be very wrong.



Do you think the indie community is in a positive place currently?

I do not care about the indie scene as a whole. The communities within it do not matter either: it is the people, the individuals that matter. When I go on the internet now, I look at individuals and there are some very amazing individuals out there. People who are all about game making: they don’t care about money, they are not in it for personal gain, they just want to see more awesome games made. People like Chevy Ray, Matt Thorson and Simon Kaizen (Pixel Prospector), just to name the first names that come to mind. These are people that really care about what they do and really want others to do better (not just saying so but actually doing something about it). They share everything they know, just to make it easier for others, so that people can focus on the actual games they are trying to make. They don’t ask anyone for anything in exchange, they just want to see the awesome games. These people have real passion and truly care about what they do. I only wish I had an inch of the selfless dedication that these people have.

Do you think places like the IndieGames: The Weblog and TIGSource have been positive or negative influences over what people consider to be ‘indie’?

What do people consider to be indie? What is indie? Some say it is just short for independent and for others it seems to mean much more, almost like a lifestyle. Some have said it is just another profile. Sincerely, I don’t care. I visit both places (and recommend them) to see what others are making, even though I rarely play anything, and to catch up with the awesome people out there. Again, these places are what you make of them. You don’t have to agree with everything they “say”.

Do you think the different indie communities are a distraction from game development or have you managed to gleen some constructive feedback out of them?

The communities are what you make of them. You can make them a distraction or you can make them an endless pool of constructive feedback. All extremes are bad, everything in balance is good. There are good and bad individuals in all communities, so it is important to ask ourselves: “What am I to this community?” It’s the people that make communities what they are and not the other way around.

Do you think there is too much focus on innovation and 'games being art’ in the indie community?

Yes, this pointless chase after the new and meaningful, I hate this very much too. Just like beauty is relative to the eyes of every individual, art is an illusion relative to the mind of every individual. What is beautiful to me might be ugly to you and what is meaningful and artsy to me might be a lot of nonsense to you. Art could be anything and be anywhere. Art is stupid. And innovation: I believe that this is something that people shouldn’t attempt to do but just let it spontaneously happen. Imagine I sat down to make a game and the only goal was to make it innovative. Imagine how much research I would have to do and how many games I would have to play before even starting on my own. There are countless games out there: how can I say for sure that mine is different from all of them? I believe that striving to do something original will bring unnecessary frustration to the already difficult process of making a game. People should make whatever they feel like making, with no preconceptions and if others want to label it as original and artsy then fine. You still made the game that you wanted to and that’s what should matter.

Again, this is just my opinion.

Did you ever feel pressured into releasing something 'innovative’ for each and every release?

Not really, I don’t think I ever did anything that hasn’t been done before.

Have you taken anything positive from your time with independent game development so far? What have the highlights been for you?

Besides the moments in which I allowed myself to be over influenced by “the scene” and bringing myself to absolute frustration, everything else has been great. First, I made freaking video games! I always wanted to make them and finally did it. And then they got spread all over the internet, sometimes making it to actual ink and paper magazines. I won some competitions, got a game in a museum, am a member of private communities like The Poppenkast and The Braingale Team and have met some of the greatest indie developers and enthusiasts out there (lots of great individuals). One of my games will be appearing in an upcoming indie book. It’s been a very good ride overall. I can rant all I want but I certainly cannot complain.

Do you feel like your games made an impact?



An impact? On the indie scene as a whole: I don’t think so. On individuals: maybe. I know they had an impact on me, so I’m satisfied with just that.



Have you left game development behind for good? Do you still do any tinkering with any game development tools or make games just for yourself?



I never “quit” making games. I don’t think I ever could (I just love it too much). But I was going through some serious situations with my parents and really needed to get away from the scene. I was letting my hobby consume me and that simply couldn’t be. I was taking it far too seriously as if I was getting paid for it. I just needed a break to re-organise my thoughts and priorities. Again, I let myself get in the way of me. But I have done a lot of stuff behind the scenes, I just haven’t released any of it. Just recently a flash port of And Everything Started to Fall was made (with Flixel) by a fellow called Josip Miskovik. I participated during the whole process and we will be selling it soon. I am also working on a flash port of The Power (with FlashPunk) with Amidos, Pgil, Andy and Br. Android. The project is on hold right now but hopefully we will finish it some day. I was thinking about going public again in the coming months, but I’m still not sure about how good an idea that is.

You have some unfinished projects such as Across the Lake and Treasure Hunt. Were these abandoned because you felt the games mechanics were not working the way they should, because you felt they were derivative or because you just became sick of the concepts?



I believe Across the Lake was one of the biggest projects I ever started. At the time I didn’t even know Game Maker Language and was still using the Drag & Drop functions of Game Maker, so I guess what killed this project was that my “ambition” was far greater than my skills at that moment. In the case of Treasure Hunt, I started the game out of excitement, after playing the first demo of Sword of Legend (by Phubans and Deadheat). So I just started churning out stuff quickly without any clear goals and the game died really quickly. I really do not care if my games are derivative because after all, all games are derivative in one way or another so I don’t even bother thinking about it. I just do whatever I feel like doing.

Did you start taking your hobby too seriously because you had ambitions to take it further?