Journalism Interview: Aaiko

Aaiko: I was actually looking for something new to play and found BYOND. Already being a game designer, I found the developer tools for BYOND very easy to use and work with, thus I started to make games with it.

Aaiko: I have fairly big visions for Iccusion, so I just keep the end goal in my mind and it keeps me going.

Aaiko: Too much time and money to calculate. I personally have probably spent majority of the last 7 years of my life working on these games, most of them unreleased. Not to mention lots of money, but the games pay for themselves now.

Aaiko: There are only a few people left and even those few have their own things to do now, but I will be recruiting new members soon. You can view a list of the most recent members on the Iccusion BYOND Members page.

Aaiko: I already consider our process to be professional. I don't believe the engine you make a game with determines the professionalism of it. We have massive plans for our games to show people that you can make "professional" games with DM, and even make money.

Aaiko: No.

Aaiko: Casual games are quick and easy to make. I personally enjoy making something from start to finish and actually finishing it. Not only that, but BYOND needs more fun and original games. It's pretty exciting to see a group of friends getting together to play them as well.

Eventually we will roll out a program much like Steam, but for our games. People will be able to join and play all our casual games very easily, which will hopefully get them played more, and even updated.

Aaiko: Seika was actually started as a personal hobby of mine, but as time went on, I decided to make it a team effort. I always knew it would be fairly popular on at least BYOND because there were so few decent RPGs. But the game's current popularity is nowhere near what we are aiming for yet.

Aaiko: Teridal is actually going to be getting a complete art redo very soon. The current icons are actually pretty dark, gritty, and not very cartoon-y. We're actually shooting for a much more "cartoon" feel. Brighter colors and a nicer looking style. What size the icons will be has not been determined yet.

Aaiko: Teridal will stay where it is. It is currently undergoing massive updates as well as an all out website. We will be focusing less on the BYOND aspects on the game and treat it more like its own game. We want the game to be known as Teridal and not as a BYOND game. Mostly due to the fact that people don't think a "BYOND game" can be "mainstream."

People will visit teridal.com, download the game installer, and run the game like any other game. The only evidence of BYOND will be the things that we can't change or hide (but hopefully soon). The BYOND logo will be placed next to the Iccusion logo to give BYOND credit for the engine.

Hopefully this will show people that BYOND is a tool to make making games easier and not a roadblock. Teridal is a 2D game and always will be. The DM language has everything it needs. Sure better features would be nice, but there are countless games with thousands if not millions more players that were made with things that DM can handle.

I'd just like to point out that the BYOND community will still be supported 100%, but new people will be able to get into the game and play easier and with less confusion.

Aaiko: As mentioned above, there are so many planned updates that the todo list is longer than the current features list, and the current features list is pretty big.

Aaiko: There are so many upcoming updates, that it would require a completely new interview just to cover a fraction of them.

After Seika was renamed, the game went into a phase of complete redesign. So much has changed, it probably shouldn't even be titled "formally known as Seika". But the first updates to come will be polishing out the things updated in the last few months. Mostly interfaces. The goal is for everything to have its own custom interface, even alerts and input windows. And that should be complete in the coming weeks.

One of the biggest features coming to the game very soon is the implementation of classes. The game will have 10 classes, all with their own set of abilities and talents.

Aside from countless new systems and redesigns (mail system, item banks, PvP events and arenas, quests, to name a few), the game will be getting a complete redesign of the world and all its maps. The world map will be scaled up to match what you might find in more popular online RPG (but 2D). This will go along with the new graphics. Instances will be soon to follow.

Let's just say the game is far from done and expect to see big things very soon.

Aaiko: No comment.

Aaiko: I like the ability to make 2D games without having to design every single thing. BYOND takes care of the boring, mindless things that a game requires and allows me to focus on the game itself. The ability to make something and automatically be able to get people to play it is very nice as well.

Aaiko: We want to make our own projects and bring our own IPs to the world.

Aaiko: The original Seika was inspired by Ultima Online. A year or two after Seika came out, MMOs look a leap, so the Teridal version of the game has been designed to feel more like those modern MMOs.

Aaiko: Flash will be of great benefit to all our smaller projects and will open the door for countless more of them. I think once that is added in, you'll see quite a few new casual games from Iccusion.

Aaiko: The ability to customize the load screen for the game would be the first thing that comes to mind. As well as customizing the Options and Messages window. Being able to decide where your game saves the skin files would be nice. Also more ways to save and load different files on the client side, and choose where they are saved to or loaded from.

Aaiko: After an unfinished game sits around for a month or two, it's pretty much never started up again with its current source. If we decide to finish and release it, we'll have to start all over again.

There are quite a few games that I would like to finish. I wont say the titles, but our RTS game and our tower defense games are what I would like to get released sometime.

Aaiko: Yes I do. Fangames in general do in my opinion.

Aaiko: I wish people would create their own content. What makes a fan game a fan game is the characters and story taken from something else. I'd like to see people coming up with their own characters and ideas.

Aaiko: I'd change the networking. More client-side functions and more power for the developer, less security for the player. I see where BYOND is coming from making everything super secure for the BYOND players, but it would be nice for a lot of things to be handed over to the developer.

Aaiko: Playing games or watching movies, pretty much. I'm a huge entertainment person. Everything I do is entertainment based. I've seen so many movies and played so many games, you'd wonder how I found time to do anything else.

I'm also a huge technology/space person. I love to learn, so I watch a lot of documentaries, read lots of tutorials for basically anything I don't already know, and pretty much anything that would bore the average person.

While doing all of this, I'm constantly thinking of ways to use what I'm seeing or learning for Iccusion projects.

Aaiko: To calm myself, I pretty much watch movies. Games can be pretty stressful themselves, so I just relax and watch a movie.

I have a pretty boring and mindless day job. I sit at a computer and type stuff all day. During this time, my brain goes wild in thought. I've come up with so many ideas at work. Squirrels with exploding nuts being one of those ideas.

Aaiko: I was working with C# before I found BYOND. If I wouldn't have found BYOND, I probably would have kept with C# and went on to develop all types of software and games (I was more into applications than games with C#). But, I probably wouldn't have finished any of the games by now. BYOND makes things so much easier that you can actually get something done.

Aaiko: Playing games, watching movies, and learning are basically my hobbies. Haha. I'm sure every project I have ever done had some inspiration from something I played or watched, or a mix thereof.

Aaiko: I'd just like to apologize for my lackluster responses. I'm actually working on projects, helping people, and other things while switching back and forth to type a few things. I'm only half paying attention to what I am typing. Haha.

Aaiko: Take your time and do it right the first time.