Welcome to the fifth episode of Indeviews! In this episode we are joined by Johannes Nielsen from Tribunal games.

Let’s begin!

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For those who don’t know you, who are you and what do you do?

Johannes: My name is Johannes and I am one of the three people that make up Tribunal Games. We are still working on our first game - a pirate themed open-world game called Freebooter for PC - so there isn’t too much to know about us yet. Since we’re only three people on the team, everyone does a bit of everything so despite being mainly a programmer, I do much of the PR and business side stuff for Tribunal as well.

Which game engines/game making tools do you use for your games? Did you build your own? If you have used different engines/game making tools, which one is your favorite and why?

Johannes: For Freebooter we are using Unity as a game engine and an IDE. Ogre3D was mandatory for the first project I did during a games development course I took at university and Unity was mandatory for the remaining games I worked on during the course. It’s been years since I’ve worked with Ogre3D but back then it was a pretty barebones rendering engine, so if that´s all you need then it’s great. Now, I am more of a gameplay programmer than an engine programmer, so Unity is right up my alley. There are similar engine/IDE combos out there but the more I work with Unity, the happier I am with it, so I never really felt I had cause to look elsewhere. Actually when we were just starting out, I wanted us to make our own engine but Jakob talked me out of it and in hindsight I think it was the better choice for us to capitalize on our familiarity with Unity.

Do you use the same development process for all of your games?

Johannes: We prefer Agile development, in the sense that we do one iteration and then plan for the next - we keep our long term plans pretty vague. Myself and Jakob live in Denmark, while Nissanth works out of London, so we have regular meetings over skype to keep everyone up to date, though since we’re only three it is not too much to manage.

What programming language do you prefer developing your games on? Why do you choose it over others?

Johannes: I did my first programming in C++, so C# was the obvious choice when working in Unity and again being fond of high-level programming, I am quite happy with C#. I haven’t thought about it before but I guess I have an “if it works, don’t fix it” mentality.

Do you use third party tools (map editors, sprite managers, animation suites etc) or you build your own?

Johannes: We use Blender for 3D Modeling and GIMP for the admittedly small amount of texture work (our sound is provided by a hired audio designer).

Jakob has been making Blender Add-ons specifically for the kind of assets we need for Freebooter - so far I believe he has made 2 mesh generators (one for the sea and one for islands), as well as some specialized optimization and UVmapping tools for the type of art we use for Freebooter.

Which tools and applications you usually use when developing a game (favorite IDE, text editor, do you use static analysis tools, revision control system etc)?

Johannes: For C# I use VS2010 and I don’t think I would be nearly as efficient without it. We use TortoiseHG for version control and BitBucket to host the repository. I usually use Google Docs for text documents - I like having a spell checker and being able to access all my documents via my Gmail account.

Is there any specific library, framework that you always use on your games?

Johannes: Nope - Unity comes with most of what we usually use.

What is your computer setup? Do you use Mac or PC? What specs? Do you have a dual monitor setup?

Johannes: I work on a PC with a single monitor - I don’t remember the exact specs but it has a GTX 650 Ti and an i7 CPU.

Which games inspired you the most? Do you have a favorite developer from the games industry (indie or not)?

Johannes: I try to play a good amount of games to see what other people have come up with and how it worked. In terms of inspiration, I would say Magicka, Indigo Prophecy, the Majesty games, Star Ruler, Magic: The Gathering and Morrowind are big ones for me. I know Nissanth who does most of our art is a fan of Dark Souls/Demon Souls, Wind Waker and Morrowind. Jakob doesn’t think much about inspirations - he tends to want to make a version of whatever he is playing at the time.

What’s the single piece of advice that you would always give to someone, and what is something that you will absolutely avoid/never do again?

Johannes: Don’t overthink things - if you’re not sure what will work, implement the simplest solution and go from there. Don’t be afraid of scrapping a lot of work to get past a particular hard problem - sometimes patchwork solutions just won’t cut it. Even if you are horribly behind, be sure to take some time off - you are not a machine, you can’t work non-stop. Try not to let your ego get in the way.

What is your opinion on the rise of free game development “suites” like Unity, UDK, CryEngine etc? Given that you already use Unity for Freebooter, is it safe to assume that you will use it for your next big project or you will switch to an in-house engine?

Johannes: We’re planning to work on Freebooter for another half year minimum, so we’re not thinking about the next game yet. That said we’re most likely sticking with Unity. As I see it, Unity and similar development solutions allow for developers to take more chances and try more interesting ideas for games by cutting down on costs and development time - for a small indie game developer that is not looking to push the envelope in terms of technology, like us, I think such a solution is the obvious choice.

What are your future plans? What games are you working on right now?

Johannes: My future plans are limited to making games and if possible losing some weight. I am only working seriously on Freebooter, though I think every game developer toys a bit in the spare time.

Thanks so much for this interview!

Johannes: Thanks for having me!

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Stay tuned for the next episode in seven days! :)

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