A little over a year ago I conducted a series of interviews with a diverse, influential and talented group of developers both from and based in South Africa, which resulted in an article for industry trade site Gamasutra entitled ‘The South African Game Development Scene: Past Present and Future,’ which attempted to look at the history of game development in the country and surmise how an industry may rise and move forward here.

A lot of the interview material was unfortunately left out of the article for reasons of conciseness, and I say unfortunately because almost every response I was given was a gold mine of information and history that could potentially not only benefit aspiring South African game developers, and game developers in other developing nations looking to make a living in this industry, but also inform gaming enthusiasts around the world as to the complexity, and joy, of making videogames under difficult circumstances.

So after lying dormant on my hard drive for a year, I’ve decided to spruce up the interviews, which are just as relevant now as they were then, and start posting them here on El33tonline in a six-part series, continuing today with part three, and an interview with Danny Day (read part one and part two at your leisure).

Danny Day (known as ‘dislekcia’ in the online development community) is the founder and leader of South African game development community Game.Dev and owner of indie game developer QCF Design (which stands for Quarter Circle Forward), and has been creating and developing games in different forms for most of his life, finding his first great success with the innovative and stylised multiplayer shooter, Monochrome.

Ater working at a variety of contract jobs and studying during his teens to early twenties, Day founded Game.Dev and had a brief stint as a network programmer at South African developer, I-Imagine, working on Final Armada.

While doing much to encourage the local game development community and advocate its growth, Day founded QCF Design with the intention to focus on the development of original, smaller-in-scope independent games on a variety of platforms, as well as work on contract advergames, and continues to grow the Game.Dev community with regular development competitions (such as the recent Competition 24 dealing with the theme of ‘Coherence’) and meet-ups (a good example being the community’s gathering at rAge 2009).

Day has been extremely busy since I corresponded with him regarding the interview, so where I can, I’ve included more recent information (that he was kind enough to send my way) after each relevant question to bring you up-to-date.

Let’s begin the interview:

Continue reading The Lost South African Game Developer Interviews Part 3: Danny Day.

A little over a year ago I conducted a series of interviews with a diverse, influential and talented group of developers both from and based in South Africa, which resulted in an article for industry trade site Gamasutra entitled ‘The South African Game Development Scene: Past Present and Future,’ which attempted to look at the history of game development in the country and surmise how an industry may rise and move forward here.

A lot of the interview material was unfortunately left out of the article for reasons of conciseness, and I say unfortunately because almost every response I was given was a gold mine of information and history that could potentially not only benefit aspiring South African game developers, and game developers in other developing nations looking to make a living in this industry, but also inform gaming enthusiasts around the world as to the complexity, and joy, of making videogames under difficult circumstances.

So after lying dormant on my hard drive for a year, I’ve decided to spruce up the interviews, which are just as relevant now as they were then, and start posting them here on El33tonline in a six-part series, continuing today with part two, and an interview with Luke Lamothe (read part one over here).

Luke Lamothe currently serves as Technical Director at South African indie game developer Luma Arcade, but was born and raised in Canada, and after studying and assisting at the DigiPen Computer Graphics School, Lamothe moved to South Africa to co-found I-Imagine with fellow Digipen student, Dan Wagner.

I-Imagine was South Africa and Africa’s first ever console developer, as well as the first studio to be inducted into the Xbox Incubator programme, and released two titles, namely the action racing game ‘Chase: Hollywood Stunt Driver’ on Xbox, and the sci-fi action shooter ‘Final Armada’ on PS2 and PSP.

Once Final Armada was complete, Luke left the then dormant I-Imagine to work at then recent start-up, Luma Arcade where, following the commissioned development of a free-to-play racing game based on the Mini vehicle brand, MINI#37, the studio began work on a number of mobile titles, as well as 2009’s iPhone games Marble Blast Mobile and Flipt. Work now continues in partnership with InstantAction.com and Garage Games on new mystery technology, as well as mystery, unannounced projects.

Let’s begin the interview with Luke Lamothe:

Continue reading ’The Lost South African Game Developer Interviews Part 2: Luke Lamothe.’