Welcome to Modojo, 
DS Homebrew: The Men Behind the Madness
Written by Louise Yang on Wednesday, March 14, 2007
What kind of person spends hours and hours coding a game without any (or at least very little) monetary compensation? Louise Yang attempts to find out...
...Continued From Page 1
Tower Defense
Noda is the developer who brought us Tower Defense, based on the Warcraft 3 mod of the same name. Being a fan of the mod, he came up with the idea of bringing it over to the DS after thinking about what type of projects he could make for the little portable console.
Modojo: Were you a fan of the mod on Warcraft 3 or did you just like the idea and want to put it on a portable system?
Noda: I'm still a fan of this Warcraft mod. With some friends we used to play at it a lot after school. We also played DS a lot during boring lectures at school. It's obvious then to guess how I came up with the idea of making a Tower Defense game for the DS.
Modojo: (Now who said it didn't pay to play games during class?) Quite a lot of people on the forums love that you've done this. Are you surprised about their reaction?
Noda: I was hoping to gather some TD fans with my game so people could help me make good maps for it but I was greatly surprised to see that so many people came on my blog after the first release and were excited about my game! A new map was even out a few hours after the release! I want to thank all these people for their support as it keeps me motivated to continue working on this project.
Modojo: Hearing that leaves a warm place in my heart. Community participation is one of the best features of the home brew community. You could never find something like that for a commercial game. Do you play any other games released by the homebrew community?
Noda: I currently don't play with my DS much due to the lack of time, so I like games that I can play when I have a 5 min break and there are some homebrews just perfect for that like Arcomage or Omalone. My favorite one is HexaVirus, a small game made by Mollusk, it's a very simple and addictive game.
Modojo: Are you thinking of taking on another project when Tower Defense is done?
Noda: Actually I have two small projects that I would like to do on NDS. One is a totally new game based on an original idea by Mollusk, and the other one would be a sort of adaptation of a PC game I'm currently playing with some friends. I won't tell you much about the concepts of these game as I want to keep it secret until releases.
Modojo: Hm...sneaky and secretive! I can't wait.
The Lemmings Project
http://www.mrdictionary.net/lemmings/
Almost anyone who has played PC games in the early 90s remembers these little blue shirt wearing critters who are perfectly content to walk off ledges. Matt, the mastermind behind the Lemmings Project for the DS, agreed to give us a glimpse into his thought process regarding the whole project.
Modojo: What made you think of doing Lemmings for DS? Did you think, "Hey, I want to play Lemmings on the DS!" first or did you think, "Hm...I wanna make a game on the DS." and then think of Lemmings later?
Matt: Unlike my first GBA game, Blast Arena Advance, which was originally just a small graphics test which eventually turned into a full Blast Arena port for a competition, Lemmings was a focused effort. I got sick of waiting for an official Lemmings to be worked out, and decided to see for myself whether a DS version of Lemmings would work or not. I figured it would be a complete mess, and the little fellows would be too small to handle.
Modojo: What do you mean too small? Do you mean the DS's screen resolution?
Matt: The Lemmings games often require pixel-perfect tool triggering on the later levels, else you run out of tools, or bash the wrong way into certain doom. I figured that the stylus would be too inaccurate to play Lemmings properly. Strangely enough, I've had folks e-mail me thanking me for 'fixing' Lemmings by adding in the zoom controls, which was my solution to the problem of very small on-screen critters. It seems to have paid off.
Modojo: How would you judge audience reaction to the Lemmings project? Are you surprised by how many people who still get nostalgic about Lemmings?
Matt: The response to the project has been truly amazing; I had no idea how many people still loved to play Lemmings and how many people I would introduce to Lemmings through the project who had never heard of it before. I get many e-mails offering new ideas, new control styles, new content and all kinds of stuff that I never thought of! It's crazy!
Modojo: Are you planning any future projects once this is done?
Matt: My time is split between updating Lemmings so that it works on all different types of hardware, remaking my popular Phoenix Wright Flash animation 'Objection!', and some projects for university. After that, I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do.
Apparently, Matt is also behind the Phoenix Wright flash animation which lets you put your own dialog into Phoenix's mouth that's been circulating around the web. It can be found here (http://objection.mrdictioary.net/).
posted 8 months ago