Winner’s Circle

This week’s Flash Game Friday Winner is Raze 2 by Juice-Tin!

If shooters are your thing, this will be your new favorite game. Raze 2 really delivers as a big-time shooter with a ton of polish and tight gameplay.

You are a soldier in the Raze unit, and your mission is to eradicate aliens from the planet. You have a wide range of weapons to select from, and as you play you can upgrade your soldier with a variety of options. Speaking of upgrades, you can also upgrade a bunch of abilities and items using an in-game credits system- so you can really customize the game and your soldier to your liking!

All of these upgrades, amazing artwork, and superb gameplay make Raze 2 a natural choice for Flash Game Friday. Congratulations Juice-Tin!

Get To Know Juice-Tin

Tell me about yourself- how many people are on your team? Where are you based?

As of right now, our team consists of one programmer (myself), and two artists. They take turns making games with me, as their both also busy with school/work. Right we’re located in Canada, Ontario/Quebec and are planning on forming a company soon and expanding to a much bigger staff. Games will still be created by only two people, but a bigger staff means we can work on multiple games at once, on multiple platforms!

How long have you been making games? What did you do before?

Funny thing is that all three of us always wanted to be artists, including me! I’ve always loved drawing and expressing my creativity. When I finally tried programming in highschool I fell in love, and have been creating games just for fun ever since. It wasn’t until about 3 years ago that I finally decided my work was good enough to release publicly.

What was your inspiration for “Raze 2″?

One of the things we really wanted to achieve, was the big environments found in the Halo games, and the very vibrant and almost exotic areas from the game Bullet Storm. We really wanted it to feel like you were just a small person in a huge world, despite being limited to a small map. As you can also probably tell, we’re both fans of the leveling up and upgrading systems found in many shooters today. It was these new PC/Console first person shooters that made us strive to make the biggest and best game we possibly could. Since we can’t yet make a full game for PC/Console, we wanted to achieve as close to it as possible with Raze 2.

What are the major improvements / changes compared to the original Raze?

There’s really too many to list here. We read almost every possible comment about Raze 1, and because of the success it had, really wanted to fix as many problems people had with the original Raze as possible. We first started with a completely new game engine, created from scratch. Raze 2 now features tighter controls/camera, smarter AI, and a 100x better game engine, that allows an incredible amount of detail in the maps and effects (including waterfalls, sparks, etc) without causing slowdown for decent computers. Aside from the technical point of view, the levels are much more detailed and better designed for a shooting type of game. Oh yeah, there’s also over 26 more weapons than Raze 1, 9 modifying equipments, 7 abilities, a deep and detailed campaign with cut-scenes, and up to 4 separate teams allowed in game play.

Any major challenges or hurdles in creating Raze 2?

To be completely honest, no, actually. Creating Raze 1 was more or less a nightmare. Being our first game we were doing a lot of trial and error. We learned an incredible amount from not only our Raze 1 experiences, but all the feedback we got from it’s players. With everything we learned, we were actually able to create Raze 2 quite smoothly. In terms of the engine, I already created one slightly similar when I created the engine for Siegius. So really, from everything we did prior to starting Raze 2, we ended up being 100% prepared for everything ahead of us, as we’ve tackled it all before, and now knew the proper ways to do it all.

Can we expect another (future) installment in the “Raze” series?

Yes! We have plans for both a Raze 3, and an eventual Raze Online. Because Addison is busy with school, we’d first like to focus on Raze 3 to complete the story, fix any remaining problems people had with Raze 2, as well as introduce a bunch of really cool, and crazy ideas that couldn’t make it into Raze 2, including many new ones. Our goal is to get Raze as perfect as possible, so when we have the time to work on the Online version, we’ll be able to make it both massive, and as enjoyable to all as humanly possible!

What types of games do you like to create the most? What types of games do you like to play the most?

All, and all. I really enjoy all types of games. From RPG’s Shooters, and Strategy games, to the silly games, Viva Pinata, Party games, etc. One of my long term goals actually, is to create a game of every genre. I would normally not want to create sequels, as you don’t learn too much or get to challenge yourself as much when you stick to the same type of game (Raze being an exception of course because of how well it was received, and how fun it was to make). But I would really love to explore every possible Genre. So far I’ve created Shooter, Strategy, Puzzle, Adventure/Rpg, and now we’ve got a beat’em’up, and eventually a 3rd person Racer in the works. I feel every new type of game you create, furthers your skill, and teaches you many more techniques that can be used in other games. It’s this reason I would like to continue making a variety of games, along with Raze.

How long is your game creation cycle? What is your process?

Depending on the game size, we try to take about 1 month for small games, and 4 months for larger games (such as Raze 2). I used to do all my work on my main computer, but purchased a new Laptop strictly for game development, which helps keep my personal data and work data separate. As of now the development process is the same as any, work as much as possible while keeping in good contact with your team. However because Raze 2 was such a huge project, I took a 6.5 hour bus ride to stay with Addison for 1.5 weeks. Surprisingly, we did about a month’s worth of work in just that week and a half. It really is incredible how much more gets accomplished when working side by side with your partner.

Are there any game developers that you admire or consider “rock stars”?

Absolutely! I really admire the developers that start off small, and are able to expand into a well known and established company. One that I really appreciate is the work of Tom Fulp and Dan Paladin at The Behemoth. They both started as Flash developers and went on to create the excellent XBLA title ‘Castle Crashers’. Another would be Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl, who also went from Flash developers, to remaking their game Super Meatboy for PC as well as multiple consoles. Their newest game Binding of Isaac, is actually a Flash game that was ported to PC via Steam. This is direction I’m trying to go in now, and would love to achieve some day.

What is it about making a new game that you enjoy most?

Well really, who doesn’t love creating new things? Much of it comes from the positive feedback when other people play my game. It really makes you feel good, knowing many people really enjoy something you created. It feels good to make people happy, it feels great to know they are thoroughly entertained, and it’s nice to sit back at the end of it all, look at your work and what you’ve accomplished, and think “I did that :)”.

Do you have any hot projects you’re working on right now?

Yes! I’m currently working on a Gladiator game with Sleva (artist from Siegius). The game has been put on hold for the holiday month, but should be finished sometime soon. Screenshots are available at Juice-Tin.com.

Thanks Juice-tin, can’t wait to play your upcoming Gladiator game as well as Raze 3!