Continuing our Community Games Week, we talked to Matt Davis, the developer of Community Game Easy Golf.
The obvious first question is how did you get into games and making games?
I’ve always played video games since I can remember all the way back to the Atari. I went to college and received a degree in computer science and ended up programming business software for a living. I use the C# programming language which is the same programming language xna uses. When Microsoft came out with XNA it was a perfect fit.
What made you decide yeah, I’m going to release a game worldwide on Xbox Live?
I guess I really didn’t think of it that way. I just made Easy Golf because I wanted to make it and enter it into the Dream Build Play 2008 competition. If that didn’t work out I was just going to publish it on Community Games. Then when Microsoft announced we could sell our games, I decided to put a massive ton of effort into the game to make it 1000 times better than it was for the Dream Build Play competition. I hope everyone around the world appreciates how much effort went into this game.
Are you planning to take Easy Golf further than XBL – say, release it on the PC?
I have a PC version but will probably never release it. I don’t have the resources to support the different computer and video card configurations. What is cool about developing XNA for the Xbox is that every Xbox console is exactly the same so if you get your xna game working on one Xbox it will work the exactly same on all of the others. The PC is a bit different as an XNA game can run differently on every PC so it would be too much for me to write special code for all of the different configurations.
Where did the music in Easy Golf come from? Its great!
Thanks. I wish I could say I wrote it but I didn’t. It is licensed from www.magnatune.com. The band is called Heavy Mellow and the song is called Worm in the Woodworks. If you are an XNA developer and need some music to license that is a good place to go. The guy who made Braid licensed some music from them also. You can email them and get a special licensing agreement that is more affordable for garage programmers.
What was the most challenging part of making Easy Golf?
The most challenging part was building the course designer and making it run at an acceptable speed. You never really understand how much coding and effort goes into a game until you make one. Every little tiny thing that happens in Easy Golf had to be coded in by me. I think it worked out pretty well though.
Who would you say your game appeals to?
If you like golf video games, especially the older 8 bit ones, you’ll love Easy Golf. If you love playing around with level editors you’ll love Easy Golf. My wife doesn’t like golf at all but she had a lot of fun with the course editor. It really is the heart and soul of the game. You can share your course or play other peoples courses online so the replayability is infinite.
It must have been a huge decision deciding to make a game, doing everything yourself; roughly how long did it take you?
Oh man…the amount of hours I spent on this game is huge. You could fly to the moon and back with all the time I spent on it. The project started sometime in June-July 2008 so I estimate about 5 or 6 months. Had I been a beginner to XNA the project would have probably taken me 2 years to complete…but keep in mind Easy Golf is a lot bigger in scope than a typical XNA game .
What advice would you give to people wanting to make games with the XNA creator?
Visit creators.xna.com to get started and find out if making games with XNA is right for you. There are a bunch of knowledgable people on the forums there who will answer any question you have. Follow the instructions on the website to download all of the development software you need and do some of the starter tutorials. Don’t get frustrated and keep at it. The learning curve is steep but if you keep at it your efforts will be rewarded.
Has all the time you’ve put into making Easy Golf been worth it?
Definitely worth it. My wife asked me if I had a choice of selling a million units or having people on message boards compliment the game which would I pick. I chose message board compliments and that is infact happening in real life. I’ve received a lot of emails and have seen a lot of posts on message boards from people who love the game and that means more to me than anything. I’m just glad people give it a try.
What plans have you got for the future?
The game is out and I’ve received some feedback. I’m working on an update to address a few of the issues and to add some much needed features. After that is out I’ll just be online trying to play as many peoples courses as possible. We are building up a community of people who love Easy Golf and are always looking for online matches. You can visit my website www.barkerscrest.com as I’m always blogging there or visit the official Easy Golf forums at http://forums.xbox.com/1104/ShowForum.aspx to see what people are saying about the game.
I just want to say thank you Nometet.com and Alex for the interview and want to tell the readers thank you for your interest in Easy Golf. See you out on the course!
And we want to say thank you to Matt for talking to us!
