Surely many of you out there have thought about making a game. You can do it just for fun or with a carrier on your mind. Either way, hopefully this interview will serve as “ignition spark” to get your engine started. Please meet Takeshi Usami, Kyushu University student and Nariaki Iwatani, alumnus thereof. They are also known as Otokotachi (men in Japanese). The team is working hard on their game Fixbox, whenever the packed university curriculum and the day job allow. Their efforts have been acknowledged: they won two awards (so far). Here is what the half of the team shared with us.

: Thanks for your time. We know you are pretty busy so let’s get started right away. Please introduce Fixbox.

TU: It is a puzzle game. Each stage has units like “rooms” with “man – otoko” characters moving on a set track therein. The player connects the “rooms”, so that the character can pass the box to another character and so on. Once the boxes are forwarded to the Elevator Room the stage is cleared.

: What was the idea behind it?

TU: We wanted to make a puzzle game using timeline animation (images change in time and produce an illusion of a smooth animation, sometimes called frame by frame animation). The resulting animation is interesting when the short loop-animations are combined altogether.

: How did you start the development process?

TU: I have had the idea from many years before. Recognizing the coherency between my partner’s solid programming skills and the contents convinced me that we could make a good game, and we started to work.

: What stage has been crucial for you?

TU: To figure out the way to joint images, that was a seminal one.

: There must be plenty, but what difficulty can you single out?

TU: I lacked the skill to make, move and position characters, all with the same tool.

: While on the subject, what tools have you been using?

TU: I developed the software that joint images that were vectorized through Illustrator. We use Eclipse as Java editor, and Xcode (Objective-C, C++), KORG DS-10 and Protools for audio.

: Changing the topic from software to “men-ware”, what can you tell us of the team work of yours?

TU: Two guys who do not know much of each others’ field can come up with many wild ideas, imagination skyrockets. This gives a lot of energy. Somebody around you can be really stimulating when you are stuck.

: We hope it will be all roses till the end. By the way, when will you finish Fixbox?

TU: The goal is this summer. We are planning to release update packages thereafter.

: Do you have freeware on your minds?

TU: No, we think of a commercial product.

: Suppose you want to involve a publisher. What is your biggest concern?

TU: I think acquiring the development tools is the hardest thing here. Once you throw in your idea, everything is pretty much up to other people. However, on this account App.Store is quite attractive. If you have a Mac you are good to develop your own game.

: It can not be a coincidence you mentioned App.Store. Have you thought of iPhone/iTouch as a format?

TU: They are our main priority. Later a Nintendo DS version would be great.

: We hope that people can experience Fixbox on all possible formats. Thank you again for the interview, we wish the best to you guys.