As usual, it's just Robert Bailey and the developer.
Transcript:
[RB] Hi, my name is Robert Bailey and I am the producer and creative lead on VRoom, a VR Car Combat game from Falling Tricycle Games. I'm here today with John Palermo, one of our programmers. Hey John!
[JP] Hello!
[RB] So do you want to introduce yourself and what you do on this project?
[JP] Sure! I'm John Palermo, and I'm a gameplay programmer on this project. So I focus heavily on the interactions between the car and the world around it, such as the collision boxes on the cars and handling of guns and shooting and all that stuff.
[RB] Cool. So we're just going to run through a couple questions like a lot of the other dev interviews, just so we get to know John a little better and kind of know what he does on the project. So, in general, what got you into games?
[JP] I just really enjoyed playing games a lot as a kid. For a while, I wanted to be a forensic scientist
so it took quiet a turn when I went into high school and took my first programming class, and thought "hey, this is pretty fun!" And I found it there was a game design major, that it existed, and I was like "that sounds pretty cool!"
[RB] That is quite the turn.
[JP] Yeah. [laughs]
[RB] That also explains all your gamertags.
[Both laugh]
[RB] Do any games stand out as your favorite?
[JP] Phew. Oh boy. So I have a lot of favorites. Thinking back to nostalgia reasons, like old school games are my favorite, like the Sly Cooper series, those are the ones that really got me into gaming in general. That along with the Ratchet and Clank series. Pretty solid. Nowadays, a lot of Pokemon, Dark Souls, Persona, which is a new favorite. Trying to think...oh, Fire Emblem.
[RB] More in the line of working with games, what type of projects have you done in the past?
[JP] So, a lot of projects. Most of the things I've worked on have been C# games, mostly, because that's what we've been taught here up until last year. So we did the projects in GDAPS1 and 2(ed: Game Development and Algorithmic Problem Solving), and the game in that. Not exactly a good rendition or example. But then there's ColorCoded, which we've been working on that. Then also, I like board games too. Board games are fun to work on. I've been doing one on the side, individually, Bombs Away, which is pretty fun. But in terms of C++, er, well not really using C++ because Blueprints, but this is the first time I've been using that. So most of them have not been in Unreal.
[RB] Cool. You mentioned ColorCoded and Bomb's Away. Do you want to go into more detail on either of those?
[JP] Sure. So ColorCoded is a mobile puzzle game that Rob (ed: Robert Bailey) and I have been working on as well as VRoom, with Kenny Probeck (ed: not on the VRoom team). And that one, I already said it's a mobile puzzle game, so never mind. Bomb's Away was my pitch idea for a class we were doing where we were making a board game, only I was absent the day of pitches so I didn't get to pitches. So instead I worked on another thing for that class, and decided to keep going with Bomb's Away on the side. You play as a pirate and blow up other pirates, try and get supplies, and leave safely. Haven't really worked on that lately because of everything else, but yeah.
[RB] Yeah, stuff gets busy around here.
[JP] A little bit. [Laughs]
[RB] What do you want to do after you get your degree?
[JP] So my plan for after graduation is I want to go to a big company. The big one I'm looking at is From Software, just cause it's a lot of fun, er, it seems like a lot of fun, and Souls games. And they focus really heavily in their games on the narrative, which is a big part of what I want to do. And I want to get a couple years or so of experience there, and then considering branching off and making my own studio, was the ultimate goal.
[RB] The long term...
[JP] Yeah.
[RB] So, what do you do on VRoom?
[JP] Like I mentioned before, I do gameplay programming. So I worked on the guns and getting them shooting and dealing damage to cars. The collisions between the cars in general. [Pauses] I had something right after that, and then I forgot it.
[RB] It's okay, you'll probably remember it later.
[JP] Yeah. I'm probably going to go "OH" in the middle of something else, so wait for that.
[Both laugh]
[RB] What got you interested in working on VRoom?
[JP] It just sounded like a really neat idea when you brought it up. It was like hey, VR games, that sounds neat. Car games, haven't done a car game yet, you know. Broaden my horizons a bit. Dunno, VR just seems like a whole new element of game development that I haven't actually gone to in depth with yet, and figured it would be a good opportunity to.
[RB] Fun. Anything standing out to-ugh, jumped ahead there. What are you looking forward to? I know it's kind of wrapping up the project, but I guess what have been enjoying and are looking forward to in the closing weeks with VRoom?
[JP] Yeah. Getting all the gun stuff working has been really fun. 'Cause raycasting and line tracing and what not, like, it has a lot of applications outside of just guns, so getting that working has been really fun. I keep saying fun, but it has been really fun. I just like the system. I know we had a bunch of issues with Unreal over the project, but [laughs] it's not as bad as I originally thought it was. And it's very nice in regards to certain things. So that's fun, learning more about that.
[RB] Cool. So in addition to learning about raycasting and those types of behaviors in Unreal, anything standing out to you on the project, either good or bad?
[JP] I have to say I do like the models for the cars. Noah's done a good job with that. And then...I had something else again. I'm a very forgetful person. I'm sure you're aware of this.
[RB] I mean, both Johns on the code team. Your meetings are every Monday, Wednesday, Friday. And it's like - I walk up to Fediaczko at the start of level design, and go "hey, have you sent out a reminder message about your meeting today?" "Oh yeah, I should remember that." Maybe it's a John thing. As we go into these 5 days before the presentation and at ImagineCup, I mean ImagineRIT, and the wrap up afterwards, what are you anticipating to be a problem?
[JP] [Pauses] I think the biggest - it's not really much of a problem, it's just more of something that would be somewhat challenging. It's the audio stuff, because I've never really worked with that before. So getting the audio in might be a bit difficult, and that would be either other John or I, depending on which one of us finishes everything else first, so I might not even have to deal with that. But, on the other hand, actually no, never mind. That won't be much of an issue.
[RB] What are you thinking about?
[JP] Getting the terrain damage, so maybe just dictate bounds, if they're in certain bounds, take damage.
[RB] Any parting thoughts as we wrap up the interview?
[JP] I'm really trying to remember that thing I forgot earlier. [Laughs] It's just not coming to me. Oh, there it is. I've also been working closely with art team to get models from them into Unreal, and that, yeah.
[RB] That's been an odyssey.
[JP] That was fun. I'm sure you can I understand why I wanted to forget that.
[RB] Yeah, that was a couple weeks, yeah. [Both laugh] So that was John Palermo, one of the gameplay programmers on VRoom. Only a couple more developer interviews to go, so if you missed any they'll all be up on the blog. Then we'll be presenting at ImagineRIT this Saturday, and then there will be post-mortem type content after that. So hope you enjoyed this interview. Thanks for talking to us, John!
[JP] No problem, thank you all for listening!
As stated above, these will pop up about once a week, as the developers are available.
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