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| Interview with Mike Wiering |
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We begin this interview with a short introduction about Mike Wiering. Mike lives in The
Netherlands (Europe), and works at an university. He has made some really nice DOS games
and applications.
How many games have you made? Could you give a small description of them?
So far, I've completed about five large games and a number of smaller ones. I also have a few
which are still under construction. The first large game I wrote was
Mario (1994). My main goal was to implement smooth parallax
scrolling, which I had not yet seen in any other PC game. I never intended to release or sell
the game, but unfortunately a copy of an early version spread all over the world.
Mario
Several people have made modifications to that version and even changed it into shareware. Now,
the modified version is everywhere!
My second game was Super Worms, which is a racing game (like Mario Kart or
Wacky Wheels), my first shareware game. It's really small in size but
very playable. Then I wrote Charlie the Duck, which has been my most successful shareware
game so far. It's a platform game again.
Charlie the Duck
At that time, I saw that several people were making money out of my Mario game, so I made
a new similar game: Super Angelo.
Super Angelo
My latest game is Sint Nicolaas, which is a Dutch game about Sinterklaas, who throws
presents down the chimneys each year.
What do you like most while creating a game?
I actually like all the parts of the process: the programming part, writing the game engine,
optimizing code, inventing faster algorithms etc. and the designing part: creating the
characters, drawing animations, designing levels, composing music, etc.
Which programming language is used and how long does it take to make a game like Mario?
I programmed Mario in Turbo Pascal from Borland, with a lot of inline assembly (machine
language) for the graphics. The complete source code is now available from my
homepage.
Writing Mario took about a year of hard work. After writing Mario, other similar
games can be done much faster: I wrote Sint Nicolaas in about a month!
Sint Nicolaas
Which of your games do you like most, and why?
I think Super Worms is my best game. Although the graphics are quite simple compared to
other racing games, the game is really fun to play, especially with two players.
What's your favourite Windows and DOS game?
Although I've actually never liked PC games as much as "real" games from Nintendo or Sega, I do
collect platform games for the PC and enjoy playing them once in a while. The DOS game I enjoyed
most was Lost Vikings. I haven't found any really good Windows games yet, except converted
games like Sonic (Sega).
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DOS Games
