LuisCastanon.com

Brad Borne aka DrNeroCF

January 2008

Q:

I often get e-mails from people who complain that I dont feature Actionscripters often enough on these articles (NEVERMIND that its called ARTIST of the month). So in an effort to throw that end of the Flash scene a bone I present you with Brad Borne creator of the hugely popular Fancy Pants Adventures series as well as other noted works. Much more on that later, as is now the tradition lets first find out how Brad got into Flash and what he’s all about shall we?

A:

Video games were a pretty big part of my life growing up, my dad and I used to play Paperboy 2 together a lot, and I can’t even begin to imagine how many hours of Super Mario Bros. 3 my friends and I logged on Mario Allstars growing up. I always enjoyed creating things, so sometime in high school I decided that I needed to learn Flash well enough to make something decent. I actually downloaded Flash MX to post the stop motion videos that I was making to Newgrounds.com, from there I just poked around ActionScript and sort of figured out how to program games. So I guess I’ve been using Flash for about 5 years, and actually programming in Flash for maybe 4.

Q:

Wow, you’ve been around a bit longer than I would have given you credit for. Or maybe time just flies by… so its obviously no suprise that the flagship of your contributions to Flash is Fancy Pants Adventures, this is probably something you’ve answered before but how did that series come about? How long did it take you to produce it and were you suprised by the overwhelming success of the series?

A:

I bought a Graphire3 some time after I started programming, and the first thing I ever did with it was animate a little stick figure jumping around and playing with a sword. I really liked the sense of momentum that I had made with the figure running back and forth and sliding to a stop, and wondered why I hadn’t seen any video games with animation that was tightly tied to the physics.
I created the game piece by piece based on the one idea that I wanted the animation to correspond directly to what the main character was doing. I started with nothing more than a hairless stick figure that stuck to the inside of a loop and ran in circles, and sort of learned
to program on a need to know basis as I went along. I started right after hurricane Katrina hit while school was still out (I’m from Metairie, outside of New Orleans, and went to school in Alabama), and worked on World 1 for a year. I’ve been working on World 2 for 2 years now.
I certainly had no idea how well received World 1 was going to be. I guess I’ll just always see it as a game that was extremely limited by how well I could program 3 years ago. To me, World 2 is the game I wanted to make back then but didn’t know how to yet.

Q:

Looking back on the series and maybe even looking ahead, what are/were your favorite aspects of the game and what are some aspects that you see yourself improving upon or retiring?

A:

Lawlz fun but 2 short!!!!111 Yeah, World 2 is probably about 3 times as long as World 1, but those hand drawn backgrounds are a killer. I’ve cheated a lot more this time around (having a much faster computer and better tablet definitely help too), but game length was definitely the most criticized aspect of World 1, which I take as a HUGE compliment.
I still love how the player can just mess around, jumping off of hills and just enjoy themselves without even progressing through the game. I tried to improve that in World 2 by adding the SnailShell, which players can keep themselves busy by juggling it in the air (which the
game keeps track of) or just kicking it around. I’ve also tried to make World 2 much funnier than World 1, though the only really goofy part of World 1 was the Angry Penguin boss (my interpretation of a cartoon character drawn by my friend Paul, actually…).
I was proud that there was no copy/pasting of art or animation in
World 1, but that ‘feature’ definitely didn’t make it into World 2…

Q:

That’s an intersting way of thinking about the ever-popular ‘OMG its teh short’ rant. I’ll definately keep that in mind next time I hear it in my own reviews.
Well since I’ve opened up the bag of worms already, what’s the scoop on the next FP adventures? Any release date in mind? Whats been your most challenging hurdle this second time around?

A:

January 8th, woot. Making levels that actually look decent. My artwork’s been improving these past years, but I’m not any sort of digital artist. Luckily, the goofy sketchy style makes for a unique look, and I can say that it’s all ‘on purpose,’ hehe.

Q:

Yeah stick to that excuse! I think the crudeness of it actually is a good cool factor. It is a spit in the face of the overly polished Miniclip Zombie Hunter spin-offs or whatever. I felt the same about Alien Hominid on higher end consoles, theres something kind of cool about it not being super sophisticated. Okay so FP aside, what other stuff do you have on your plate? I noticed not long ago you teamed up with my pal Luka on a little deviation Nuclear Eagle, aside from FP what are some of your favorite pieces you’ve done and why?

A:

Got a game named Fraser’s Ride that I worked on with TommyLM that’s practically finished except for the music, so that should come out pretty soon after World 2. I have a few games in production, actually, one being a sequel to SnowBlitz that should be far better than the original. I really want to try my hand at some story driven games one day, I just know too many awesome voice actors to not try to use them all in a project, haha.
My favorite non-FPA game is probably Nuclear Eagle being played with a Wiimote. It’s extremely tightly controlled and responsive, but you have to run a mouse emulator on the computer with it running on full screen to get the real experience (I actually don’t think that NE runs in the Wii Browser, though I’m not sure why). Speaking of which, I’d love to get some games on the upcoming WiiWare. Is there a console developer in the house? heh.

Q:

Bah I dont yet have a Wii so I couldnt offer my own opinion on Nuclear Eagle.
There is however something I CAN give my opinion on so I will! FPA was an important game in the growth of the flash gaming scene becuase it offered the incentive to other Flash developers and gamers in the scene to look beyond the ‘disposable’ aspect that flash games are notoriously known for. Where do you think the scene is heading both in 2008 and beyond?

A:

The market is definitely heading towards higher quality independent games on every platform. Advertising models are really stepping it up, and companies are able to license games for figures that make it worthwhile to create high quality, highly re-playable Flash games. I think what people need to understand is that Flash is a method of distribution, not a genre.

Q:

Well you are a bit more in touch with that aspect of the business so I will take your word for it, I have been seeing more interest in ad revenue sharing as opposed to flat buy outs/sponsorships so I do think you are onto something. While we are on the subject of talking business in gaming. It seems as though the natural/inevitable(?) progression of the successful Flash developer is to go dive into the console game scene. Does that interest you at all? Why or why not?

A:

I surely hope so. I can’t help but geek out over the crazy things I could do with the Wii remote. I’m also a huge fan of portable gaming, and would absolutely love to revive some all but forgotten oldschool gaming genres, and the handheld market seems like the perfect place to do that.

Q:

Well you definately have 16/8bit golden age gaming cues in your work thats for sure. That’s becoming somewhat of a lost quality so definately hold on to that. So we talked business, lets lighten up the mood. Any other hobbies and or interests outside of Flash? Married? You changing any ‘Fancy Diapers’ (that was lame i know, i had to)?

A:

Well I’m still a pretty big gamer, though I’ve been putting most of my time towards finished World 2 for quite a while now. Not married, but very much in love with my girlfriend, who’s also a gamer (and way hot, I gotta add). Nothing to announce yet, but… ;)
Fancy diapers, nice one :P

Q:

Alright all good things must come to an end… last question! You dealt with other flash personalities many times now; do you have any pet peeves? For me for instance, it drives me crazy when i open someone elses file and it still has ‘Snap Align’ enabled or any sort of snapping at all. What twists your nipples?

A:

Oh jeez, did I send you an fla with the snapping on? Yeah sorry about that, I was just kinda making new flas and throwing clips into them. Yeah I absolutely hate snapping also…
Other than that, though, I hate when artists go crazy with the origins. I like them at the characters feet, but I’ve gotten clips with origins half a screen away from the character… yeah… And when artists mess with the scale of nested movie clips, so they’re not really interchangeable… that definitely gets to me… haha.
Alright… hope that’s what you wanted!

Yeah actually I just wanted an excuse to end the interview on the subject of nipples. OK BAI.