Edy Zahid Blog The Thoughts of One Game Developer

Math Quest: Flash RPG Game

It's been awhile I didn't post something worthwhile to this blog so some of you might be wondering what's really happen to me. Am I having a deep problem that prevent me from posting to this blog or did I completely lost interest to indie game development? Well man, I'm still coding games if you really want to know

Currently I am working for a local game start-up called HezMedia Interactive Sdn Bhd for their upcoming Flash based game called Math Quest. Math Quest is a role playing game specially designed to help students 10 to 12 years old of age to better learn mathematics. So the game belong to edutainment market which I have never ever consider to enter it before.

Math Quest is an online game which mean player need to connect to the game website to play it. The prototype of the game has already been running with major portion of the game feature has been completed including combat. Here is research paper discussing what Math Quest game try to achieve and deliver. It's in PDF format.

Why Do I Join The Team?

What makes Math Quest special that I'm interested to join the development team? After all I already have developed a complex game so you might assume that I'm working on this game seems like a backward progress to me. The reason that I join their team is because I always interested to work with someone else developing role playing or strategy games so I can't refuse it. The timing is also right for me as I just already finished Blade Thrust Tactics game when I received their offer in November 2009.

Another major appeal is because the game uses isometric perspective. As you already know Blade Thrust Tactics use isometric perspective so I believe I can leverage my experience to the game.

My Role In The Team

I work as a core programmer for the game so I'm doing most of AS3 coding in the game except anything that involves server side coding. Actually the game basic engine has already been running before I join the team as the previous programmer left the team so I inherite quite a code from him. When I join the team, the game basic movement and rendering engine has been completed and its working fine so I guess I don't have to build it from scratch.

So my work from that point is to just add more feature to the game such as dialog system, quest handling system, character statistic housekeeping and all stuff you expect from typical role playing game. I also contribute some portion to design details as there are plenty of design details that has not been finalized yet.

It takes some time to get used to the working experience as this is the first time I'm doing coding for AS3 as I am a C/C++ guy. So far the transition isn't as bad as I thought it to be because AS3 is almost like a full featured programming language such as C/C++. So I can carry most of my coding style to the new environment which is good.

I promise to spell out more details about the game. So stay tuned for upcoming news of the game.