The Indie Game Magazine September 2014 | Issue 41 | Page 11
redeem himself. Doubtful though.
I actually later wanted to make Bob female, but
I didn’t want my first main female character to be
described as “a terrible human being.” I do have a
few plans though, so we’ll see.
IGM: How does DKCC decide which features to
give people? Is it consistent, or is it different each
time, no matter what?
Kale: Well, Doktor Kale takes a sample of your
DNA, pushes it through various tests and *bampf*
there’s your Monster. It’s a patented process, so I
can’t describe it here.
On the other side, though - Whatever word you
enter gets turned into a number, which is then used
as an RNG seed. A random number generator is
typically a table full of numbers that you start reading
from at your seed point. Give it the same starting
point? Get the same numbers - it’s reproducible. So,
in other words - I get “random” numbers that are the
same for the same word entered. These numbers
are then used for choosing body parts, habitats, etc.
As part of this, DKCC keeps a big list of things
that can be liked & disliked. I then grab four things
from the list - but don’t bother to exclude previously
selected items (which means you can end up with
“Likes: X, Dislikes X” and “Likes X & X”). Originally, I
filtered it, but felt it was funnier to have monsters
with conflictions, etc.
Finally, there’s a few little adjustments if you
enter your name and you’re someone I’ve put in an
Easter egg for... just because I can.
IGM: How long did each of your projects take?
Kale: Heh, that’s a loaded question. Arnthak was
about 4 years and still isn’t done. I think it’ll take
another year to clean out all the old garbage and get
it ticking over again when I get to it. QoS took 2 weeks
for the base code, then I spent a few weeks trying
out network play (it was done, seemed fun but had
problems so I removed it), and has been a gradual
improvement ever since. DKCC took about 16 hours
of coding time (I started keeping timesheets), but
the sprites were made casually over a week prior to
the code being done.
I’m trying to avoid another runaway project, so
I’m keeping tabs of development time from now on,
and trying to actually “recoup” the costs from it - I
charge a project a dollar amount per hour, etc. It’s
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