I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1N IT!!!1 dev Q&A

James E. Silva, developer of XBLA game The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai and indie game I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1N IT!!!1, talks Zombie Gold, time-travelling Vikings and career advice from Peter Molyneux in our latest dev Q&A.

How you know this person:

James set up indie game developer Ska Studios. He’s worked on such titles as XBLA game The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai, and indie games I MAED A GAM3 W1TH Z0MB1ES 1N IT!!!1 and ZP2K9, plus more.

Describe your latest game in three words:

An Inside Joke?

When you were growing up you wanted to be a…

Time traveller (actually: game developer. True story!).

What was the first videogame you ever played?

Combat on Atari 2600.

Name one game you wished you’d made:

Time Viking! It’s a game about a Viking who has the power to travel through time and make people’s heads explode by staring at them.

What one animal, vegetable or mineral would you like to see more of in games?

I think we need more cases where killing a creature that has no business carrying anything yields gold.  I’ve decided it should be called Zombie Gold. I made a song about it.

Do you have, or have you ever had, any of the following: a monocle, a leather jerkin, a handlebar moustache?

My Xbox Live Avatar has, but I’m unfortunately blessed with bad moustache genes and a paucity of good monocle and jerkin shops in the area. For what it’s worth, I had to Google Image Search ‘leather jerkin’.

Currently listening to…

Infected Mushroom.

What’s your guiltiest pleasure?

Googling myself

Best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

Peter Molyneux once told me to give up on my dream of becoming a self-sufficient indie game developer and instead get a job at a small independent studio (I think that qualifies more as ‘best advice to be used as a conversation topic’ than ‘best advice to actually follow’).

When you’re not gaming you’re…

Fending off cats.