Today we will be interviewing a seasoned-artist in game developing and musical composition, Jason Surguine, who we caught up with while he was on-location in Tokyo, Japan.   If you’ve ever played any of PDAMILL’s games, then you are already familiar with Jason’s work, since he is the man behind the music and many other elements of their games.

Jason has long been one of my favorite mobile game developers, so I was extremely excited to have the opportunity to catch up with him for a quick chat.  Today, we’ll be talking about his background and influences.  In part 2, we’ll look at some of his games and what the future may hold for both Jason and PDAMILL.

Tekipaq: Welcome Jason and thanks for joining us here at JAMM today.  Let’s start out the interview by asking how you got your start in developing games for the mobile device industry?

Jaybot: Good question. I knew that I had wanted to get into games somehow, but I didn’t know exactly where to start, so I decided writing game reviews for free on a website was a good place to start.  Pocketgamer.org was the site (and still is) for Pocket PC gaming, and so I asked the webmaster at the time, Mike Wagstaff, if I could write reviews for him. He said yes on the stipulation that I review a bunch of puzzle games.

Tekipaq: What did you learn from your adventures reviewing games at Pocketgamer and how did that experience jumpstart your career?

Jaybot: While reviewing a lot of games for Pocketgamer, I played a lot of games, mostly bad, some good. This really got me thinking about how the games could be better, and what could be fixed or changed to make the games better. In the early days, most games were released without any sound or music at all, which of course being a musician, always bugged me. I was always pretty vocal in my reviews, and some developers took notice and actually asked me for help. Being in a position to review games put me in contact with a lot of developers as well, so I could contact them and ask them if they would ever consider putting audio in their games, and I would do it for them. A few of them accepted, and a few of them were successful.

Tekipaq: Can you tell us about your first mobile development projects?

Jaybot: My first mobile development project was stumbled upon, accidently in 2001 with a small title named Argentum.  At the time, it was going to be the first mobile Real Time Strategy game which had the visuals comparable to a commercial platform game at the time. The audio was lacking, so I offered my services (and they accepted). At some point, John Romero stepped in and helped make the game a pretty big success. A small title named Snails appeared shortly afterwards (more about Snail and PDAMill in a little bit .

Tekipaq: I remember Snails, as it was one of the first pocket pc game titles that I ever played on my Compaq Ipaq 3650, wow that WAS a long time ago.  I remember how amazed I was at the animation, color and game play.  My first pocket computer was a black & white Uniden Unipro.  Please tell us about your first mobile device and what did you think about the concept of pocket computers back then?

Jaybot: I picked up a Casio E-105, a Palm-Sized PC (pre-Pocket PC, pre-Windows Mobile) because the screen was really, really pretty (perhaps still one of the best) and it actually did looked like Windows in your pocket, which was amazing at the time. I also heard that you could run GameBoy and NES emulators on it. This was incredible to me because PCs had only recently been able to emulate systems well, and I wouldn’t have to carry around my Gameboy and 500 cartridges with me anymore. I guess I could use it for PDA functions as well

So, I thought,  if this small device can emulate older games quite well, imagine the types of native games it could do! This device could blow away Gameboy Color with PC quality titles (at the time, this was really impressive, and was still impressive all the way up until the Nintendo DS and Sony PSP were released).

Tekipaq: Moving forward in time to your most recent mobile development career, can you tell us a little bit about PDAMILL and your adventures there?

Jaybot: One of the developers which was successful was Peter Balogh (a Hungarian) of Syntact Oy (a Finnish company) with the title Snails (which won oodles of awards, I even found an old page kept simply for archiving it: http://pdamill.com/sn_awards.shtml). Because of Snails’ success, Peter believed it would be possible to make games on the same level of Snails for PDA devices full-time and actually make money. So, he quit his job in Finland and moved back to Hungary to find enough talented people to form PDAmill. Over the next year or so he spent all his time creating the Firefly game engine which most of our games are still using today.

During that time, I believed in the idea of PDAmill too, but Hungary seemed a bit too far for me and I had no money. So I slept on a couch for a year or so and worked on creating as much content for future game designs (for use once the engine would be complete) and scrapping together any money I could by doing contract work for other independent developers.

Eventually, PDAmill created many top-notch quality casual games in the GameBox series to bring enough income to justify work on another big project, a 3D Space-shooter name Anthelion. All of these were pretty successful, so we created a few more casual titles to bring in enough money in order to tackle another big genre we always wanted to do, the Role Playing Game. Which resulted in Arvale At some point I moved to Hungary and began working with PDAmill full time.

Tekipaq: Jason, what do you think about the direction of mobile gaming and the current trends, as compared to when Pocket PC was the RAVE?

Jaybot: The Windows Mobile crowd was largely community based and many would hang around the same mobile sites to check on the latest news and products, including software. Strangely enough, the iPhone application crowd seems to be less community based to me. I guess it makes sense, there is only one piece of hardware they can choose from (which Apple and the mobile networks heavily advertise). And then they find software on the only place to buy software, the iTunes App store (which is heavily advertised by Apple) and then go on their merry way. iPhone users don’t have to keep informed unless they really choose to, it’s all automatic.

Tekipaq: Fascinating observation!

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Background Questions: We will be rounding-off today’s interview with Jason by asking a few general interest questions that I’m sure our readers will enjoy reading about.

Tekipaq: Can you tell us about your hometown?

Jaybot: I was born in Dallas, TX (and don’t remember it), and later raised in Phoenix, AZ. But I feel just as much at home in Budapest, Hungary and Tokyo, Japan.

Tekipaq: What do you find most rewarding in your profession?

Jaybot: Instant gratification. Especially when scripting a game. You can see immediately how well/poorly your ideas come to life. Aside from coding (which I don’t do), I can’t imagine any other profession where you can have immediate feedback to this degree. Not even when writing music (which can take hours before you realize it doesn’t fit).

Tekipaq: What is your favorite hobby?

Jaybot: I have a tough time defining hobbies for myself. Since everything seems to be related to my job in some way. Playing games? Game design? Playing music? Maybe studying Japanese, but that seems related to game design as well (since many games I play and study are in Japanese). But it is definitely not Golf.

Tekipaq: What is your favorite mobile game?

Jaybot: That’s a tough question. I’ll try to break it down by platform. If we’re keeping all mobile platforms involved, including DS and PSP: Of all time, I would be inclined to say Final Fantasy Adventure for the original Gameboy. The latest Zelda: Phantom Hourglass for Nintendo DS is fantastic, and Final FantasyVII: Crisis Core for PSP is amazing. I have to mention Rhythm Tengoku as well, as it’s absolutely brilliant, and I’m happy they ported Rhythm Heaven (Gold) to the US.

As far as mobile phone platforms such as Windows Mobile and iPhone: Arvale. I can’t lie, I’m supremely biased. J But I really do love those games.

Tekipaq: How much of your time is devoted to playing games and is mobile games development your full-time job?

Jaybot: I wish I had more time to devote playing games, I really do. But I’m lucky if I can squeeze in 2 or 3 hours a week. This should be at least 7-8 hours a week, but I have too many things on my plate right now.  Mobile game development was my full-time job while leading PDAmill Game Studios in Budapest, Hungary, but you know, this darn economy! No, no I won’t blame the economy, that’s not fair. J

Tekipaq: How much time to you spend on the forums, live chats with gaming community?

Jaybot: Honestly, not as much as I used to. I simply don’t have as much time as I once had (as I get older, I realize that not only do I have to shave more often, eating food and sleeping seems to be important as well). However, since PDAmill has slightly shifted from the Windows Mobile focus, it doesn’t appear to present as much of a problem as I thought it might. I’m not trying to justify myself, but…

Tekipaq: Thanks Jason, you’re Tops!

Please stay-tuned for part two of the JAMM Interview with Jaybot, when he will be talking to us about his view of future of mobile gaming.  He will also discuss gaming platforms, his career in music, as well as a few additional surprises.  We’ll also be providing links to his blog, where his has kindly posted some free games as well as music……

Thanks again for taking the time to chat with us from Japan and until next week, Sayonara Jason!

Related posts:

1. Interview With Mobile Designer Jason Surguine. Part 2
2. Interview With Mobile Designer Jason Surguine. Part 3
3. Take Cover! The "Snails" Have "Reloaded"!
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