Kushagra Gour – Founder and Owner of CCPRO Games

Saturday, 14 May 2011 12:03

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CG Today : You call yourself Flash Evangelist and have even written tutorials to share your knowledge with other newbie programmers. Where does the inspiration to help others come from? Did you face a lot of challenges as a self learned?

Kushagra : As we all know that game development is not on that big scale in India as it is majorly done outside India and so you don’t find many people involved into it. It is hard to find someone in personal whom you can query your problems and your doubts. That is what I faced when I started coding, game development in particular. In such situation the only support you have is from the mighty awesome INTERNET. The Internet is populated with such wonderful and enormous content including blogs run by brilliant people (check out: http://www.emanueleferonato.com) and helpful tutorials elaborating everything bit a starter needs to know. You can never get lost or feel helpless once you realize its power and know how to get it to your advantage. And that is what I do…contribute my bit to the ocean of knowledge so that every other person who has the will to do something knows how to do it.

Having said that, I would like to say one thing that though it feels helpless sometimes when you don’t have anyone to ask to or share your ideas, it really helps a lot in the long run. Because when you make an effort to find a solution to some problem and then solve it, you learn lot of small things which otherwise would had been left if you were spoon fed. Self learning improves your ability to solve problems, grasp things quickly and help you retain what you learn as you actually did it yourself.

CG Today : You have experimented lot with numerous software, including Adobe Flash Professional, Action script, 3D Game Studio, UE3 etc. Why is Flash your personal favorite? What encourages you and pushes you towards experimentation? Is it specific characteristics of individual software that allow you to explore during game development?

Kushagra : Flash was the first software I used to develop a really playable game. May be that is the reason it is my favorite platform for developing games on and I feel very comfortable with it. Besides that, Adobe Flash Professional is really amazing software for newbie to develop games as it provides all the tools at one place, be it code editor, drawing tool or animation tool. So to start off, one does not have to worry about first setting up an environment on his machine. Though it is necessary to explore and try hands on other tools that are much more professional and complex.

CG Today : There are several Flash games listed on your site, such as Attack, Squash the Bugs and Escape from Hell. Have your developed them entirely on your own, and if yes, how do you normally go about the process, starting from the original idea, which itself is a very challenging part?

Kushagra : Yes, all those games are developed entirely by me from scratch. Sometimes my brother also helps me in designing concept art and testing the game. As far as my development process is concerned, it all starts with the rough idea of a game – What would the game actually be? Then I sketch out the game play, game screens and their transitions, characters, animations on paper which makes the game idea more clear and precise. Also I note down all the main classes that would be required to be coded. After that starts the programming part during which code for all classes, game play, mechanics, etc is implemented. I generally develop the initial prototype with simple geometrical figures and later simply replace them with the actual game graphics and animations plus the sounds to get the final playable game. This is followed by testing and fixing cycles to polish it further.

CG Today : You received a special prize from Intel for Level Up. Can you talk us through a bit more about it?

Kushagra : Level Up is a game development competition organized by Intel every year. Last year I and my team had submitted an entry which won the BEST GRAPHICS PERFORMANCE award. As a prize we received an INTEL i7 processor. You can read more about it and also download the game from my blog: http://pro-gram-err.blogspot.com/2010/12/rickshaw-brawl-now-online.html.

CG Today : You are almost reaching the end of your B. Tech education at MSIT, but it looks like you have already taken giant strides towards the game development world. What would you like to advice to the young and aspiring game developers who have similar dreams, very early in their college life?

Kushagra : College life is full of stuff that will keep you busy every time. But to stand out in the crowd it is important to realize your interest, be passionate about it and sincerely work on it. If you feel you want to go into game development, what is important is that you develop games. It need not be a super-duper game. Start small. Learn a language like C++, Java or Python. Start off by developing some text-based games, then switching to small graphical games. One thing I would like to emphasize on is that don’t stop learning. Web is the best teacher you would find in your journey. Learn something from it every day. And yes, HAVE PATIENCE. It is common to get frustrated and leave things in between. But that won’t help. Go slow, step by step and have faith in your passion.

Also anyone who wants to join hands with CCPRO in developing some really cool games is welcome. I’ll be glad to team up with creative and passionate people.

CG Today : Kushagra, thanks for your time, and we wish you all the very best for your future endeavours.

Kushagra : Thanks a lot. It is my pleasure to share anything that might be useful to new game developers.

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