An Interview with Felix Blaschke, Creator of BlockWorld

An Interview with Felix Blaschke, Creator of BlockWorld

On 09.22.11, In Interview, by Cal Brower

I was looking for game to play on my phone when I stumbled upon BlockWorld, a sandbox game with great potential. Most gamers will recognize its similarities with Minecraft, the hit indie PC and game now available on the Xperia PLAY. Anyone with any Android phone can download BlockWorld, though, and its unique features and upcoming updates make it a great game in its own right. I was able to interview the developer of BlockWorld, Felix Blaschke, and ask him some questions about writing for Android.

What games and applications have you written for Android?

I’ve started with two decoration widgets: “deskArt Chinese” and “deskArt Summer”. They contain some self made graphics that can be put on Android home screens. But that didn’t work well because there are a lot of widget developers. Widgets are very easy to write and the Android documentation provides good ready-to-use examples. Also many developers offer unlicensed image art (i.e. Hello Kitty). You can’t compete with that. So I started to focus on a more complex but also very hot topic: game development. This was the beginning of BlockWorld. I also published “Wrooom!” an arcade racing game that was a spin-off of the BlockWorld game engine.

What made you want to write BlockWorld? What was your inspiration?

I’m grown up with video games (SNES, NES). When I was 13 years old I found video games are unrealistic and I had many ideas to improve them. I wanted to write my own game. But soon I realized that game development is very hard. I put that wish aside for a long decade and now 12 years later I’m ready to do that. BlockWorld is a mixture of RPG and sandbox game. I always liked RPGs and also stuck on World of Warcraft for 2 years. There I learned a lot about RPG mechanics. I was fascinated by the non-linear game-play that you can experience in comparison to the most games. Minecraft – as the most famous representative of the sandbox genre – showed us what’s possible when you give players a certain range of freedom. But it’s also important to motivate the player. So in my eyes the mixture of both genres is a perfect mix.

How long have you been a programmer and how long have you been programming for Android?

I started at the age of 13 with web development. It was easier than application and game development. It also allowed me to improve my graphic design skills. Most programmers have no visual-esthetics insight. They need graphic artists, which blows up the project staff requirements. After my A level, I made my Bachelor in Computer Science and currently finishing my Master in Computer Graphics. Beside this I developed stuff at home and in my part-time job. All in all you can say I have 12 years of experience with programming. This year I started developing for Android in my spare time.

What language and technologies did you use to write BlockWorld?

There is no magic. I’m using the standard development stuff like Android SDK and Eclipse. BlockWorld is completely written in Java. For graphics I use Adobe Photoshop. Many people ask me what graphic engine I use. I wrote everything myself from the scratch. So I’m using the “BlockWorld Graphic Engine”

What changes and features do you have planned for the next few versions of BlockWorld?

I’m currently adding the whole RPG things like monsters, crafting and larger worlds. When this is done I create real content and call it “Beta”. The current content is just testing content. And then I let myself inspire from the community. It’s really important to see the game from another perspective. This was the reason to involve the players to the development process. On block-world.com I added a discussion board where people can post their ideas and we discuss them.

Do you have any plans to add multiplayer to BlockWorld?

Multiplayer is really cool and I’d like to implement it when the whole Single Player part is finished.

What made you decide to write for Android? What is your favorite thing about writing games and applications for Android?

I’m using an Android device as my personal phone. One day this year I stumbled over the Android SDK documentation. I thought it was a good idea to do something for Android because Apple’s Appstore had already so much applications and games. I really love that Google (voluntarily) collects error reports from other users when the application crashes. This saves me a lot debugging time and helps to stabilize the application.

What are your least favorite things about developing for Android?

In my opinion it’s hard for a new developer to start publishing the app. The Google Market is really glutted with all kind of trash. You need to do some “advertising” elsewhere.

What Android devices do you own and use?

I started with an HTC Desire which is my low end testing device. This year I bought a Samsung Galaxy S2 as a high-end testing device and to implement features like gyroscope sensor. I also obtained a Tegra2 Android tablet (Acer A500) to test my app for larger resolutions.

What are some of your favorite games on your Android phone?

It’s difficult to play games when you are game developer. You look at the game from a completely other perspective, like “Oh I bet that was hard to code” or “Here he was lazy”. When I got the algorithm how a game works, it’s getting uninteresting for me. To focus on the questions: I like “Glow Hockey”, “Angry Birds”, “Dragon, Fly!” because they are very simple. It’s a good equation to the brain intensive programming.

Do you have any advice for a developer just beginning on Android?

Get a book! Many people ask me where they can find good tutorials on Android programming in the internet. But these are not detailed enough to cover the whole development process and mostly focus on just one aspect. You can also get a book that is appropriate for your current programming skill level. In my eyes it’s also important to start low: keep your projects simple and grow with it.