Yeebaagooon: When did you first start to get good at SD?
THYMOLE: Good? Ooh, I guess that's a compliment.

I go the game back in 2005, but only discovered the trigger editor in 2009. Apart from learning the tricks of the system I wouldn't say there was a huge amount of growth. I was more or less the same back then, I just needed a bit of experience to figure out the effects. I'd say I was good to go in about a month. I remember quite painfully that the two effects/conditions that I did not understand in the beginning were Fire Event and Timer. *shudders* That wasn't fun trying to get on without them.


Mole's 73rd attempt to photograph himself with his phone.

Yeebaagooon: So, turn based attack system. What are the basic principles involved?
THYMOLE: Right, well there's about a hundred different ways to set one up, even in an RTS game like AoM. The big concept that you need to establish is that the system must be standardized for every single battle. Meaning that if you want to create a battle, you need only create a new setup trigger, an AI, and a win trigger to have it ready. I feel that Visions didn't do a good job illustrating this as it contained so few battles, but if you look into the trigger work, it is indeed all standardized.

The other main idea was that you needed to separate the system from the normal gameplay mechanics. They don't mesh well. Honestly the biggest challenge in visions was figuring out how to make characters attack and deal damage, without actually attacking an enemy.

Yeebaagooon: What happened to Starship Ultra and Team Minigames?
THYMOLE: Starship Ultra is a little prick that keeps bugging me. Much like the turn based systems, it is completely standardized. You control the ship, it fires bullets that deals specific damage to one of the player's units, and if your ship hits another ship you die. It works too, so all that should be required is twenty or so waves of enemies. But I just can't find the time.

Team Minigames is going to be the death of me. I believe it was your guide that suggested making minigames as a first map. *twitch*

Well this is a general idea of the concept I call, the Mole Paradox. In the beginning, I worked very hard and made a ton of games, but I had no idea what I was doing really. Additionally, I never tested on ESO, and I had the ignominious idea that more triggers equaled more awesome (for all those aspiring, don't do that). So in fact, doing more work, made increasingly less progress. I now have a map of many games that in theory should work, but don't due to idiotic shortcut made long ago. As I attempt to fix these issues, I find that it creates unreasonable lag due to the massive trigger count, and after dealing with this I find that the game isn't actually that entertaining. Ultimately ending with the game being dumped. Of course there is still a lot of good in the map I think, but I'm very strained for time. Perhaps i could get someone to do my dirty work...


As one can see; time spent on Team Minigames has no correlation with progress made, however it is strongly, inversely related with Mole's willingness to live.

Overall I think I'll finish minigames, maybe even starship, but not for a while :/

Yeebaagooon: You're starting to move into the 4.5< category now, any crazy ideas?
THYMOLE: 4.5? Haha, that'd be nice. No I think I'm quite far from that. I'm a bit too ambitious, so I tend not to get things finished. I can't remember if I left it in but there used to be a setup for five more characters and 4 skills per in Visions. The looming deadline was the only thing that got me finished. But it's actually bug ridden, and not very high quality. The battle system alone is the quirk that makes it interesting.

As for crazy ideas, it seems to me that the one thing people want in an RTS game, is anything but an RTS game. I've considered making a really big turn based RPG if I could get some help.

Yeebaagooon: Are you working on any scenarios now?
THYMOLE: Oof, no. I have too little time for that stuff. I might try and reopen team minigames over a vacation break, but that might be wishful thinking.

Yeebaagooon: What would you say to people just starting off their career in SD as means of inspiration?
THYMOLE: I think the most important thing is to just get things done. Ambition is great, but if you spend too much time looking ahead nothing will happen. Rather than scrutinizing every miniscule detail, just get your work to an acceptable level, and show it off. Then you can get the major feedback and maybe find that the smaller details were not so much of a big deal, or were even better the way they were.

Also, be original. There's nothing much to gain from another remake. Even going off on an experimental tangent in some unplanned direction can have some cool results, and if not, you'll still have figured out some new ideas to try elsewhere that other people havent considered yet.

Yeebaagooon: What's your average day like?
THYMOLE: Pain I'd say. Water based pain.

I wake up around 4ish to go to a swim practice, then I go direct to school, followed by another practice after school. I start my homework around 7:00, and try to get to bed before 1:00. It's kind of monotonous. On the weekends I try to figure out Rush songs on my guitar, appease my high-matinence loving girlfriend, or just sleep. Haven't really played a game seriously in a while.

Yeebaagooon: You do 6 hours of homework!? How much are they paying you?
THYMOLE: Oh normally its closer to 3-4 hours. But yes, when the planets align just right I feel the wrath of the public school system. Its not really that im slow, i just severly underestimated how much work would be in AP courses :/

But counting in dinner, showering, and general distractions 1:00 is a reasonable goal.

Yeebaagooon: What do you want to do in the future?
THYMOLE: Future? Uh... Well in the short term I want to survive my junior year of AP stat and Econ. After that I'd like to finish team minigames.

In the longer term I'd like to use my swimming to steal a spot at MIT and see where it goes from there

Yeebaagooon: What has been a nice memorable holiday?
THYMOLE: Holiday... uh... right. Well I cant say I've done anything special in the past few years. Took a week long trip camping with my girlfriend, which was pretty cool. Swimming is a pain in that it is year round and you get grief for taking long breaks, especially on holidays when we are supposed to replace the lack of school with more swimming >:0

I'm more into concerts and such. I'm gonna see Roger Waters (Pink Floyd) in a couple weeks at Madison Square Garden. Should be cool.

Yeebaagooon: Any last words of wisdom for us?
THYMOLE: Don't work on maps. That's boring. Have fun with it. You should enjoy what you're doing.

And for future reference, think of something witty to say in case you're ever MOTM and don't want to end without a punchline...

*sigh*