An interview with the creator of Scorched Earth, Wendell T. Hicken

Take a trip down memory lane with Caesar's interview with the creator of the …

Lighting the fire...

How did you learn to program games, and what advice would you give to someone interested at trying their hand at it?

While other kids were dumping quarters into arcades, I would visit the arcades with a notepad, and try to figure out what the games were doing ? then I'd go home and implement them myself. We had a home-built computer, and you could write directly to the screen memory to do simple character-based animations. I had a really cool version of Defender, a not so cool version of Pac Man, and lots of other simple arcade clones. I even wrote a few on my own, including my favorite RoTMA (Revenge of the Mutated Androids), which involved breaking into an alien base, with simple shooting combat, and some weapons-based puzzles (throwing grenades into rooms).

As for advice, the key is to start and keep learning. Try something simple, and build from there. If you have a really simple program that at least does *something*, then this can keep you motivated to keep making it better.

Considering that Scorched Earth was shareware, did you ever see considerable financial gain from developing the title?

When I first wrote Scorch, it was just another fun little project for myself and friends. I had no notions of making it into a shareware project, until out of the blue I got a check for $10 in the mail, from some kid in Washington. After that I figured why not put my address in the program, and see if anyone else was interested. Oh yeah...

I wouldn't say it was a lot of money, but it was enough to keep the Ramen coming while the school bills piled up.

Do you still hold the rights to Scorched Earth, and do you have any plans for further development?

I do. I've talked with several publishers about doing a new official version, and I have hope that one of those will eventually pan out. If I ever get a chance to work on it again, I have some spiffy ideas for the next generation of Scorch games.

In the meantime, we've put together a CD which contains ready-to-run versions of all the official Scorch releases, so you can see how the game evolved over time. All the versions are on one CD, and can be run straight from the CD without needing to be installed (unless you want to save your settings). We call this the Totally Scorched CD. It's available from the official website at Classic Gaming.

What about releasing the code under an open source license?

Honestly, the code is pretty embarrassing at this point. The basic core isn't very complicated either, and relies on too many antiquated memory tricks to be useful on today's systems. So I probably won't be releasing the source code. For anyone who's interested in the details, Scorch is implemented as a physics simulation ? the projectiles are given mass and momentum, and then the simulation proceeds in fixed time intervals based on the number of objects and the CPU speed. Basically, move each object based on its current speed and direction. Update speed and direction based on the current forces acting (i.e., wind, gravity, and mag shields), and repeat until no objects are moving.

I notice you're playing many console games. Are you much of a PC gamer these days?

Not so much ? I'd rather sit on the couch than at the computer. Also, installing games, keeping your hardware up to date, and so forth seems like too much of a pain. I prefer the convenience of just being able to pop in a game, and knowing it will work every time. As far as systems go, I'm an equal-opportunity gamer ? I have Xbox, GameCube, PS2, GBA, DS (and that's just counting current-generation machines). Of course, the great thing about PC gaming is that anybody can write for it without needing permission to distribute what they create.

Right now I'm salivating over the PSP!

Do you still play Scorched Earth?

Not really. In fact, I was never all that good at it ? I much preferred working on the code to actually playing the game. I do enjoy watching other people play, though.

What do you think of Scorched Earth 3D?

I'm haven't really played with it, though I do know about it. As far as other artillery games in general go, they're fine with me. I know I didn't create the first artillery-style game, and I'm glad I didn't write the last one.

Aside from Scorched Earth, what are your top three favorite games of all time?

That changes so much over time. Probably the computer games I spent the most time with in the last year were Ratchet & Clank 3, Burnout 3, and SSX 3. Lately, though, I've been spending time playing board and card games with the kids, including Blokkus, Carcassone, and Blue Moon.

Can you comment on the Computer AI? How did you create the range of skill in your physics simulation?

The basic aiming algorithms are pretty straightforward ? Morons make a blind guess, Tossers make a guess and then try to improve the power or angle to get closer. A friend at Caltech, Jason, wrote up the formulas to predict where a shot would land, which forms the basis of the Cyborg algorithm. I was pretty happy with this, because as I noted, Scorch is a physics simulator ? the fact that the math predicts the target location correctly means the simulator works!

The other half of the AI is in choosing which target to hit ? this is important for teams, and is also a balance issue. Enemy tanks will get angry at whoever's shooting at them, and retaliate appropriately.

Finally, as a hero among gamers from a certain generation, and as a smaller entity in the gamer world, what do you make of all of these acquisitions and licensing deals, such as those involving EA recently?

I'm not sure I have any great words of wisdom regarding the gaming industry in general. I do find it disconcerting that the videogame market is so heavily biased towards sequels, but then the three games I mentioned earlier are all sequels, so I guess as a consumer, I'm part of the problem.

Finally, many of our readers just wanted to say "thanks" to you for developing such a fun and special game all those years ago!

I'd like to give a big thank you back to everyone who's played and enjoyed Scorch over the years. The response is truly overwhelming.

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