Mustafa Neguib creator of Tardoria

Welcome to Retro Games Master

12What is Tardoria?

Tardoria is a 2D space war shooter arcade mobile game for Android.

Why did i make Tardoria and why should you play Tardoria?

I love playing games, but i rarely get to play them due to a hectic and busy works schedule,
so it is quite apparent that when i play a game it should be of quality and be worth my time.
I wanted to build a game which contained aspects from games which i have liked and would like them to be in a single game. Tardoria is something both a casual and a serious gamer would like to play.

7The game has an easy to play, but difficult to master game play, which requires strategy and calculated moves or you as a player might end up in the wrong direction.

Furthermore an intricate story has been woven into the game which further enhances the game play of the whole game as a whole.

The story determines many things in this game and how it plays out, which ships a player can play and which guns he can use.

9What is the inspiration for this game?

There have been many games which were an inspiration for me. Space Invaders has been an inspiration for the core game play, Ace Combat 6 for its intricate and amazing story (i actually finished the game just for its story), Shadow Fight 2 for the survival mission and how the user interface and other components have been placed and how they play into the over all game, and many other games have also been inspirations.

I like playing a good fun game, for example the sticky gun in Tardoria has been inspired from the Sticky Bomb in Bomb Squad in which when the bomb hits an enemy target, it is covered by green slimy goo and then explosed after a few seconds. In Tardoria the enemy ship’s guns are disabled for 2 seconds and then the goo explodes causing damage to the target(ship or asteroid).

10What is your first gaming experience?

My first gaming experience was when i was around 5 years old when my father brought home a personal computer with Windows 3.1 installed and also DOS. I still remember me, my sister and my cousin playing one of the best games ever produced “Prince of Persia”. My cousin was older than us, and played the game better than us. I also had a game manual for the games which i really treasured.

11What got you into programming games?

The first game that i had programmed was a text console based Ludo which i had developed as a semester project for my course C++ Programming. I really worked hard on that game, and i even shows animation where the game pieces would move from one square to another. During my final evaluation of the project the lab instructor showed it to his co-instructor and that made me feel really good.
Then i studied computer graphics where i was taught OpenGL and that got me hooked. After that course i continued to improve my game development skills, and then for my final year project i wanted to do something big, something which would show what i had learned over the four years.

feature imageI had been making dynamic large scale websites during my study, and that was not enough for my final year project.

I decided to make a 3D fighter jet game for Android and used OpenGL ES which is a sub set of the OpenGL and is designed for embedded systems. I also taught myself 3D modeling and built the models for the plane and the environment as well.

That was the last game that i had made and then last year i got back into game development, and Tardoria was my first official game which i had planned to complete and publish.

6What development tools or coding did you use?

Tardoria has been built in Unity, and the art has been done in Gimp and Inkscape.

What hurdles did you have making Tardoria?

Tardoria went through an overhaul when i had most of the game completed. Originally i had developed the game in Andengine a 2D game engine solely for Android. I had already spent 6 months working on the game, and the basic game play had been implemented.

1I am not saying Andengine is bad, it is quite good and i found and amazing book on the game engine which i purchased and taught myself how to program in Andengine, but there comes a time, where some tasks you would rather have a “what you is what you get” editor where you can drag and drop things without having to code hundreds of lines and spend a lot of time just to achieve a small thing.

I love programming, but where i can see my time is being wasted i prefer to find an easier and a quick way.

3I had heard of Unity before and had used it for a game jam, but i had no idea of how to use it. Also i was using Ubuntu as my primary operating system, and had not used Windows for many years,
so choosing Andengine was a logical decision also since i was already developing Android apps for some time.

After spending 6 months developing Tardoria i decided to set up dual operating system with Ubuntu and windows on my laptop and install Unity.

5I found an amazing course on Udemy taught by Ben Tristen, and that got me up and running in no time. I actually redid the whole game in Unity, and it only took me one month. I actually did 6 months worth of work in just one month and my friends they were pretty impressed.

I also managed to polish the game more than i could have if i would have stayed in Andengine, which further improved the quality of the game.

I also redid the art for the story scenes and also the ships, as i was not happy with what i had originally made. I took a course on Udemy on drawing pixel art and that further helped me improve my art.
So when i wanted to redraw the art, pixel art seemed to be the obvious choice. Even though if you look at the art it will not look like typical pixel art, but is pixel art drawn at a really
high resolution.

13After the completion of the game what game will you make?

Tardoria is still in beta, but i have another game planned. I volunteer at a non-government organization (The Citizen’s Foundation)here in Pakistan and mentor poor children who do not have the luxuries of life but are still getting free or very cheap but quality education, and over there i heard a story of a young man who fought against the odds and made something of himself. The way he went through life with everything against him, and yet having the determination to study and do well is really inspiring.
He explained of a situation where a small boy who is sitting on top of a trash heap trying to read a news paper cutting. Education for children is something which i am really passionate about, and i want to make my next game around this concept.

What other games have you made you made?

Tardoria is not my first game, but it is the first which i published. For my final year project for my bachelors i had designed and developed a 3D fighter jet game, but that was not polished enough to be launched, so Tardoria is officially my first video game.

My favourite computer was my Amiga and console the Megadrive do you have a favourite?

Yeah, my all time favorite games are Ace Combat 5 & Ace Combat 6, the fighter jet game which was on Play Station 2. I really loved the story and the way it was told.
I can say that the story was the one thing which kept me playing the game. I also am a fan of real time strategy games, but it has been many years since i last played that genre.
Among that genre i played Red Alert, and Tiberian Sun quite a lot, and also Empires: Dawn of the Modern World.

What is your favourite retro game?

My favorite retro game has to be from the original Prince of Persia Series.

Do you still game on the current consoles if so whats your favourite game?

I still have my Play Station 2, but due to the shortage of electricity and regular load shedding i stopped playing it many years ago. Now i play games on my Android mobile phone and also have started to play games on steam on my windows laptop. My favorite game on Android is Shadow Fight 2.

Whats the worst game you have ever played?

I haven’t played a game till now which i can say is really bad. There have been some experiences where i think, what was the developer thinking, but unless the game is not polished and there are glaring bugs, i wont call it the worst game.

Finally what game or feature would you like to see on Retrogamesmaster in the future?

I really like your interviews section. I would like to read more interviews from the industry experts, and learn from their experience.

Links to the game:

Official Website: http://www.tardoriathegame.com/
Tardoria is free to download and play from the Google Play Store for Android: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tardoriathegame
Facebook Page: https://facebook.com/tardoriathegame/
Twitter Page: https://twitter.com/tardoriathegame