A passion for building entertaining Flash games has taken a local game developer to greater heights.

TEAM EFFORT: (l-r) Megat Dzaid, Lee Yean, Wan Hazmer, Leen Yin and Aidi Khalid. Their favourite meeting point is Starbucks where they surf, chitchat and exchange ideas about games.

UNKNOWN to many, a local games developer recently won first prize in a popular Flash game building contest.

Wan Hazmer, a 27-year-old computer science graduate, created The Last Canopy, which won first place in the fourth Jay is Games Casual Game Design Competition.

Prior to this, another game of his, Ballistic Wars, won third place in the third edition of the competition. (See related story for more information on Jay is Games.)

The success has motivated him to become an independent game developer and Wan Hazmer has set up his own company, Easy Only! Games, which only has one employee — him.

“This makes me the game planner and programmer of all my games,” he says.

Wan Hazmer, who teaches Flash programming and interactive design as a part-time lecturer in The One Academy, said he started working on The Last Canopy after he found out Jay is Games was hosting another competition.

“Of course, it would be unwise for me to just do all the thinking by myself. I often turn to my friends and students for new ideas and inspiration,” he says.

“It’s like a breath of fresh air. Without them, Ballistic Wars and The Last Canopy won’t have the same rich premise and gameplay that you see today.”

Early start

Wan Hazmer’s fascination with computers started when his dad presented him with an Atari computer when he was five, and he says he has been playing games since.

“Slowly, my interest in creating games began to grow. I have always believed that games would one day reach the mainstream status of the movie industry.”

And prior to his current job, Wan Hazmer worked in an award-winning interactive media studio called (if )interactive (www.if.net.my) for four years as the game developer and technical head.

“I channelled my passion for games through my work at (if )interactive. Though not fully a game development company, it was always supportive of my constantly annoying proposals of using games to fulfil client’s advertising requirements,” he laughs.

It was a fun and crazy experience creating games for big companies like Discovery Networks, British-American Tobacco, Intel and L’oreal, he says.

After four years at (if )interactive, he ventured out to form his own company.

Changing gear

Initially, Easy Only! Games was supposed to work on interactive games for advertising products or services but all that changed in August last year.

Wan Hazmer was doing his usual stuff — surfing endlessly through friends’ blogs and funny YouTube videos — when he stumbled upon the third Jay is Games Casual Game Design Competition.

“It was open to everyone from all over the world, so I thought of giving it a shot. After many sleepless nights, Ballistic Wars was born,” says Wan Hazmer.

“Surprisingly it won third place. The support from the international casual game community was so overwhelming that it rekindled my passion to create games for everyone to play.”

From that day onwards, Easy Only! Games changed its business direction, says Wan Hazmer. “Till today, I’ve been making games only for game’s sake, and I will continue to do so for a very long time.”

Building games

Wan Hazmer says he doesn’t know as much about game design concepts and terminologies as some designers do, but he knows how to make games entertaining.

“Other people tell me that I’m a happy-go-lucky guy with a knack for entertaining others,” he says.

Before working on a game, Wan Hazmer has to first find inspiration for it — he gets it from the his surroundings or by playing other games.

“When I listen to songs on the radio or CD, I would normally cook up my very own imaginary MTV or videogame cutscenes that syncs with the music.”

And ideas can come when you least expect it, he says.

“When I was playing pool with my friends, I was thinking how pool would be great if the table had unstable terrain and different-sized balls,” says Wan Hazmer.

That idea alone spawned the gameplay of Ballistic Wars, a strategy game where you roll your ball-shaped military units to knock your enemies down, he says.

“Also, going back to the source helps, and you do this by playing more and more games. I’ve been a fan of shoot-em-ups for quite a while now,” he says.

Gathering ideas might even take a week or even a month, he says. And once all the inspiration and ideas come into full bloom, his real work starts.

“On average, it takes about three weeks to create a Flash game, although the actual length depends on the genre and the scale of the game,” says Wan Hazmer.

However, he says he can’t draw to save his life, so he usually gets his cousins, Aidi Khalid and Megat Dzaid, and friends Chen Leen Yin and Chen Lee Yean, to become his freelance artists.

Leen Yin was the artist of Ballistic Wars and Lee Yean is the artist for his upcoming game, Puzzerella Pizza.

Big money

Although the games are free to play, Wan Hazmeer is already making money from Flash games.

“Aside from the competition prize money, I have sponsors from the United States who are willing to pay upfront to place my games on their sites.”

Also, the advertisements (part of MochiAds advertising network) shown before The Last Canopy starts are generating money for Wan Hazmer per view, not per click.

He made US$4,230 (RM13,959) by winning first place with The last Canopy but declined to say how much he makes from advertisements.

“Since the ads are within the Flash framework itself, the ads would be shown on legal and illegal online copies over the Net!” he says.

“All in all, the payment is really good. Considering the little time taken to produce each game, as Flash games have a fast turnover rate.” On average, a quick game that lasts 15 minutes to 30 minutes can fetch about US$3,000 to US$4,000 (RM9,900 to RM13,200), he says.

“Flash games can help you make money, if you know how to leverage your resources.”

More in the making

Wan Hazmer and his team are currently working on three new Flash games — a puzzle game, a racing game and a platform game.

“The online game community strongly requests that I publish my current games as full-fledged applications.”

The author of the popular Penny Arcade web comic even asked why Ballistic Wars is not on retail shelves yet.

So, Wan Hazmer says he is currently in the midst of transforming Ballistic Wars and The Last Canopy into standalone applications, to be either sold online, or hosted by the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live Arcade or WiiWare networks.

IN THE PIPELINE: Wan Hazmer plans to turn The Last Canopy into a standalone application to be either sold online or hosted by console networks.

"There are other games in the pipeline that involve more complicated platforms other than Flash,” he says.

“Already in the plans are casual standalone DirectX games, which would take around two months to complete,” he says.

“Another big project Easy Only! Games is working on is a proposal for a casual Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game. It’s still in its early stages so I can’t tell you the details, but I’m very confident that it will work.”

Don’t wait

For those who wish to start making games, Wan Hazmer suggests that they start small.

“It’s a very big mistake to think that your first game is going to be your greatest. Save your big projects for later; aim to create small games regularly to train your game development skills,” he says.

“Also, for starters, throw financial feasibility out of the window. What’s worse than a horrible idea is a potentially great idea not executed just because everyone is too concerned about whether it will make money.”

He quotes Lars Doucet, a friend and fellow game developer from Texas: “The irony is that if you care first and foremost about money, you will be less original, and it will therefore be harder to make money.”

“Lastly, remember to have fun while making your games,” says Wan Hazmer.

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