Interview Ynterview #5 - Rudolf

[Adam Snellgrove 1451]

Every week we'll bring you an Ynterview with a member of our Ylands team. In this week's Ynterview we have approached one of our Senior Designers: Rudolf Klenovský.

 

First off, what do you do here at the Ylands team and what’d you do before you joined?

On Ylands I am currently responsible for all things Editor. I work closely with Lukáš @Houp Beran (and other programmers ) who was the mastermind behind the editor implementation. He was working on the editor alone until I joined him roughly 2 years ago. Since then I am helping him with design, feedback and testing of new features. I am also responsible for the upkeep of Goldrush and Playlands.

Before Ylands I have worked about 5 years on Take on Mars, where I did most of the single-player camping, a lot of map design and scripting. Although I have never studied Games or Digital Arts, I have been into computer games long before I joined BIS. I’ve been active in modding communities for several games, but primarily for Natural Selection (1 and 2) for which I made a few levels. One of them made it in the official release of Natural Selection 2: Combat.

So as you can see, my modding legacy made it just logical to end up as an Editor designer

How long have you worked on Ylands? What was the 1st thing you worked on when you joined?

For about 2,5 years. If I remember correctly, the first large thing I worked on Ylands was the overhaul of the crafting tech tree. We took a good look at how item recipes are dependent on each other and after thorough analysis, we have adjusted the recipe order to how they unravel now. 

Although players cannot see this, we have reorganised all items in system of tiers and have identified transition points, where those tiers advance from one to the other. According to these findings, we have added “milestone” recipes which are separate to those tiers and should give players a sense of progression.

We know that the system is not yet ideal and we would like to tackle it in the near future, but at least we have a solid foundation to build on.

What do you find most exciting on Ylands in general?

To be honest, after several years on any project it is hard to take a step back and actually have an unbiased opinion - For the trees he cannot see the forest. 

But getting impressions from our colleagues from other projects at BIS, I can say that the Visual Scripting is quite a feature. It impresses me, that it really helps to start to code also for people with not such a strong programming background.

I am still amazed how Lukáš, Honza and Dan were able to pull this feature off.

And what is for you the most exciting feature coming in the near future?

Well, you came to ask a bit late :), because the most amazing feature was just released in 0.14 – the Custom UI Editor.

But we still have one big feature stacked up, which should allow the community to make games similar to Playlands. This feature currently is being polished and prepared for release in 0.15.

With the 1.0 closing rapidly, we are now changing our focus on polishing. There are several UX inconsistencies that are bothering me for a long time and I would like to squash those bugs for good.

What are you working on right now?

I am currently putting together a list of bugs and “quality of life” improvements for the Editor intended for Ylands 1.0.

What do you do in your free time?

Many things! Of course, I play computer games – mostly indie canapes, because I don’t have that much free time as I used to. Occasionally I also like to delve in some large RPGs.

As for other things, I also collect vinyl records and play them out as a DJ sometimes. This comes hand in hand with my love for outdoor activities, so during summer I usually help organise and play at festivals and parties.

Do you prefer lying on a beach, exploring a city, hunting mythical animals or taking part in a witches’ sabbath? 

I am a natural-born backpacker, so I prefer lying on a beach after a thorough city or country exploration. And as a raver, witches’ sabbath is not an unfamiliar thing to me
 

[RedEagle_P1. 905]

Thanks for all the awesome work on the editor

I can't wait to see what you guys cook up!

[Igor Q. 519]

Hey Rudolf, I also collect vinyls

What artists have you collected vinyls from?

I'm a huge fan of Solar Fields music

[Rudy.cz 41]

13 hours ago, Igor Q. said:

Hey Rudolf, I also collect vinyls

What artists have you collected vinyls from?

I'm a huge fan of Solar Fields music

Well that would make quite a list (Discogs shows over 500 items ? ), because I am not collecting anything particular just music that I stumble upon and like and is "mixable" in to DJ sets. I have listened to some of Solar Fields, and it very good ambient / chill out, I like it