In this developer interview we talk with Prohit Pratik, developer of Paint Ball Jump!

0. Tell me a bit about yourself and team.

My name is Prohit Pratik, I am from India. I’m just a single person team, but sometimes I hire a freelance graphics artist to do the artwork. I left my job 4 years ago to work as an Indie game developer. I do both freelancing and working on my own games.

1. Tell us where you came up with the idea for this game. What were your inspirations?

Besides making games, I play a lot of games on my mobile device. Like so many people, I was also addicted to Flappy Bird. As a game developer, I want to make games which I enjoyed playing. I know this game is not a unique concept, it’s a reflection of some of the games which I played in recent times.

2. What version of cocos2d-x did you use?

Started with version 3.6 and released game with version 3.10.

3. How did you decide to use Cocos2d-x instead of Unity, Unreal Engine or SDL?

Before Cocos2d-x, I used to work in Java on the Android platform only. I wanted to learn a cross platform engine so I could publish games on iOS too. After a lot of Google searching, I finally decided on Cocos2d-x. Open source and C++ were the main reasons.

I worked on Unity and Unreal Engine both are the very good, but for 2D games on a mobile platform I think Cocos2d-x is the best. It’s much lighter than Unity and Unreal and you can customize according to your own requirements.

4. What features did the engine offer you that made development easy? What do you wish the engine did better?

As a game engine Cocos2d-x is great. It provides all the features which is sufficient to create any kind of 2D game. Cocos Studio was really helpful and saved time and hassle in creating the UI. I also like the ‘cocos’ command line tool, it really simplifies the process of creating, compiling and exporting a project on different platforms, especially on Android.

Future things I’m expecting from the Cocos team. Editor: Cocos Creator is good, waiting for full Physics engine support and a C++ version. Unity like Asset Store for Cocos2d-x, It will really help small developers like me.

5. What tools did you use besides the engine?

Cocos Studio, XCode for iOS and Eclipse for Android. Pixlr for images.

6. What 3rd party libraries did you need to use?

Video Ads from Vungle.

7. Did you create the art yourself? What tools?

In this game the art is pretty simple, I created all by myself using Pixlr.

8. Did you create the music yourself? What tools?

All sound are downloaded from Freesound.

9. Will you continue to make games in the future?

Yes, I already started working on the concept of my new game. This time, I am thinking of using Cocos Creator.

10. Do you use SDKBOX? If so, what plugins are you currently using?

No, I haven’t use SDKBOX this time, but may use in next game.

11. Lastly, any advice for those also making games on how to get to a release point?

Working on your own is more complicated than work for a Company. A well-organized plan should be in place. Before starting to code, invest a lot of time in game concept. Create a document with everything which comes in your mind about the game. A technical document at the initial level will also help in the development process.

Try to work on all your unfinished games, take feedback from your friends, improve your game and release as much as possible.