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From media production to game creator with Manos Danezis
197 Plays2 years ago
Today’s episode guest is Manos Danezis from iBox Studios. This episode is all about starting a company, changing your goals, chasing your needs and creating something for the world - a game in our case. Discovering what forced this company to change radically and we also touch into the meta verse subject as well.
This episode is sponsored by @cubicletoceo Podcast and masterclass. Check it out at http://zen.ai/genzceo
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Episode's page https://podcast.changemakerz.org/manos-danezis
Manos Danezis social media handles https://lnkfi.re/manos-danezis
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Produced by Vasilis Skarleas
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Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
Hello everyone, I'm Kennedy. And I'm Vasilis.
Introduction to Changemaker-Z
00:00:05
Speaker
We run Changemaker-Z, a student-run initiative that aims to empower, educate, and connect Gen Zers interested in entrepreneurship. We interview teenagers with impactful projects and create resources to help you change the world. If they can't do it, so can you.
00:00:23
Speaker
On this podcast, we discuss the logistics of creating different types of projects with Jin Ziers who have already done it. We will leave our social media and website information in the description.
Interview with Manos Danezis
00:00:41
Speaker
Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of the Dancers Rise Podcast. This episode reminds me of the very first episode where we featured the game's developer Elias Sokolis, who had created a coronavirus-strategic-related app.
00:00:56
Speaker
Today, this episode is about game development, and with us in the studio is Manos Danezis. Manos is one of our founders of iBook Studios, which has a really interesting story. This episode is all about starting a company, changing your goals, changing your needs, and creating something for the world.
00:01:16
Speaker
the game in our case. Manos, welcome to the show, it's so nice to meet you. Hello everybody, I'm really honored to be here. I am Manos Danises, a 90-year-old from Greece and I am the CEO of Hypoc Studios, a company I made with the purpose of making games and... yeah.
00:01:35
Speaker
Well, Manos, I'm really excited to have you here. You know, I wore my little Mountain Dew hat, kind of. I know, I don't know. I think that's the gamer's preferred drink. That's what they advertise, but I'm so excited to have you here with us. Yeah, me too, honestly. I would love to know what got you into gaming in the first place. Was it something that you discovered on your own or did a friend introduce you to it?
00:02:03
Speaker
Well, iBook Studios was originally gonna be called iBooks Productions, and basically it was just me and my friend with an idea to make short films. I'm not sure if we had a specific goal for the company, like I told you, we're just two guys with an idea to make movies. But due to personal reasons, iBooks Productions was just abandoned at the time. It's after we switched from short films to games that iBook Studios became a game dev company.
00:02:30
Speaker
Nice. So I love that. So you're just two friends with a goal and you made that happen. Would you like to share with us your latest game?
Exploring 'Don'ts Adventure Chapter One'
00:02:45
Speaker
Sure thing. You can find it on Itaio. It's called Don'ts Adventure Chapter One. And basically it's about an alternative universe of our universe where monsters and humans are at a constant war with each other.
00:02:57
Speaker
And the player takes control of a guy who recently was living happily in his base with his trainer and suddenly monsters attack the camp and took Cynthia, his sister, hostage for unknown reasons. Now the player needs to guide them through the dangerous town of Porto Raffi and find his sisters. I'm really proud of how it turned out to be honest and I hope people enjoy it as well.
00:03:22
Speaker
This is really, really interesting. This whole story reminds me like a horror podcast. What did you say, Kennedy? Yeah, yeah. It has some horror. Yes. Really action-packed. Yeah, yeah. It has a lot of action, to be honest. It's great. I am curious, which are the reasons that led you to change your business model from a short films company to a games dev company? Like I said in my
00:03:50
Speaker
previous statement we had to abandon the movie idea because we both were busy at the time and a lot more problems were coming our way like calls and stuff so we just completely gave up on that idea for now anyway now fast forward a couple of years and that's when I met this guy and told him about my idea of a game called zones adventure and that's when I had the idea of completely rebranding my company and long story short that's how I book studios was born
00:04:16
Speaker
Alright, so we have a game right now with the monsters. Does this game have a title? Yeah, it's called Jones Adventure Chapter 1.
00:04:28
Speaker
great. So how much time did it take to finish the development? Well, believe me, the story went through so much to get where it is right now. But with that being said, I came up with the idea because I just want to make a game for my friend John and feature him as the protagonist. The game's development, believe it or not, was about three years. You can fight the old version in games old, although it's
00:04:51
Speaker
really outdated and you'll soon learn why we remade the game if you decide to play it. And the new version is about 20 minute demo and the old version was about five minutes. So yeah. All right. Well, I'd like to know what you think is more important. You think story or action is more important?
00:05:10
Speaker
I personally go for story, but I know a lot of people who want gameplay as well. So I'm really trying to balance these two things, if it makes sense. I'm trying to go not too much on the story to make it boring, but also pack it with bosses and fan challenges along the way. Okay.
00:05:34
Speaker
Al, I want to settle this debate right now, right here. Do you think that PC gaming is better than console gaming? Honestly, it's how you see it personally.
Gaming Preferences: PC vs Console
00:05:51
Speaker
I like PC gaming because not a lot of consoles support indie game developers.
00:05:57
Speaker
Like an example would be Nintendo Switch. Nintendo Switch actually loves indie games and has a lot of it. But you're not going to be finding a lot of indie game developers on consoles. So I personally prefer PC because it's a lot more freeing in a way.
00:06:19
Speaker
Oh yeah, that makes sense. Well, do you, I was wondering if you ever go back to those like old-style arcade games ever, you just, you're like, oh, those could go away and I'd never miss them. No, no, I'm all the way an arcade gamer. I love those. Yes, me too. You know what the world needs right now? More male businesses said no one ever
00:06:53
Speaker
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00:07:14
Speaker
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Speaker
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00:08:27
Speaker
Personally, I believe that, as Malu said, PC gaming maybe is more accessible and console gaming maybe is focusing more on graphics. And sometimes it's not only about graphics, arcade gaming, that Kennedy said wasn't about graphics at the moment when they were introduced to the world.
00:08:47
Speaker
Yeah, graphics are pretty important, but not that important. I personally prefer the gameplay, not the graphics, although graphics are pretty cool. And I know lots of games that can be played with just the graphics. An example would be Red Dead 2. It has an amazing story, but the graphics are really awesome as well. Sure, for sure.
00:09:15
Speaker
So the game is available at its.io or its.io, which is the process of publishing a game publicly. Are there any specific requirements?
00:09:26
Speaker
Honestly, there aren't any requirements for publishing a game on Itayo. The process is quite simple. You just make an account and publish literally whatever you may want to upload. And that is the magic of game development, at least for me, of course. You can literally make anything using whatever programming language or game engine you might want to use and upload it to Itayo. It's really simple and it allows a lot of talented creators to express themselves.
Advice and Future Aspirations
00:09:56
Speaker
It's amazing. Do you have any tips for someone looking to start coding in game development?
00:10:01
Speaker
Sure, for starters, learning a programming language is not an easy task, believe me. But if you really want to do it, go to YouTube and learn from there. That is personally what I did to learn Python and Pygame. I was going to scope too, but that helped me. But honestly, anyone can do it if they are persistent enough. My second advice is quite simple. Don't do it for the money. I know that seems like a problem.
00:10:27
Speaker
or a plain and boring answer, but honestly, it's the truth. You can't make a good game if all you think about is if it's gonna go well, if you're gonna make money off of it. Of course, money is important, but what I'm really trying to say is do it because you love making games. It doesn't matter if you use Unity and made lens in RPG Maker, got it or anything for that matter. Just do it because you love making games. Don't ever give up and you're gonna succeed. That is my advice to anyone trying to make games.
00:10:56
Speaker
I love that so much. And that applies to so many things. But I wanted to ask you, are you familiar with like, you know, the metaverse and things like upcoming things like that, like the metaverse specifically? I'm really not that familiar. I haven't worked on it. But I know like Facebook is trying to
00:11:18
Speaker
do something with the metaverse. It's like a VR experience, I think. I'm not quite sure. That's what I'm saying. We did an episode. We recently talked all about the metaverse. And I was just like, I wanted to kind of get your insight on how you think that'll change gaming. I think it's really interesting. Because it's so immersive now. It's completely immersive.
00:11:43
Speaker
Honestly, yeah, but I don't think that metaverse is really that different from virtual reality. It's kind of the same thing. It's fun. It's fun. But yeah, it's already happened. Facebook isn't doing anything new. Uh-oh. Dr. Berge is going to come for you. Yeah.
00:12:10
Speaker
Correct me if I'm wrong, your game is a pygame, that's correct. Yeah, yeah, it's a pygame. We use the library for Python. Is there something that characterizes the pygames, or is it just pygames that are based on Python? So this means that, like, it can run basically on any PC in the world.
00:12:33
Speaker
it can because it's optimized to run on every PC but it's not that simple to be honest it's a lot more complicated making a game accessible like for example in VL early stages for
00:12:55
Speaker
Jones Adventure, it was really hard getting above 30 FPS in some places and the game was really buggy. And yeah, we just really focused on this part and really just freed up a lot of space if that makes sense. I understand. It's not the language, it's not the language, it's how you program the game. Last question, what does the future look like for Eibach Studios?
00:13:24
Speaker
That's an interesting question, one that I dwell on in my everyday life. Thing is, I hope I make it, and I hope I'm going to be at a point where I'm able to make a company a real thing, make games, and later on donate some of that money to charity. Because honestly, I want to do some good in this world, and I feel like we, 10 years, are at a point where we can make that happen. And me personally, I'm going to keep doing the thing I love, just making games with me. Yes, I love that so much.
00:13:53
Speaker
Well, guys, I think that is the end of the episode. Thank you very much for those who have reached the end. You can find the game's link with iBox Studio handles in the description below. But until next time, don't forget to change the world. Bye.