Interview with Michael Piepgras

- Can you talk a little about your work on Trapped I & II?

Michael Piepgras: Trapped I has a nice little story... all began with my first texture mapped cube i finished one day, after this cube i thought: Lets see how many cubes i can do, so after some work i had a lot of texture mapped cubes on my screen. Next step was a dungeon, and if you have a dungeon why not making a game out of it ;-)

- Was FratzenGeballer a sequel to the first two Trapped games?

Michael Piepgras: This game was meant to be science fiction, not a fantsy game like Trapped 1+2.

- Would the game have been called "Face Attack" in English?

Michael Piepgras: I am not sure about the English title, but something strange and funny like "Face Bashing" or "Even More Face Bashing".

- When did you start development on FratzenGeballer?

Michael Piepgras: This game was started about 2 month before the goldmaster of Trapped II was finished.

- Did you try to make the game more technically advanced than your previous texture-mapped games?

Michael Piepgras: Technical programming has always been my favourite. Trying to do new thing is the most interesting to do. Effects like Bumpmaps, Enviroment mapping and so on was planned and partly implemented. (At that time that would have been something very new)

- Why did you decide to change the theme from fantasy (in Trapped I & II) to science fiction?

Michael Piepgras: Well, thats simple, in a science fiction game you can play more with technical special effects. So the decision was to put the next game into a science fiction enviroment.

- Did you have a publisher for FratzenGeballer?

Michael Piepgras: The Company who published Trapped I+II would have published it, but as you know, it never got finished.

- Why did development stop?

Michael Piepgras: The developement stopped because of two simple reasons. I was starting to work in bigger PC projects, e.g. Warcommander (Strategy PC) and Against Rome (Strategy) where i worked as technical lead programmer. And my work at the university took a loot of time until i got my diploma in mathematics in early 2001.

- Have you played other first-person games on the Amiga and which did you prefer?

Michael Piepgras: I never play any 1st person games myself.

- Are you still involved in 3D graphics or games today?

Michael Piepgras: My actual 3D work is in my Realtime raytracing Project, www.realstorm.com where i release 3D benchmarks from time to time.
You can find 2 Screenshots of the Fratzengeballer project at www.oxyron.de