Deniska Interview

***Kaiser*** · July 24th, 2006, 23:51

Our next entry into DCemu's summer series comes from another resident of DCemu by the name of Deniska. Deniska is known as the PSP homebrew gaming king and has released such quality games as KETM.

Kaiser: Thanks deniska for allowing me to interview you. I've been a fan ever since the first version of KETM. As usual I'd like to start this off by asking you to tell us a little a bit yourself.

Deniska: My name is Denis. I am 34 y/o. Although originally from Moscow, Russia, last 14 years I live in New York, USA.

K: What education/qualifications do you have?

Deniska: I work as a software developer for a pretty big firm, developing web based applications. I have a degree in computer science.

K: What was your first video game experiance?

Deniska: Some 20+ years ago I ran across some zx80 based pc from Yamaha at school, running a pretty cool 2d shooter ( I forgot the name). That's then I realized I needed my own computer. Since not too many of them were available in Russia at that time, I put together my own version of Sinclair's ZX Spectrum and pretty soon was playing Commango and 1942.

K: Do you have any past homebrew programs previous to working in the PSP scene?

Deniska: I wrote a couple of java games for my symbian smartphone, SX1, from Siemens. One of them, an Arcanoid clone, called Javanoid :-) was ranked pretty high by JARS... Then, I lost that bulky phone during waterskiing and stopped writing code for it...

K: What/who got you into the PSP and in-turn developing for it?

Deniska: I was pretty excited when kxploit/Hello_world_psp came out, but PSPSDK realy triggered me in to trying to compile something for PSP.

K: Mind telling us your first homebrew game/app for the PSP?

Deniska: Kenta Cho's Noiz2sa was the first game I ported. I always liked that small and somewhat strange shooter. I desided to port it to PSP so I could play it on my way to work. It took me a while to finish the project, since some of the currently available calls and libraries were simply not there at that time. I got a bit creative with Noiz2sa, changing the color scheme, rotating the game 90 degrees, adding background, etc. Technically, it was not a straight port, but original author did not mind. It all worked out for the best and Noiz2sa won the 1st prize on one of the DCEMU coding contests. I still sometimes play this game on a subway.

K: What was your favorite past homebrew project?

Deniska: Probably KETM. Although the original linux version had a pretty cool 2d engine, it did not shine much, mostly due to bad graphics and lack of level data. With some help from bourbon_bot I turned this game in to a pretty good 2d shooter for PSP with 5 levels, tons of enemies and powerups. The funny part is that the original author back-ported it linux.. He said he liked my version better :-)

K: What current projects are you working on or plan to start on in the near future?

Deniska: Mapviewer takes up most of my time now. The link below has some details about this project:
http://www.dcemu.co.uk/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=29040

K: So what homebrew/apps do you keep on your own PSP?

Deniska: Currently, I only have IRShell, PSPLink, Noiz2sa and KETM. I had to delete everything else for now, since I am experimenting with numerous maps for the mapviewer and they take up a lot of space.

K: Do you have a favorite coder?

Deniska: I don't really want to pick favorites, but there are ~20-30 people (and I am nowhere near them) who really shape the PSP hombrew scene. Some of them get the credit they deserve and other don't. I think that the creators of psptoolchain, PSPSDK and PSPLink should get more recognition.

K: What do you think about the PSP scene in its current state?

Deniska: Obviously, the scene is blooming now, with all the downgraders, custom firmware and custom chips available. This all draws a lot of new and talented people. Almost every day some new good game or application comes out. As for the fans - most of them are great, although some act a bit childish. A little more courtesy and respect would definitelly help the scene...

K: As for commercial gaming which consoles, games and/or genres do you find yourself playing the most?

Deniska: I have a few games for xbox 360. I play Ghost Reckon and Burnout the most...

K: Would you mind leaving us with a few words of wisdom to aspiring PSP coders?

Deniska: I am not that old to preech yet ;-)

K: LOL