What is currently your favorite project/piece of work and why?

Easily my 3D engine and the game I'm currently working on all day every day, because although difficult and an epic amount of work, it's very satisfying.

What is your favorite song and why?

Choosing just one is difficult. It would have to be between "See Emily Play" by Syd Barrett, and "Maybe the people would be the times, or between Clark and Hilldale" by Love (Arthur Lee). Both beautiful, original, touching songs decades ahead of their time.

[ video of See Emily Play ]

What is your favorite movie and why?

The 400 Blows by Truffaut. It's brilliant in every way. Great story, great main character, great cinematography, great score, it's touching, and Antoine Doinel kind of reminds me of me.

What is your favorite video game character and why?

It would have to be Ken from the Street Fighter series:

 He is just so wonderfully cheesetastic you can't help but love him. Cheestastic and manly. You can't get much more manly than a flaming punch to the chin whilst grinning like an idiot. Trolling online with Ken in SF4, taunting constantly, is highly entertaining.

What/who are your sources of inspiration?

As far as programming goes, AM2, Nintendo, Capcom, John Carmack, Sega and Criterion. Oh and Namco of course, I love me some of dem Ridge Racer and Katamari Damacy.

What is your favorite font?

Hmm, the Sega Katakana font perhaps?

Out of Roman fonts, Arial Black and Verdana.

What is your programming language of choice, and what would be one thing you would add/change to improve it?

I only program in AS3, so AS3 it is. As far as changing it, I would rather declare variables by their type a la C++, not by the word var, then the name, then a colon, then the type. That and GPU support of course, which is on it's way.

What is your design or development tool of choice, and what would be one thing you would add/change to improve it?

My development tool of choice is Flash CS4, and I can't really think of anything to change it. I can write code in it, compile with Ctrl + Enter, and I can compress textures in it. It does a pretty good job all round really, especially compressing PNG's. Actually there is one important thing I would change, the debugger, it needs a much better one.

If you had to be a dinosaur, which one would you want to be?

Obviously a T Rex. The short arms are off-putting, but still, it's an alpha dinosaur, and aesthetically pleasing.

What makes you motivated to wake up daily and go to work?

Because my work is actually very fun. The 3D game development I'm doing is now my full time job, and when I say full time, I mean at least 12 hours a day. It's also not generating any revenue until I get games released, so obviously I need a huge amount of passion and energy to keep motivated and keep working as hard as I do.

How do you balance your personal life and work?

Usually by a pint and a fight, a great British night to take one's mind off work. Then perhaps a Kebab and another fight. But right now my life is all work, I'll relax a bit when my new business is up and running.

Do you feel your current job will be relevant in 5 years? Why?

I've now moved into game development, so yes, very much so. Games seems to be one of the few industries that steadily rises in popularity.

Do you believe a formal education is beneficial for the type of work that you do?

Not in the slightest. I come from an arts background and consider myself to be a pretty good programmer. Conversely, I've met people who come from a computer science/maths background, and have the real life programming ability of a fencepost.

If you had to pick a weapon to defend the world from space invaders, what would the weapon be?

My fists. The aliens would have no experience in defending against the level of handspeed, power, accuracy and punch variety I would present them with.

Can you beat Chuck Norris?

Is this a joke question? Chuck Norris is a 70 year old actor and "martial artist". I'm in my 20's and have fought competitively in a real combat sport. One clean left hook the jaw, and Chuck Norris would be knocked out cold.

[ Chuck Norris...when he was 36 years old ]

How fast can you eat lunch while typing?

I like eating, so pretty fast. Depends on the food obviously. Tripe or gruel, pretty slow, but sushi or fillet steak or a nice goat's cheese or a saint agur bagel, very, very fast. I like donuts too.

If you were given the chance to meet one person, past or present, who would it be and why?

I could be obvious and corny and say someone like Kant, but no. Roberto Duran. He's as exceptional a human as anyone, ever, but in a different way to the obvious choices. His unique natural talent is physical and mental, rather than intellectual. The first nerd to know who Roberto Duran is gets a cyber cookie, courtesy of me.

Coke or Pepsi?

Coke of course.

[ taken from Wikipedia ]

 Pepsi is just like sweeter, flat coke. I like the idea of Pepsi purely because of George Costanza's "You can't tell me that wine is better than Pepsi" speech, but no, it's simply not as nice as Coke.

Are you better than fellow kirupa poster "TheCanadian"?

Yes.

I hope you all enjoyed this series of questions and answers, and thanks to rumblesushi for answering them. To ask more follow-up questions, post them in the Interview - rumblesushi forum thread.

Just a final word before we wrap up. If you have a question and/or want to be part of a friendly, collaborative community of over 220k other developers like yourself, post on the forums for a quick response!