I had a chance to interview the lead designer at nonSoft. They make affordable family friendly games.

Q1. Please tell us a little about yourself.

A1. I’m currently the lead designer with nonSoft, an independent games company. Before that, I worked in various fields all related to computers and technology, from finance to medicine and many things in-between. I’ve been programming off-and-on since I was seven years old, but it wasn’t until recently that I finally began making games. It was always something I wanted to do, but just never got around to doing it until this opportunity with nonSoft presented itself.

Q2. What sets your company apart?

A2. nonSoft is a small independent video games company with its own unique qualities. Our design philosophy has been to produce family-friendly games that are accessible to a wide range of people and players. We try to make the control interface as simple as possible, so that many of our games can be played just by moving the mouse, without having to memorize all sorts of complicated controls. Also, we implement varying levels of difficulty to try to accommodate players of nearly every skill level or physical ability. Our games run on a wide variety of computer hardware, from the very old to the very newest computers, as well as running on multiple operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.). We’re also becoming known for our use of a design technique called “procedural generation”. The simplest way to explain this “procedural generation” technique is that, in a way, we teach the computer how to create its own levels, backgrounds, racetracks, and other elements all within the game. So, for example, our latest game in the Drag Rally series can create any of 3.5 million race track combinations for you to play on, all of them already built-in to the game.

Q3. Tell us about your latest project.

A3. Our latest commercial game release is Drag Rally 2: The Circuit for Mac and Windows PC. It’s the second game in our Drag Rally franchise, which is about controlling a race car simply by dragging with the mouse. But even more than that, what also sets our Drag Rally games apart is our use of those procedural generation techniques mentioned earlier. You can race over more than 3.5 million track combinations, and if you don’t like the layout of a particular track, you can change it simply with a few clicks of the mouse. Yet at the same time, the game file size is kept very small (due in large part to these procedural generation techniques). The Windows version is less than one megabyte, while the Mac version is less than three megabytes. You can even play the Windows version from an old floppy disk if you have one (for those who actually remember what a floppy disk is). This is a game that runs on virtually every version of Windows whether it be the old 95, XP, Vista, or the latest Windows 7. So, in total, you get a game that can last a very long time, but takes up very little space on your drive.

Q4. Where can people learn more about your company and purchase your games?

A4. Our main web site is www.nonsoft.net From there, you can download and play a free demo of Drag Rally 2. The full version of Drag Rally 2 is available as a direct download from our online store for only $4.99, and you get both the Mac and Windows versions together for that one low price. I should also point out that, in line with our overall philosophy and out of respect for our fans and customers, there is no adware or DRM in the full versions of any of our computer games if bought directly from us.

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