If you have not been playing MadSkillsMX2, then what have you been doing?  It is the hottest game in the Moto Game market.  It is incredibly difficult and addictive at the same time.  You can not put it down, but it makes you want to tear your eye brows off.  Add in the fact you can play against your friends in weekly “Jams”, not to mention some of your heros (I enjoy playing Adam Cianciarulo), and this is an all out game changer… literally!

Since I am a Tech Geek at heart, I was very curious about the game and its creator.  Luckily, Tobias Andersen, the games creator, is a nice guy and sat down to give me some answers to my deep, dark, geeky questions.

 

MX101: Hi Tobias, tell us a bit about MadSkillsMX?

Tobias Andersen: I am the creator, I programmed the first computer version myself and contracted out the art and sound.  Racer X helped us market Mad Skills Motocross 1 on the iPhone, and they helped us get sponsors for the sequel.

MX101: Could you tell us how the concept of madskills2 came about?

TA: We wanted to expand on the first game, without changing the game play much. Our experience with the first game told us that the hard core players of our game are very competitive and love to play against each other. Now, the first game didn’t do a good job of facilitating competition. You had to tell your friends which time to beat, and they had to tell you when they beat it and by how much. Also, playing against the best in the world or even your country was not possible.

MX101: Where did the idea come from to run in the weekly jams?

TA: With competition in mind, we ran a couple of test weekly “tournaments” in the first game. They functioned like a light version of the Jams we have now. The concept was wildly popular even though it was very rough around the edges, so we decided to design Mad Skills Motocross 2 around the concept of weekly Jams.

MX101: How long did it take to develop the game.

TA: About 15 months.

MX101: For all us techies that love the game, what is madskills developed in?

TA: Unity, using C# and some C++

MX101: Are you guys as addicted and everyone else that plays?

TA: I am, for sure. I easily put in about 400 attempts on each Jam track.

MX101: How long does it take to create a new track?

TA: About 4-5 hours

MX101: Is there one person doing each track, or are they collaborative?

TA: There are a couple of people making the tracks, and I curate.

MX101: Do you guys know the fast lines when you release the track, or do the players surprise you?

TA: It’s almost always a surprise. And we design the tracks to enable surprises, putting bumps and other features in places we think no-one will ever touch with their wheels. But they somehow manage to hit those bumps and often find a faster line as a result.

MX101: Are there any tricks to the game that you can share with our readers?

TA: Learn to “slingshot”, successfully pulling off even one of those in a race will save a lot of time. Approach a medium sized jump on the rear wheel, lean forward right when you hit the jump. You will go low and fast.

MX101: Do you guys have a preferred platform to play Madskills2 on?

TA: I prefer phone over tablet. And we just added game pad support, which works better than touch.

MX101: The feature where you can choose to race against your friends is awesome.  And now you have the multiplayer feature.  Can you tell us what your vision of the game is for the future?  What features do you have have in the pipeline that you might like to tell us about?

TA: We don’t plan very far in the future, but what we’d like to do at some point is a track editor and a community curated database of all tracks created by players.

MX101: Sincere thanks for doing this with us, Tobias!