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The Makers:

Nice-Guy Designer Hits the Big Time

It's not every day that I get the opportunity to interview one of the hottest new designers in the field of console gaming: Tameem Antoniades. This guy rules! Let me tell you about him and share some of what we discussed.

He's the 28-year-old superstar behind the design of Kung Fu Chaos, exclusively for Xbox, and he has a cool name—Tameem Antoniades! He explains, "Antoniades is Greek-Cypriot (my dad). Mum's Spanish, but I'm English. Confused? I am." So, he lives in England and designs console games for a living. Jealous? I am!

Roll the Credits
Here's the official company bio on Tameem:

Antoniades has been involved in the games industry for the past eight years as a programmer and designer on PC and console platforms. With the observation that killing and humiliating your best friends in games is extremely fun, he and his cohorts Mike Ball and Nina Kristensen … found[ed] Just Add Monsters Ltd (JAM) [to] focus on "social gaming." As design director, Antoniades is responsible for the design of JAM's debut game, Kung Fu Chaos (as well as a good chunk of tools programming and tea-making).

But, I got more. Antoniades is the only designer on Kung Fu Chaos. This means that he drew up the initial concept and design, wrote the Maya exporter tools, and designed the levels. He adds, "Other than that, I am one of the principal directors of the studio and so do all the boring businessy stuff, too." He's a busy guy.

The Prologue
Like most of us, Antoniades comes from humble beginnings. His first failure came when he was turned down for a job as a supermarket shelf-stocker. That, however, inspired him to go to college to learn how to program, paint, and, as he says, "… make music (badly) on my Amiga, hoping I'd get a job in the games industry … somehow."

He knew what he wanted to do with his life, and he went for it. After he finished his degree in computer science, he applied for a special Master's program in computer games production. He competed with hundreds of applicants and was one of only 12 chosen to participate. Various game companies had offered financial aid to cover the students' class fees, living costs, and even spending money! Antoniades told me, "It sounded too good to be true—and it was. The course closed a couple of weeks before I was due to start because some of the sponsors pulled out!" So, disappointed, but not discouraged, Antoniades took his computer science degree and dedicated the next few months to creating code demos, animations, game designs, and other such portfolio candy to show to game companies in the hope of finding one willing to hire him.

As it turned out, he made an impression at Sony Cambridge (formerly Millennium Interactive), and they hired him to be a programmer. Over the next six years, he gradually worked his way up into a designer position. I didn't have the nerve to ask him how much butt-kissing that required, but I think it's fair to assume he paid his dues.

The Main Feature
"Nina [Kristensen], Mike [Ball], and I," Antoniades explains, "founded Just Add Monsters because we all felt it was time to try something new and different. Every ounce of knowledge gained over those years was fully tested during the development of Kung Fu Chaos."

Kung Fu Chaos premiered at the 2002 Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) in Los Angeles. It found an enthusiastic audience. Antoniades reports that "at E3, Matt Groening [creator of The Simpsons] turned up with his kid and started playing Kung Fu Chaos for a good long while. He then turned up again the next day with an entourage of friends explaining the game at length to them before having another session with them. That was cool!"

When asked what he likes best about Kung Fu Chaos, Antoniades replied, "I really like the style and humor in the game … I think this will be a game that will be remembered for that. The director, Shao Ting, in particular is hilarious. I still laugh at [the] comments he makes. Before he was put in, we were worried that he might turn out annoying. However, the writing for his lines and his voice acting are excellent. If you like The Simpsons, you'll love the humor in this."

The Intermission
I asked Antoniades what he does in his spare time. He told me, "Unfortunately, as most people involved in game development can attest, there isn't a whole lot of time to do anything other than making games." Poor Antoniades. "When I have some time, I do enjoy watching Hong Kong and Japanese movies. There are some real gems out there! I don't really do any form of physical activity, and anyway, I have it under good authority that exercise makes your muscles get bigger only to become flabby later."

The Cliffhanger
With regard to his future and the future of his company, Just Add Monsters, Antoniades said, "During the game's development we have gone from 3 to 20 people, become a subsidiary of Argonaut Games PLC and secured a great relationship with Microsoft Game Studios. This is just the beginning! We are ambitious, young, and full of passion. Expect a lot of good stuff to come from JAM in the near future!"

Finally, I just had to ask Antoniades, "What is your dream for the future?" He gave a great response:

I'd like to see more companies like JAM in the future, formed by people who love to make games for people who love to play games. Games are big business now, and as a result, this business is increasingly becoming stale and predictable—a little like Hollywood. But, at its core, it is a passionate, creative industry that will continue to break down barriers and make people happy. It's all about having fun, folks. We can never lose sight of that.

Thank you, Antoniades!

By Violet Leigh