Nickie and I love the computer games “Age of Empires” series and “Age of Mythology.” We wanted to find out how the heck these are made. We decided to e-mail Ensemble Studios, creators of both games and many more. But to our horror we found out that they had closed down! But we found out that they had split into two new companies. We e-mailed Robot Entertainment with some questions and we got some awswers from Duncan Stanley, their Community Manager. These are the Q and A.

Q. What games have you developed? Which is your most popular game?

A. Robot Entertainment is a start up video game company, so we haven’t released any of our games yet, although our employees (or ‘Bots as we call them) have all been involved with many games over the years. Most of us were together at Ensemble Studios, now closed, that developed the Age of Empires series of games and Halo Wars. Age of Empires II: Age of Kings was Ensemble’s most popular game.

Q. Are you currently developing any games?

A. We are currently working on an unannounced game, but unfortunately we can’t talk about it yet (even to students!).

Q. Are you working on any Halloween based games?

A. We are not working on any Halloween based games, although the Halloween spirit is alive and well here at Robot!

Q. How many game testers work at Robot? What kind of skills do you need to be a game tester?

A. Currently we only have 1 person who does any testing, but when it comes to the final phases of making a game, we can have as much as 10 or more on-site testers, but everybody helps test out the game while they’re working on it too! To be a great game tester, you need to read and write very well so you can follow complex instructions, and write down what you’ve done in case you run into a bug. It also helps to be very good at problem solving and if you are very creative, so you can think of situations the programmers and designers haven’t thought of to test out.

Q. Where do you get your ideas for new games?

A. Everyone always has lots of great ideas for a new game, and we have a process where people can pitch new ideas to everyone, and a select team of people add their own and go through all of the ideas and come up with a overall plan for a new game. Then it goes to our team of designers who work on all of the specifics of the game, like levels, characters, and graphics vision and everything else. Then it’s up to the Artists and Programmers to get it all done!

Q. How long does it take to make a video game?

A. Most of the big name titles that are very popular take anywhere from 2 to 5 years from start to finish. The latest game that Robot Entertainment provides support for is Halo Wars, and that took about 3 years of development.