In case you live under a rock, “CutMan Mike” Michael Hill happens to be the driving force behind such games as ZPortal, Ghouls VS Humans and Level Master. His most recent project, Megaman 8-Bit Deathmatch, is a new take on a classic, combining the fun of a free-for-all deathmatch FPS game with the retro quality of the classic 8-bit Megaman series.

Michael Hill has been doing mods for ZDoom for quite a while now, and is a big name in the indie genre.
A few days ago, Mike agreed to do a short, informal Q&A session with me via e-mail. Here’s how it went down:

Eden Wirefly: What’s the origin of “Cutman”? Has that always been a tag of some sort?

CutMan Mike: I can’t remember why but my old alias was getting stale (can you blame me, it was goku_777uk) and I decided to include a Mega Man character in my name as I was playing the Wily Wars at the time. What better than a guy wearing white underwear with scissors on his head?

EW: How and when did you get into the world of mods and indie gaming?

CMM: Ever since the commodore 64 I’ve been hacking code together trying to get something I’d like to see actually come to life as a playable game. Any level editors I toyed with at that time were a godsend, but it hardly ever happened. Eventually I got a PC and started editing for Doom 2, which I have been doing none stop due to it’s ease and recent flexibility.

EW: How long have you been working with the ZDoom engine?

CMM: I can’t remember an exact date but I signed up to the forums in 2003 so it should be around that time. But I’d been editing in Doom way before that.

EW: Have you worked with other engines before?

CMM: I’ve tried, but I’ve never found anything that was as easy and familiar as Doom and Duke Nukem 3D. I did toy around with the Serious Engine 2 for a while but didn’t get too far with that. I have been pestered by almost everyone I know to learn a new engine like UDK3 but I can just never get a feel for a modern framework. One day I will though, but right now the only thing on my mind is Mega Man!

EW: I assume you’re a fan of the FPS genre, but what other genres do you like?

CMM: I’m a fan of the FPS genre before it started taking itself too seriously. Throw me a Call of Duty game and I’ll be bored of it with in the hour. Throw me a random FPS with giant aliens, lasers and no story and I’ll be hooked as long as it’s fun! As for other genres, I like pretty much everything except sports games. I’m especially fond of the old platformers.

EW: You have many 3-D works on your DeviantArt profile. Any chance you’ll create a game in that style?

CMM: Heh, no way. They may looks pretty in the stills but the models are anything but suited for gaming, trust me. Messing around in a modeller is fun but I’m no artist in that department.

EW: Over here (especially in Denton, TX), you’re considered to be a celebrity of the indie genre. What’s the public reception of video games like over in the UK?

CMM: Well I’ve spread the word around but I only get people excited if they’ve played Mega Man before. Naturally I don’t know every Mega Man fan in the UK so I couldn’t tell ya.

EW: The indie genre has been picking up tons of momentum lately; do you plan on creating games for quite a while still?

CMM: If the Mrs lets me!

EW: What’s next? Have you thought about branching out to consoles yet?

CMM: As I’m still messing around in Doom, I’d say that we’re still a looooong way away. It’s a nice idea though!

EW: You already have a FAQ for Megaman 8-Bit Deathmatch on your site, so I won’t ask too much about that, but what was the influence behind turning Megaman into an FPS? The franchise has gone 3-D before, but never FPS.

CMM: Well I can’t take all the credit. A Doom modder named Kinsie made an original 8-bit Doom mod involving original characters and sprites. He showed it me and I loved it, and soon all those 8-bit memories came flooding back. I instantly thought of Mega Man, as most of my online buddies are obsessed with it (including me) and pitched the idea at Kinsie who pretty much said “go for it!”. My previous multiplayer mod was a huge success, so I had faith in making another one just as if not more fun than Ghouls vs Humans. My friends got interested and started helping me out with sprites, sounds etc and now the project is going full speed ahead.

EW: Will it be available for all computer OS’s or just Windows?

CMM: So far it’s just Windows and Linux. Whether it comes to to other OS’s is up to the Skulltag developers but I’d say the chances of that are fairly slim.

EW: Will there be a sequel to ZPortal sometime in the future?

CMM: The first one wasn’t too successful (I’m actually shocked you’ve heard of it) so probably not. Mapping for that thing was just not fun. I was thinking about turning it into a co-op race though, as that seems to be all the rage on Skulltag at the minute with all these jump maze mods out. My primary focus is Megaman 8-bit DM at the minute though.

You can view Michael’s website here, or by clicking the link in our sidebar. Megaman 8-Bit Deathmatch will release sometime in 2010.