Here's the latest story from Pop Ethos. I've recently added an arcade, so if you'd like to see your game there let me know!

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Strategy Game-maker Dmitry

Self taught programmer, and long time Flash enthusiast, twenty-two-year-old Russian Dmitry is well known for his creations. With a few widespread hits like Momentum Missile Mayhem, Quadrobarrel Defense, and StarCraft Flash Action, his place in the flash hall of fame has already been secured. He started flash when he was fifteen, but says his career in the flash industry didn't become serious until he released his first game.

"My first game was based on StarCraft sprites since I couldn't draw my own graphics. I called it StarCraft Flash Action (StarCraft FA) and it was released on newgrounds.com back in 2004. The game was relatively successful (I won daily feature) and that inspired me to go on. Next year I finished my first big project - StarCraft FA3, a tower defense game inspired by similar maps in WarCraft 3. The game scored quite well and I was offered a sponsorship by Armor Games (they had a different name back then). So from this moment I could get paid for making games, it was a very good motivation to keep working."

"At some point I realized that I had to stop using copyrighted graphics and names and move on to something I could really call my OWN game, so I found an artist. The first game we made together was Quadrobarrel Defense."

Dmitry says it's his own drive to create, and not the money, that keeps him going, "I enjoy making flash games so it's an entertainment for me. I'm working with an artist now so I don't need to steal sprites and textures any more. As for sounds - I have a HUGE library composed from various sources. :P"

"I can't really tell how long it took me to make any of my games since I don't work on them every day. Sometimes I get bored with the project or have some IRL problems and forget about flash for weeks and even months. Making games is not a job for me, its entertainment. (Although it is well paid. :P) If I start taking it as a job, just a way to earn money, I would not be enjoying it and would not make games that I like."

You wouldn't guess by the quality of his games, but Dmitry has had to learn as he goes. "I made my first games with almost no knowledge of Action Script. All the movements in SCFA 1 to 3 are based on Motion Tweens. There's nothing but hittests, IF's, and lots of variables. I improved a bit by the time I started working on SCFA5 but still did not know the basics of AS programming. There are no cycles, no functions..."

"By the time I finished Quadrobarrel Defense I realized that to move on to my next projects I had to learn something - so I bought a book. 'Macromedia Flash MX Game Design Demystified' by Jobe Makar. It is the best book about flash gamemaking in existence. I would recommend it to anyone who wants to learn how to make flash games. It requires some basic knowledge of programming in action script and general flash though."

As for the future, "My main goal at the moment is to improve my programming skills. And that can only be done by practice. I have a lot of projects in mind and the only thing that stands in the way is my lack of experience. As for whether I will or wont be making flash games in several years from now - I don't know. But I do know that I will be making something, I like to create. =)"

Be sure to check out Dmitry's Newgrounds Userpage!