Background Info About The Developers

Forge has a growing number of people who contributed new cards and code. Thanks to “the power of the Internet” programmers from all over the world can help. People from Sweden, Austria, Germany, and other countries are currently working on Forge.

I wanted to introduce a few people who have contributed to Forge, so I asked them a few questions on the forums and here are their answers. These are everyday guys who work regular jobs and then decide to do some programming, and we all get to reap the benefits.

On a side note, I was surprised that nobody played Magic Online since it also Magic + computers also. People seem to enjoy playing against the AI, even though it makes many beginner mistakes.

This first guy, DennisBergkamp is now the “lead project programmer” and oversees everything. This guy has put in a huge number of hours in the development of Forge.
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What is your username or forum username?
DennisBergkamp

What country are you in?
USA

When did you start programming?
Around 2000-2001.

When did you start playing Magic?
In 1997 when a friend of mine showed me Shandalar. I bought some cards in the following years, but I haven't played a real game of magic in ages.

Why do you contribute to Forge?
I remember trying out MTGForge (back then) for the first time, and I loved its simple interface immediately. It only had about 900 cards, so I just wanted to add some of my favorites. Besides, it was open source and written in Java (and I had played around with Java a little bit already). Since then, I've really been enjoying messing around with and adding to Forge's code.

What cards have you created?
Lots!

What bugs have you fixed?
Also lots, there was a time where it seemed all I would do is fix bugs It was like playing a game of never ending Whac-A-Mole though, whenever I'd fix a bug, new ones would pop up almost immediately.

Do you play Magic Online?
Nope.
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Rob is a great guy and has added numerous "keywords" to Forge that allow a bunch of similar cards, like Shock, to be added without programming each card individually.

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What is your username or forum username?
Rob Cashwalker is a name I've been using for a long time.

What country are you in?
US - New York

How old are you?
32

When did you start programming?
Around 16, I started messing around with DOS batch files and QBasic. When I started college, a friend gave me Visual Basic 4.

When did you start playing Magic?
Around Mirrodin. A friend had just gotten back into it after stopping around 5th edition.

Why do you contribute to Forge?
Because it needs to be done.

What cards have you created?
All cards using the Pump keywords, RegenerateMe keyword, Discard keywords, Draw keywords, DestroyTgt keyword. Very few individual cards - Kulrath Knight and Gwafa Hazid, Profiteer.

What bugs have you fixed?
A small handful, mostly in code I've submitted.

Do you play Magic Online?
I've played it in free demo mode, a long time ago, but not in v3.
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Even though I've never met Chris, I know he is a nice guy. He has been updating the rarity for all cards added to Forge. This is also the guy that organized all of the computer decks for the quest mode AND renamed all of the decks, in order to make them more useable. Chris seems to really enjoy building decks and is a primo deckbuilder at heart.

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Chris H.

On the forums I use the name Chris. I live in the USA, east coast. I completed several introductory computer language classes in college many, many years ago. In those days the students had to use keypunch machines. I did not obtain a degree in programing, nor am I a professional coder.

I started playing mtg while unlimited was in print. A friend had befriended the owner of a local gaming store and was giving away boxes of unlimited booster packs to the guys in our circle. I purchased several more boxes of boosters as the next several sets were released.

I had no idea that my Mox, Ancestral Recall, Timetwister, dual lands, etc would become so valuable in the future. I made decks using these "power" cards and would play them at the gaming store. For a couple of years there were over a 100 people showing up for the once a week night devoted to mtg. During the third year the popularity had waned to the point where it was just me and the owner. The owner sold his store and I sold my cards and moved on.

Over the years my health has deteriorated and I had a stroke 3 1/2 years ago. I needed some form of therapy to exercise my brain in order to regain some of it's lost function. The Forge project has been very helpful in this area and I am having a blast.

I created some of the newer auras including Animate Artifact, Dwarven Demolition Team and several of the X cost spells. I contributed some of the AI decks used by the computer in quest mode and have added some AI code to a few of the cards.

I fixed some bugs associated with Crib Swap, Visara the Dreadful, Avatar of Woe, Reprisal, Hidetsugu's Second Rite, Akroma's Memorial, Basking Rootwalla and the Changeling bug with the cost change cards.

I believe that I am 56 years old, although I stopped counting after 21. I no longer play paper mtg and I never tried Magic Online. I have never had an interest in playing online games as I hear it tends to attract immature individuals.

I enjoy beating up the computer in Forge (quest mode) and I also enjoy engaging in conversation with my the many riends that I have made on our forums here at CCGH.
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I don't know much about Hellfish. He is working on a very ambitious rules engine for Magic and you can read more about it on his blog called The Sharpening.

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What is your username or forum username?
Hellfish.

What country are you in?
Sweden.

When did you start programming?
Um, let's see... I first started with Blitz Basic (Not the Amiga version, I'm not THAT old) being hot stuff so... I was 14 or so, maybe.

When did you start playing Magic?
Microprose's old gem was my first stint with Magic, and I had found that in a bargain bin so I'm guessing 1-2 years after '97.. Let's say a nice and even 2000. I drifted away from it when I probably lost or had trashed the CD of that game and got reaquainted with it thanks to Forge, actually! That was probably mid-late '09, I think.

Why do you contribute to Forge?
Because I love playing it and coding for it is almost equally fun.Plus, I get to attempt to add any cards missing for my own favourite decks.

What cards have you created?
Almost all the ones that use the HandSize or spCounter keywords and a couple of one-offs. (Oh, and paintap, can't forget paintap)

What bugs have you fixed?
*Besides* the one's I've introduced myself *cough*letsnotgothere*cough* I havn't done much. I have a one-line fix ready for Mad Auntie being able to regenerate herself if that counts?

Do you play Magic Online?
No, I can't afford it. I would love to but hey, them's the breaks.I'll just enjoy Forge for now.

Do you play paper Magic?
No. I have cards and decks and all but beyond a couple of matches against people I tried in vain to sucker in I can't play much. There's just not much paper Magic action in Sweden, though I will try to get to one of the 3 cons I know that runs it next year.

How old are you?
I'm 24 years young!

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What is your username or forum username?
Friarisol (the second 'i' is a typo).

What country are you in?
New Jersey.

How old are you?
27

When did you start programming?
1997.

When did you start playing Magic?
A little bit before Alliances came out, and stopped around Invasion. I'm familiar with the newest sets but no longer collect cardboard.

Why do you contribute to Forge?
I was a huge fan of Shandalar and enjoy having something to occupy my recreational programming time.

What cards have you created?
I wrote a handful of individual cards that I needed for one of the few decks that I still own. I also wrote up the Spike keyword, Madness keyword, and Suspend keyword along with some other stuff.

What bugs have you fixed?
The biggest one I fixed so far was redoing the Mana Pool, which I believe has fixed some problems with infinite mana abuses with snow mana. I've also done some script migration stuff for unifying the cards text files. The one I'm tackling next is a unification of the cost object, so ideally activated abilities will just setup a cost object and then they will be paid all in the same way/order.

Do you play Magic Online?
No.

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Silly Freak is also working on his own version of computertized Magic and you can read more on his blog Laterna Magica.

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What is your username or forum username?
Silly Freak

What country are you in?
Austria (not the one with kangaroos )

How old are you?
I'm 18, still one year of school to go. the technical school I go to is one year longer than normal education in Austria.

When did you start programming?
My mother had an excel spreadsheet for basic math training which I used in primary school, and I was around 12 or 13 when I asked her how it worked and she told me. We did one simple program together, and afterwards I started to practice myself with the help of a book. In the age of 14, I attended a technical school, and since then I'm fully into it.

When did you start playing Magic?
About the same age, 12 or 13. I started with an 8th starter pack, shortly before Mirrodin came out. I was actually introduced by my younger brother. We still play the occasional match, but he mostly quited.

Why do you contribute to Forge?
I don't have many friends who play magic and don't want to spend money on a virtual card collection, so I looked for free alternatives on the Internet and found forge. After some time, I got annoyed by the fixed size of the game area. This was the first time I contributed.

What cards have you created, what bugs have you fixed?
Not one, really. While creating cards might be interesting, I never took the time to dive in the code. I did some foundation work; the configuration files and the new text-based deck format were my fault, as was the error viewer. And even though some might find it annoying, I think it was a very vital addition; I haven't heard of a "Computer is thinking" bug in months, and though I didn't fix it/them, I believe I helped a lot in tracking them down.

I didn't contribute to forge for some time, mostly because of school and my own project. *pushing the microphone away* may I mention my blog?

Do you play Magic Online?
No, but I own a reasonable collection of physical cards. I'm particularly proud of owning Doran, my favorite card ever.

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What is your username or forum username?
Sloth.

What country are you in?
Germany.

How old are you?
28.

When did you start programming?
I started with Turbo Pascal when I was 16.

When did you start playing Magic?
I got my first magic starter in 1995. 4th Edition, Ice Age and Homelands just came out.

Why do you contribute to Forge?
I love the game and I really like the way it is developed.

What cards have you created?
I started with adding functional reprints of existing cards and keywordable cards. Later I wrote the keywords spBounceTgt, spDestroyAll and spBounceAll. The only really unique card I added is Mirror Gallery.

What bugs have you fixed?
I've fixed the bug, that two copies of indestructible legends won't die and some others that didn't get reported. I still have no clue about most parts of the code, but hopefully I can change that in the future and be more helpful in fixing bugs.

Do you play Magic Online?
No, I don't like playing against people online.

Do you play paper Magic?
I have a huge (but not valuable) collection of paper cards, but I don't play very much any more. I never played in official tournaments (other than two prereleases).

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And last but not least, myself. Nothing below is a shocker. I code therefore I am. Truthfully, I can't seem to get a job coding (since I have no experience) so I started working on Forge just to prove to myself that I really could code something useful.

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mtgrares (the guy who is writing this blog)

What country are you in?
USA, Florida

When did you start programming?
When I was 20, I taught myself C. Later I graduated with a bachelor's degree in Information Science. (Computer Science has too many math classes for me.)

When did you start playing Magic?
After college, so I was around 25 when Mirrodin first came out. I remember reading some of the rare cards and wondering, "What the heck does that do" because it was so convuloted. After reading months of Wizards "Saturday School' that answered rules questions, I finally thought I had a firm understanding and proceeded to start work on Forge.

Why do you contribute to Forge?
Well I started Forge because I wanted to play against the computer because for various (uninteresting) reasons I spend most of my time offline.

Do you play Magic Online?
I played Magic Online (version 2) from about 2004-2005. I was always disappointed because I couldn't afford the best rare cards and would have really enjoyed the Peasant format that only allows commons and a few uncommons. "I only programmed Forge to use rare cards that I don't use" which I say in jest but it is partly true.

Using Magic Online I didn't really mean people who just wanted to play for fun. Everybody just wanted to win, even if they were in the casual room. Forge tries to put the fun back into Magic because you can abuse the computer as much as you want to and it will never whine or disconnect during a long game.

Do you play paper Magic?
No, I guess I'm just too cheap. I own a random asortment of Magic cards but nothing valuable. I've only played 3 Magic games in real life.

How old are you?
31, yeah. Age seems to mean less and less as I get older.