Puppy Arcade Interview With Scott Jarvis

Scott Jarvis is the creator of Puppy Arcade, a Live Distribution of Linux Geared towards making emulation under Linux fun, simple and easy. We grilled Scott with a few questions for fun.

Before the interview we had a chance to review Puppy Arcade 8 and fell in love with it. Read the review here.

>> 1. What are some of your first video game experiences?

Amstrad CPC – we only had demo games, Total Recall being among the best, couldn’t be wasting money on games back then!

Then we (my twin brother and I) got a MasterSystem II, with Alex Kidd built-in.. Then I got myself a Gameboy, and played Tetris to death..

>> 2. Any favorite systems or games past or present?

My favorite system of all time is the SNES – we got one my our 10th birthday – it had so many great games, and was better than my friends MegaDrive.. 😀
My and my 2 brothers played Street Fighter and Mortal Kombat on the SNES till our thumbs hurt..

The PSX has to be one of the best ever as well though… I loved it, and especially loved the Ridge Racer and Tomb Raider series..

>> 3. What made you interested in emulation, and why?

Having a defunct SNES and an aging PSX, and wanting to keep playing some of my games, once the actual consoles had died on us, after years of use..
I felt I deserved the chance to play my games, even if the consoles were no longer up to it!

>> 4. What made you decide to create the Puppy Arcade project?

I read about AdvMAME and some other Live CD emulation projects, but couldn’t find anything that emulated multiple systems, other than MAME systems.
I realized Puppy Linux (and TurboPup in particular) was ideal to create such a thing, and away I went..

>> 4.5 Puppy Arcade is amazing, but how will it mature?

I will add more joypad support, and mainly be increasing the ease of use, as Linux is difficult for many people – especially an unknown, unique distro like Puppy.
I will also improve Rom Loader – the main, multi emulator GUI, which I coded just for Puppy Arcade. It has a few more features to be added, and will be even more suitable for a cabinet solution.

>> 5. How old are you, also do you have any other hobbies?

I love MMA (mixed martial arts) and train fairly often.. Especially boxing.. 😀

>> 6. Do you have any other side projects going on that we should know about?

My website, ScottJarvis.com, is actually by far my biggest project – it is built using my own is a blogging/CMS application, which I aim to keep improving until it’s one of the best!
I will soon be releasing a free version, with a few features removed, so people can try it out for free..

I’m also building a tool called ‘Woofy’ which makes remastering (customizing) a Puppy Linux Live CD very easy indeed. It is already available on the Puppy Linux Forum.

>> 7. Have you ever built an Arcade Cabinet?

Nope – ever had the time or money for such luxuries!

>> 8. Is there any way that we as a community can help you guys out more? How about a donation Link?

Don’t donate anything – but a website from me!

>> 9. Biggest pet peeve in this scene?

The constant need to upgrade to later versions of dependencies in Linux emulators, which makes bloat unavoidable..

>> 10. Anything you would like to say to the fans?

Hope you enjoy Puppy Arcade, and check out Puppy Linux in general, if you’re interested in any customizable distro.

What are you waiting for? Go after Puppy Arcade 8. Visit the official site here and get started.