“If you want to get fans and create fans from your players, its about treating them like a fan,” Morgan Hall summarized during a panel she moderated at Casual Connect USA 2014. “It is about being accountable to these people.”
Morgan Hall, Co-founder and Creative Director, Hidden Door Interactive
Morgan Hall, co-founder and creative director at Vancouver-based mobile app studio, Hidden Door Interactive, has been involved with games since she was first introduced to them at the age of five on her father’s work computer running DOS. She believes this experience has shaped her social life, her hobbies, and her career.
While at university, she had an internship with Electronic Arts, and has been in the industry ever since. She considers herself fortunate, saying, “I am encouraged by the way it allows me to pursue entrepreneurial opportunities as well as remain in a constant state of learning. My favorite part of the industry is that it is never boring!”
Paying It Forward
Hall feels the greatest satisfaction in her work when she is able to pay it forward to others in the games industry. Her opportunity came when, on behalf of her company, she sponsored a women-in-games event in Vancouver.
With her partners, Hall founded Hidden Door Interactive to make their game, Happy Flock!.In the process, they discovered how well they worked together, and since they have enough ideas to last for a lifetime, they are on to their next project.
With her partners, Hall founded Hidden Door Interactive to make their game, Happy Flock!
Hall is also a producer/designer at East Side Games, a mobile games studio in Vancouver. Prior to that, most of her experience had been with console games, starting with the internship at Electronic Arts. From these experiences, she has learned what it means to be a professional game developer and the amount of hard but rewarding work it takes to create ‘fun’.
For her own gaming, Hall is currently playing Tiny Town, saying she loves the art style and is intrigued by its design. Her first choice of platform is divided between her iPad and her 3DS. Besides these, she also owns Xbox 360, a Steam Box, and a PS3, and she plans to purchase a PS4 soon.
Hall finds that iOS has the right combination for Hidden Door Interactive’s skill set, size, and budget.
She appreciates both Android and iOS, enjoying the power of holding the internet in your hand that both offer. But for her work, she finds that iOS has the right combination for her team’s skill set, size, and budget. She stresses, “We’ve had nothing but good experiences developing for Apple’s platform.”
And when she is not spending her free time gaming, she loves skiing and snowboarding in the winter, and fishing and hiking in the summer.
A Fuzzy Future Ahead
When Hall considers the future of the games industry, she points out that it is particularly hard to predict. Today looks completely different from only two years ago. But she expects the current mobile-first trend will continue getting stronger, pointing out, “You can’t be successful without a first-class experience on a device you hold in your hand.” She also believes VR could be big if the technology improves, explaining that a device more like Google Glass than a fighter pilot’s helmet will be needed before VR can succeed.
She emphasizes that whether or not her predictions are correct, there is an important lesson in making them. “Thinking about the future teaches me to be nimble. We have to see the trends forming and respond to them, even if this means drastically changing plans. We’re in an industry where taking risks is a necessity.”
At Casual Connect USA, Hall announced the worldwide release of her game Happy Flock! It is an adventure and animal-collection game for all ages, available on iPhone and iPad. The game came about through a lot of hard work and long hours by the team at Hidden Door Interactive.
Since 1999 (the founders are old or, as they say, “seasoned”), Ian Jardine, Craig Martin, Julio Carneiro, Steve Parkes and William Gibson (who provided the story and background) have wanted to get into the game-making business but lacked time, funding, and expertise. By building a successful web application consulting company over the past seven years, they were finally confident enough to start their dream company. They had an inkling of what they wanted to build: namely a multiplayer tank-based game that harkened back to Bolo from the ’80s. “We wanted to make the game hard. We felt that too many current games make it too easy for players to win. We wanted the player to explore their surroundings and get that “aha!” feeling upon discovering something new and weird inside the game. We were missing one key ingredient: Game Company Expertise”, Skunkwerk Kinetic’s CEO and founder Ian Jardinerecalls.
Drive and Ambitions Above All, Experience Not Necessary
We aimed to build our team around a talented group of developers who had drive and ambition, though not necessarily game industry experience. Provided below is a brief description of three team members who we think represent a good cross-section of the overall spirit of our company.
Jonas, the lead engineer: a promising Belgian ready to take big risks, with a passion for strategic games and a coding background.
You always remember your first hire, and we picked our lead engineer Jonas, a beaming Belgian with a passion for strategic games and a rock-solid coding background. At our first meeting, Jonas told us his story: upon graduating from an obscure university in Belgium, he and his lovely girlfriend (seriously, how did she get stuck with Jonas?) packed up all their belongings and moved to Vancouver. That showed us he was willing to take risks and take giant leaps of faith…very good qualities to have in a startup.
Upon graduating from a university in Belgium Jonas and his girlfriend moved to Vancouver. That told us he was willing to take risks.
Jonas is also very good at asking questions…lots of questions. He forces us to really think through all of our crazy ideas, not hesitating to bring up the myriad technical difficulties associated with an ambitious new feature. It has been a real pleasure watching Jonas grow into his role as head engineer, and as a person (new dad!!).
Erik, the game/audio designer: a team member adapting to the ebb and flow of the ever-changing company’s needs.
Erik, the game/audio designer, is a good example of a team member adapting to the ebb and flow of a company’s needs as they change over time. Erik was hired as our ‘sound guy’ early on, but we were too busy making art assets and solving the technical issues of creating an online multiplayer game from scratch to spend too much time on audio. Erik’s passion for games and insight into game design were evident from the start.
Erik was hired as the “sound guy”, but we were too busy making art assets and solving the technical issues of creating an online multiplayer game from scratch.
He became our primary game designer and produced all the internal documentation needed for feature design in both the Art and Dev departments. He still has his hand on sound design, managing our sound consultant and offering advice on thematic audio design in the game.
Kevin: an undergrad in Japanese Studies turned into a game developer
Kevin, the lead engineer, is a good example of how an undergrad in Japanese Studies turns into a dev at a game company. He is fluent in French, German, and Japanese. He plays guitar. He sings. He can do Flash….oh, and he is a helluva coder. Realizing that the Arts degree was not quite enough to land for a full-time work in a game company, he went back for a second degree in computer science.
An Arts degree was not enough for a full-time job in a game company, so Kevin got a second degree in computer science.
Kevin came to Skunkwerks as a co-op student, worked his way up to a key member of the team, and we never want him to leave.
Multi-talented Flexible People: A Solution for Small Teams
If the game idea doesn’t work, we’ll hit the road as a hair metal band called “The Skunkwerks 5”.
We refer to our team members as “Swiss army knives”. Our company is too small to have a specialist in every department. Instead, we need people who are flexible and multi-talented; it also helps if you’re a musician (our backup plan: if this whole game thing doesn’t work out, we’ll hit the road as a hair metal band called “The Skunkwerks 5” or whatever number of members we can rope in!).
Through two years of development and working with a small team, we have felt the sting of developers leaving our team for larger companies (*cough* Amazon *cough*) with much more money to throw around than we do. Our entire server team was demolished within two months leading up to a critical release, forcing our downsized client team to pick up the slack within a number of weeks. The remaining dev team not only learned about the server-side codebase, but was also able to fix a number of longstanding issues with the server architecture. Lemonade out of lemons, baby! The good news is that the people left are in it for the duration, while all we lost is “deadwood” - like pruning a tree makes it healthier.
Before Legit Game Engines Started Suggesting Affordable Deals
When we decided to make a mobile game, it was about six months to a year out from when legit game engines began offering more affordable deals to indie developers in a meaningful way. After initial research, we decided to string together our own custom engine using a variety of open-source and licensed components. This proved to be a double-edged sword in the long run, although we learned a great deal about each part, including Scaleform for UI, FMOD for audio and Sparrow for texture rendering.
After initial research, we decided to string together our own custom engine using a variety of open-source and licensed components.
The ease-of-use and implementation took much longer than expected, compared to a more conventional approach using an all-in-one engine. Moving forward, we now know how to be able to fully utilize a commercial engine should we choose to use one and also roll our own if necessary.
Why just Apple?
“Where is the [insert any platform other than iOS] version of your game?” We get this question quite often, as our game is currently an iOS exclusive title. We chose the iPad as our primary device for a number of reasons: we liked the development pipeline and usability of the Apple mobile framework, and the lack of variability in screen size amongst the various retina and non-retina iPad models.
The team decided to make the game primarily for iPad due to lack of variability in screen size amongst the various retina and non-retina models.
While we agreed that Android would be a good choice for the type of game we’re making, we were wary of the expansive device list and the necessity of making our game experience work consistently across many different screen sizes and resolutions.
Apple’s 30 percent cut of profit from App Store revenue was quite steep from a business perspective, although we did appreciate the distribution platform as a service.
The submission process proved to be frustrating during our initial release of MEG:RVO - we ended up getting rejected for minor UI issues (like where to place the “Restore InApp Purchases” button), and then felt like we got approved without any actual human verification. It felt like dealing with an amorphous gatekeeper at times, and unpredictable release and update schedules proved to be a challenge for our server-based game (we didn’t want to make updates to the server until the App Store update goes through, for fear of breaking previous versions).
MEG:RVO ended up getting rejected for minor UI issues, and then got approved without any actual human verification.
After our PAX East experience this year, we have received significantly more support from Apple, and the whole process has become somewhat smoother. It seems that as our app started getting more attention and updates on a consistent basis, the review timelines have shortened substantially.
Buying/Selling Wasn’t Fun - So We Removed It
One of the many things we learned from PAX East 2014 was that our game was suffering from lack of polish and usability in terms of the HUD design. PAX attendees who came to our booth approved the concept and look of what we had going on, but by the end of the three-day expo, we were all hoarse and exhausted from having to give a detailed explanation of the game mechanics to each person who stuck around to play.
By the end of PAX East 2014, we got tired of explaining the gameplay in details
We then decided to re-design our menu and in-game UI in order to present all controls and information our game contained in a simplified and concise format. We removed some features that we felt were too complex or not fleshed out enough to belong on a release version of MEG:RVO. For example, we decided to get rid of the Marketplace for the next release, since buying/selling items didn’t seem that fun and in fact might have had a negative impact on first-time players. Instead, we built a combat training mission that we strongly recommend new players to try out before getting into a match with other players.
We now give players all the weapons upfront, and people gain experience the more they play and participate.
The incentivization process was altered as well; we ended up giving players all of the weapons upfront. It’s now a balancing practice rather than a “pay to buy better weapons” system. Players gain experience the more they play and participate. Leveling up unlocks more maps, but the gameplay remains generally the same.
We hope that these changes along with our focus on user experience will allow users to stick around a bit longer and appreciate the depth and relative complexity of our game compared to more casual mobile games.
We’d Better Have at Least Someone With a Gamedev Experience
Have we made mistakes? Yes…quite a few, but no fatal blows.
Hiring people with no prior game knowledge had its pros and cons. It would have been nice to have at least one person with prior industry experience. This might have helped us avoid some common pitfalls in our design, and reckless ambition in terms of what we wanted to create.
Should we have hired people who were passionate about games instead of people who just wanted a job? Definitely. Did we assume that most people would “just figure out” how to play our game without any guidance? Yes. We have since realized that we need to show people how the game works first, and then let them explore. This has shifted to our primary focus over the last few months and we hope that this will be reflected in our next release around August 1st this summer.
“We have since realized that we need to show people how the game works first, and then let them explore.”
The value of our team comes from learning from these mistakes, and we feel significantly more prepared to deal with design and implementation of features than we did at the outset. Our website tag line “Doing things the hard way” is very apropos. We’re looking forward to making more mistakes in the future and further sharpening our expertise through them!
Grants: A Framework for the Business Plan
What we did right was to apply for grants (CMF) as it forces you to think through your game-plan. We used those grant applications as a framework for our business plan which we then used to to raise money. Have a proper budget and stick to that budget! Do not assume you launch the game and get an instant cash-machine. This is not going to happen. Plan for no money, but hard work, loads of “impossible” problems, and all for a very long time.
Plan for no money, but hard work and problems.
Be adaptable to changing situations; the only constant is constant change: “We adding dragons today? - No wait, robots, yea, more robots and some sparkly stuff…”
Probably the most important thing we did was to be naive. If we knew all the pitfalls from a suspect iTunes market (bots much?), technical problems (server down again..ack), personnel problems, and day-to day operational problems (why are there plants in the bathroom? payroll is due today?), we would never have started the journey. And that would have been a shame as everybody is having a blast doing what they want to do.
MEG: RVO - Battle for the Territories has been approved by Apple, and will be released July 31st. The Skunkwerks Kinetic team is now working with the Unreal4 engine to expand their reach. It will be the same universe/setting as MEG: RVO: Battle for the Territories but using the Unreal4 platform, that will provide reach to the desktop/console and Android markets, and vastly improved graphics. MEG: RVO has been Initially released as a single player game, but multiplayer is high on the list.
Shapist, a sliding block puzzle game where you need to clear the doorway out of obstacles, was born out of a collective effort of two people who have never met in real life: Ori Takemura (design & concept) and Dmitry Kurilchenko. They found each other through a Unity 3D forum where Ori was looking for a freelance developer or a partner who would share his excitement about what used to be the original Shapist idea. Dmitry turned out to be a perfect match. Later, in the development process, the fact that they had a very similar opinion on what a puzzle game should be like and what is most valuable to the player helped them create Shapist in a very consistent way. Ori shares the story of providing a journey through a seamless world of puzzles.
A Game That Would Physically Feel Like a Real Object
The story of Shapist started in 2012, when I was using a lot of Gmail on my iPad, and the sensation of how intuitive sliding in the UI felt on touch devices got stuck in my head. Later, in 2013, that impression grew into a concept of a game experience based around bringing a very tangible and physical sensation into a digital game, making a video game feel as natural as a real object.
What we had in the beginning was a list with a rough description of mechanics that would feel natural on a touch device, where “dynamic meaning” and “control meaning” would be synonymous. ‘Control meaning’ is something rarely discussed in game design. However, with modern technologies like touch screens, VR, and those similar to Leap Motion, there is now a great opportunity to build game mechanics and UIs around the sense of intuitive discovery that you would get in the physical world. Controls and meanings in the design can be subconsciously understood just because you are subject to human conditions – this is what we mean by the ‘feels natural’ mechanics type. Let’s say, if a tile in a game disappears as a feedback to a touch move, this mechanic would not feel natural, because usually objects we physically interact with do not vanish in an instance. However, you can fold and collapse things in real life…
The Shapist team: Ori Takemura and Dmitry Kurilchenko
There was also an idea of “teleporting” between puzzles, when a phone becomes a portal to another dimension, but then a puzzle hits the screen and blocks your from further movement to the ultimate goal. We had a folder for a game called “Something Small”, as the final name hadn’t been made up, and it felt like the whole thing would be ready in a relatively small amount of time, a few months at maximum. Little did we know it would take us almost a year. Since sliding was the most basic interaction in the game, we felt that a sliding block and something similar to a 15-puzzle game would fit our concept best of all. We thus decided to adhere to unified block sizes and grid-like level design.
Sliding, Rotation, Detaching, Attaching, Collapsing and Transforming
Not all our ideas made it into the game. We deliberately focused on those clearest for understanding, because they’d feel natural: the sensation was crucial for us. Dmitry spent tons of time polishing the blocks’ reaction to the touch. We didn’t want rail movements within a strict grid, like most block sliding games have, and yet we needed to auto tune the position for better comfort.
Teleporting between puzzles: a phone becomes a portal to another dimension
Finding the perfect balance took a lot of time. We had ideas of goo-like blocks and other overly complex mechanics that only benefited the player viscerally but added nothing to the core values, so they were discarded. We ended up with five main interactions: sliding, rotation, detaching, attaching, collapsing and transforming.
Zero UI for a Natural Experience like a Rubik’s Cube
When you interact with a physical object like a Rubik’s Cube or a volume knob on a stereo system, you don’t have a block of text floating in, obstructing your view and experience; there’s no tutorial that would keep you from discovering the object by yourself. We wanted Shapist to feel as natural as that, with no barriers between the experience and the player. That is why we made what is called zero UI: we don’t have a single word, letter, or digit in Shapist. Never do we punish a player, rush, or mislead him or her. We do provide a very subtle guidance for the player to feel the enjoyment of a discovery.
The Shapist concept: zero UI, neither a single word nor a letter or digit
Our puzzle design follows the same concept. Very early in development, we understood a need for a consistent method to introduce the player to a new interaction type. In Shapist, the user gets to discover every new mechanic within a familiar puzzle design around the very first level he or she would ever see in the game - familiar yet different. As for the difficulty progression: all the puzzles in the game have been designed by hand (Dmitry made the editor while I created the puzzles) and not computer-generated, so we were able to very carefully control the excitement the game provides. The biggest benefit of designing everything by hand is the ability to plug in puzzles that feel very different and require the player to think creatively. In puzzles where a system is first hand-crafted, and then it generates challenge situations for the player (like in Tetris), it’s done procedurally, which makes it harder to control over that ‘flow’ through the game. While we wanted to tell a story though the mechanics, with surprise on the way, we believe that those special levels create richness and diversity. We wanted the game to be a journey with a challenge rather than 100-something levels of boredom.
Colors that Help Concentrate on Puzzles
Colors play a special role in Shapist. There is a functional aspect. For example, interactivity is always highlighted with orange color. Color palettes tell the story during the journey though the game, with vibrancy and excitement shifting from bright colors for easy levels to more pastel, serene colors that let players concentrate on harder levels as he or she advances.
Functional color palettes have been inspired by Sinapore, Japan and the feeling of nostalgia
One color palette was inspired by the colors of Singapore, where I currently live. Among our five palettes, there are some resembling the feeling of nostalgia and serenity, and the last chapter of the game has colors inspired by Japan.
Consistency in the Game and Beyond
Shapist was only possible through great teamwork and an identical vision of the game and its core values. We were blessed with fantastic people in and around development. Jorge Vinals wrote us an amazing ambiance for the background that contributes to the overall feeling of the game in the most perfect way. We wanted to highlight the experience of a never-interrupted journey throughout the game, where there are no loading screens or level titles. We translated the same sensation of flow to the website we launched together with the iOS version of Shapist for iPad in the end of February 2014. There’s a seamless transition between the HTML site and a web demo of the game. We are now working full time on bringing the game to iPhone, Android and maybe Windows8 phones in a few months.
Right now, Shapist is available for iPads, while the demo version is online and works with most desktop OS.
Robert Winkler was part of a panel about launching an indie studio during Casual Connect Europe 2014. During that panel, it was said, “To be a successful indie, you need to hustle. Nobody is going to do it for you!”
Robert Winkler, CEO of 5th Planet Games, finds being surrounded by people just as passionate about games as he is one of the most enjoyable things about being in the games industry. His greatest satisfaction comes from seeing the progression of 5th Planet Games and the personal and professional growth of the team. “I grow more and more proud of them every day,” he said.
He spends the majority of his time driving the company’s strategic vision and supporting the design teams. As one of the original founders, he started out as design lead, and his passion is still in the design realm. Before founding 5th Planet Games, Winkler was in finance. His familiarity with love of numbers and spreadsheets has been helpful in many aspects of his present role.
iPad and Board Games
When not involved with the company, Winkler spends the majority of his time “playing with his house full of little gamers.” He’s obsessed with board games, playing them daily on his iPad and at least once a week with an office group. These days, his game play is focused on Lord of Waterdeep and Agricola, and, although the game he is playing is more important to him than the platform he is playing on, he can usually be found using his iPad.
Winkler also regularly plays his Xbox. “I’ve always been an Xbox kind of guy, but I haven’t really moved away from the 360 due to the lack of a killer next-gen game,” he said.
Games with Substance
Winkler believes the most important challenge facing the games industry today is making a game that stands out with enough substance to retain popularity longer than the competition. He also noted that the transition from games as a product to games as a service has been a major shift for the industry. Winkler said, “It will be interesting to see how people embrace and innovate on this model in the years to come.”
5th Planet Games responds to the challenge by continuing to build games they enjoy playing themselves. Winkler emphasizes the need to focus on fun, immersive play over everything else.
5th Planet Games responds to the challenge by continuing to build games they enjoy playing themselves.
In the future of the games industry, Winkler foresees greater stress on cross-platform gaming and deeper gaming experience. The focus will be on retaining players for years instead of just months or weeks. 5th Planet Games is already focusing on these areas and just recently launched their first cross-platform game on mobile, Legacy of a Thousand Suns.
Located in Mazatlan and Cancun, Mexico, EnsenaSoft started in August 2009 with a desire to create educational and family-oriented video games. Their motto since the start has been “Learning. Fun.” With Where in the World is Monolisa, they believe they may have finally found a great balance. Samuel DenHartog, Founder & CCO, tells the story.
Beginning and Stopping Development
My team and I had come from a business app development and publicity design background, so we had a lot to learn about game creation and all of its many facets. Inspired by my childhood enjoyment of Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego? from Broderbund, we had wanted to make a game that would make learning geography fun. We have emails going back to October 2009 related to this subject and our desire to make a tablet and touch-based game. I mention this so you understand how we got from our thoughts of the game then to how it is now.
Pamela Possum model
In 2009, we developed some preschool learning games and created the characters Pamela Possum and Sammy Squirrel. They were named after my two children, who were eight and four at that time. Living in Mexico, I wanted to create some games that would help them learn English letter pronunciation in a fun way. So we wanted to create a Trap A Thief Around the World with Pamela Possum and Trap A Thief In the USA with Sammy Squirrel. A raccoon would steal the acorns from the character, who then had to track them down. We were very much focused on creating 2D graphic backgrounds for each country, and a few characters who would offer clues as to where the thieving raccoon would travel next. We started development in 2010, but other projects kept taking priority. The background creation was slow, since we wanted to create three to four screens of background for each country. Ultimately, we stopped development.
In 2011, we had a big focus to bring our games to Mac and Android. At this time, we were using cocos2d for application development and would redevelop into Java for Android, and it was working well. In 2012, we brought our games to Windows 8 using HTML5. It was during this transition that we decided there had to be better way to support so many platforms. We were also getting interested in doing 3D vector-based game development.
Sammy Squirrel model
After looking around and talking to people at game conferences, we decided to move our development to using Unity3d. While initially a very scary step and a big investment both in money and time, it is by far the best decision we have ever made. Now, instead of developing a game once on iOS, and then having Mac, Android and Windows 8 teams spend 2-3 months redeveloping it on other platforms, we can develop it once and bring it to all of the platforms in a day or two! It also allows us to start doing things in game development that literally one year ago we would not have thought we would be able to do for many years. The downside is this created a huge imbalance as we needed more designers. We could create things quicker, and the designer’s job just got a lot more complicated. 3D games can require many more assets, and they needed to learn 3D model development at the same time.
Going in the Wrong Direction
We created new titles that probably would not have been wise in production, but seemed funny at the time.
We decided to restart the game with new titles last September in Unity3d. We initially thought of a very simple city with four 3D buildings, using some of our prior graphics to create the look of each country around the edges. The designers would still have to create four images per country, and each building would have a character you could talk to for a clue. So a couple of our designers started creating 3D characters of Pamela Possum for Find My Nuts Around the World and Sammy Squirrel for Find My Nuts in the USA, and other designers to work on background. We created new titles that probably would not have been wise in production, but seemed funny at the time.
However, there we started encountering a few problems that made us go back and completely rethink our approach.
First of all, using designers who are just learning 3D modeling development, even talented ones, is probably not a good idea. They had to throw out and restart models a few times, as we learned good approaches to designing low polygon models with bone structures created in a good way to achieve the animations we would want. After several iterations, it became clear that we were not quite ready as a team to develop our own characters.
After several iterations, it became clear that we were not quite ready as a team to develop our own characters.
Second, this left the others designers focused on pure 2D image development for at least the following year. When you think about four images per country with 30 countries in our Paid version of the Around the World game, and then four images per state with 50 states in our Paid version of the In the USA game, that meant a total of 320 images need to be created. All the while, the designers doing this work were not creating any 3D models and advancing their 3D modeling capabilities. It also left us with extremely redundant game play with just four buildings. We could create some different textures, but it got repetitive and boring.
We also felt our intro scene with the raccoon, which never even got started, would have been repetitive and decided a shorter scene with game starting in different countries would be better. We also wanted to create a bigger scene for each country and state, so the player would get to run around a bit more. Lastly, as we thought about it more, we thought of the possibility that the new titles would not be seen as appropriate in the marketplace, so we decide to make a big change.
The World of 3D Game Development
In Spanish, the word “mono” is the word for “monkey,” and it sort of fell into place with us creating the new titles..
As we came to accept that we would not be able to create characters, we looked around to see what we could purchase from the Unity Asset Store. We found some great animated cartoon characters with low polygon count to play our protagonist, created by Dexsoft Game in the Unity Asset Store. We found nine very cute characters created by PlayPlusPlusto give out clues. Lastly, and very important to our new title, we found a single character with ten different textures that we decided would be perfect for a gang of villains in the Monkey Girls characters by 3DRT. In Spanish, the word “mono” is the word for “monkey,” and it sort of fell into place with us creating the new titles: Where in the World is Monolisa? and Where in the USA is Monolisa?, where you attempt to track down one of the Monolisa Mafia Girls who have stolen important cultural or historical items.
Then we decided to make 3D models for all of the important buildings and monuments rather than 2D images at the sides of the city. Now that we had the characters done, the EnsenaSoft designers could focus on creating 2-3 models for each country and eventually each state. The character design time wasn’t a total waste; the two designers who had worked on character design turned out to be ready and really great at creating lightweight 3D models that did not need to move, perfect for our purposes. We were able to find a few models to purchase, but have made quite a few and will be making all of the rest ourselves.
On to the Game!
In the final version of the game, you see a city which may have monuments from very different parts of the country when you arrive in each country, and always the flag for that country waving on the left. You can run around and Pamela will tell you about the history of a particular building or monument if you get close to it. We felt this is a great way for people to really get to see them, and it adds additional information for the curious to learn more, although not integral to the game-play itself. We also play a short piece of that particular country’s hymn or popular music on arrival, so you feel like you are there.
You can run around and Pamela will tell you about the history of a particular building or monument if you get close to it.
That cartoon character pack we used for clue-giving characters only had an “idle” animation for each character, but this turned out to be just fine for our needs, as we have them at different corners. We only have four characters in any given country showing from nine random spots. Each destination has around 20 clues, so each time a particular country is the next destination, you may get very different clues, and each time you arrive in a country, it will have different characters.
We found that just running around in the now larger city was kind of tedious, so we added the extra task of collecting gems. The gems are randomly scattered all around the city, and you pick them up as you find characters. We originally had 50 scattered and made you find all 50 to pay for your next flight. This was too difficult and made the level “not fun”. We played around and reduced the required gems to 25, and it felt just right. The gem collection and finding the actual characters presents sort of a hidden object challenge to the game and is part of what we hope makes it fun.
Once you have tracked the criminal across enough countries, you arrive in the destination country with a message that the criminal is in the country. We did make it a lot tougher. The criminal is at 1 of 20 different locations that are not directly on the road, but are sometimes out of sight. Since there is only one thing to find, we felt making this one a little tougher was actually more fun.
Once you catch the criminal, it moves forward to the final taking to jail scene and unlocking a new detective badge.
3D model creation still takes time, and that is why the final Paid version of Where in the World is Monolisa? will not come out until first quarter and with Where in the USA is Monolisa? being released after that. The great thing is that by the time EnsenaSoft designers are done with all of this 3D model creation of buildings and monuments, my team will have a lot more experience, and I think we will be ready to tackle character creation for one of our games in 2014! The more they create and learn about 3D modeling, the faster they become with the tools.
We decided to release the game first on Windows 8, and then on the iPad, as we are seeing a lot of growth on the Windows 8 platform and wanted to see what would happen if we gave it a head start. We haven’t decided what platforms we will bring it to beyond that, as we are still learning how to optimize our 3D world and characters so they run well across the mobile devices. We could have easily made it Universal on iOS from a technical standpoint, but in the end, we felt that it really showed better on a tablet or PC device, and that is where people probably would have played it most anyways. We do hope to bring it to some consoles as well once we get the Paid versions completed.
We have really enjoyed creating this game and have a lot of work ahead of us in creating the Paid version and the In the USA version. We hope a new generation of young people can enjoy learning about the world around them in a fun 3D environment. In the end, we created something very different from our original design thoughts and very different from the games that inspired our original thoughts. I think the final result is better because of it all, and it shows that it is important to have the best tools for the job and also realize that sometimes you need to be flexible and just start over again (and again).
Keep up with what Ensenasoft is doing on Facebook!
Williamspurrrrg HD: A Game of Cat and Mustache is the first indie release of No Crusts Interactive, a studio founded by Dr. Carla Fisher that specializes in children’s and family games. She tells the tale of creating the game.
Williamspurrrrg, my multi-touch, finger-twisting puzzle game where you put mustaches and other hipster gear onto cats.
When people play Williamspurrrrg, my multi-touch, finger-twisting puzzle game where you put mustaches and other hipster gear onto cats, they tell me, “It’s so stupid, but I can’t stop playing.”
Then they ask how I ended up making such a game. The answer is that I had to put my money where my mouth is. Or, as my friend and colleague, Amy Kraft said, put my money where my mustache is…
Living By Your Standards
I frequently write and speak about making children’s games. One of my favorite things is to talk about games that are not made for children and consider how the technology or game mechanics might be re-appropriated in a child-friendly way. So while most of my work is consulting for clients, when I decided to do an indie game, it was clear that I had to step up to the challenge I so frequently presented to others – re-appropriate a game mechanic in a child-friendly way.
Two games I talk about a lot in this way are Slice and Fingle. In Slice, the player has to move knives out of the way in order to push a button. If a finger crosses the edge of the knife blade, blood splatters across the screen and the player loses. Fingle is also a multi-touch puzzler, but with sexual pvertones. While definitely not child-friendly, these games are excellent for fostering cooperation between players, largely because you have to talk in order to create a strategy for solving the puzzles.
Inspiration
I blame the hipster angle on living in New York City.
Knowing that I wanted to make a cooperative game for kids to play with peers and parents, I knew I’d be using the multi-touch feature of the iPad to create finger-twisting puzzles.
The cats and mustaches came about during the brainstorming process. I was already thinking about cats, largely because I wanted to manage asset costs by using Creative Commons images for assets. Creative Commons is a method for the general public to release images for use by other people, under a variety of licenses. The attribution license allows you to use the image in commercial projects as well as to modify the image so long as you attribute the original artist. Flickr has a search feature that allowed me to focus on images released under Creative Commons attribution license.
I blame the hipster angle on living in New York City.
The working title was Catstatio, until my colleague and co-author on Kids Got Game blog Anne Richards suggested Williamspurrg, after the Brooklyn neighborhood Williamsburg, which is the mecca of hipster culture. I added a few more Rs, and set to work mocking up the game.
An early mockup of Williamspurrrg
Production
Once I was comfortable with the design idea, I still had to build the team. Colleagues recommended programmer Peter Berry, and thanks to him, the multitouch puzzles play fluidly, even when ten fingers are touching the screen.
The artist, Megan Isom Smith, is a friend I met when speaking to a group of children’s magazine editors (My roots are in children’s magazines, and Megan is the art director for Ranger Rick Jr.). Megan shares my love for cut paper art, but as an artist, she actually creates it (whereas I am a strictly stick-figure on Post-Its artist.). She created all of the props from colored, textured paper, scanned them, and then further manipulated the assets digitally.
I owe the musical styling of Williamspurrrrg to attending a really fancy band camp in high school. A fellow cabin-mate from Interlochen Arts Academy in the 90s recommended Adrian Hernandez. If you’d like to get the music from Williamspurrrrg stuck in your head, it’s all online.
Lessons Learned
Production was actually pretty straightforward. We had the usual bumps, bruises, and schedule delays that almost every project experiences, especially when a new team is getting used to each other. So the things I learned are actually largely focused on what happened after the launch of the game in June 2013.
1. No One Can Spell the Name of the Game
How many Rs? Is there an H on the end? What about the letter S? Where does that go? And who is William?
I stand by the name of the game being key to the attitude of the game, but it’s also a massive hindrance. No one in Middle America, Asia, or large swaths of Europe understand the reference. I love the name, perhaps to a foolish degree. I recognize that it likely haunts sales, so I’m considering whether to release the game under another name in geographic regions outside the U.S.
The Evil Mustache level
2. I didn’t make a children’s game. I made a casual game that happens to be playable by children.
That’s a major distinction and quite an epiphany for me. Making a children’s game means a number of conservative decisions, like limited social media sharing (if any at all) or no in-app purchases (or heavily restricted behind a gesture gate that’s difficult for kids to navigate).
I’ve watched all ages play the game, from toddlers through the elderly. But it resonates best with teenagers and young adults (I should’ve figured that the absurdity of cats and mustaches would’ve spoken to them…). If I had this to do over again, I would be a lot more aggressive on in-app promotion and social media hooks. I’d likely have created Williamspurrrrg with in-app purchases and maybe even an ad network.
3. I started a new Web presence for Williamspurrrrg rather than running with the brand recognition I’ve built for No Crusts.
Others who succeed in the games industry have scads of money to spend on user acquisition and advertising or, most relevant to indies, they have successfully achieved a cult-like following.
If I had thought about this, I probably would’ve seen this problem coming, too. The marketplace is so crowded right now that discoverability is a major challenge. In my consulting practice through No Crusts, I work with really well-known brands who have a fan-base, television shows, and multiple channels to push their goods. Others who succeed in the games industry have scads of money to spend on user acquisition and advertising or, most relevant to indies, they have successfully achieved a cult-like following. I liken this to the record label approach, which I talked about at 2013 Casual Connect USA and is archived online.
Record labels, authors, and even book imprints are great at creating a brand that people want to follow. If you were a fan of Def Jam Recordings, you knew you could buy any of their records and get a particular type of sound. A number of game studios do this really well. They engage their fans and keep them engaged by creating the same quality and type of content. They don’t start over from scratch with each new game, creating a new Facebook page, Web site, Twitter following, etc. They leverage what they already have.
I didn’t do this, though. No Crusts has a small but decent following on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere. Rather than continue to use No Crusts as the main social media identity, I started a new one for Williamspurrrrg — new Facebook page, new Twitter handle, and so on. That means I have to deal with updating a lot more places. I’ve pretty much abandoned the Twitter handle for Williamspurrrrg and use the Facebook page infrequently, unfortunately. It was too much to handle. It also presents a challengeas I prepare to launch a new game that’s not related to the intellectual property of Williamspurrrrg. I could create another set of pages to maintain or I can use No Crusts.
4. My marketing images weren’t helpful.
I had a riot making the first round of marketing images.
I had a riot making the first round of marketing images. We had some seriously focused hipster jokes. My favorite was “We were into multitouch before it existed.” There is a hipster-ism that they are in the know about trends and events long before they happen. Yeah, I know. It was way too esoteric. But the people who got the joke really liked it…
But I started to get feedback on the images, including one from a stranger that very clearly pointed out that my images weren’t working. The email said, “When I went to the Williamspurrrrg landing page, despite scrolling through all the images, I had no idea what the game was about, who it was intended for or even what genre it is. I only got some of that info after reading several reviews.” This was echoed in my conversations with people, so I’ve scaled back on the jokes and made marketing images with descriptive text rather than jokes. That was a tough pill to swallow. I’ve lectured countless clients on making helpful images. And then I proceeded to ignore my own advice and make funny images. Oops.
I’ve scaled back on the jokes and made marketing images with descriptive text rather than jokes.
The Road Ahead
As a consultant, I rarely have the opportunity to design from scratch and own the entire process. Williamspurrrrg not only allowed me to get back to my roots, but also made me accountable for every step of the process. I’m incredibly proud of the game for that reason. The original vision was to make a game that kids and their parents could play cooperatively. There’s no questioning that’s the greatest success of this game so far. My next game will be released in October. It’s an endless runner with a new twist, which will hopefully continue making people say, “It’s so stupid, but I can’t stop playing.”
If you want to keep tabs on their work or if you want to give Williamspurrrrg a little love, sign up for the No Crusts newsletter, like them on Facebook, or follow them on Twitter.
Night & Day Studios is a mobile app company based in Portland, Oregon with over 70 apps produced. Founded in 2008 by Nat Sims and Erin Rackelman, their first app, Peekaboo Barn, was released at the dawn of the App Store. These friendly farm animals have gone on to be played over 50 million times. Their main focus has been children’s educational apps, developing new proprietary content, and also working with licensors to bring many childhood classics to the mobile world for the first time, such as Eric Carle’s The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Richard Scarry’s Busytown. Yummiloo Rainbow Power is a collaborative project between Night & Day and yummico, a new children’s media company. Kate Kiehl from Night & Day Studios tells the story.
Initial meetings between our team at Night & Day Studios and our partners at yummico started in February 2012. It was immediately clear that our two companies were a wonderfully complimentary match. At Night & Day, with over five years of app development under our belts, we have talented creatives and programers who have a wealth of knowledge about development and game concepting. yummico is a new children’s media company with TV and film industry veterans, including Traci Paige Johnson, creator of the beloved, groundbreaking preschool television series Blue’s Clues and co-creator of SuperWhy, and Caroline Baron, award-winning producer of acclaimed feature films, including the Oscar-nominated Capote and Monsoon Wedding. United by the common goal of delivering delightful and educational media with a home-grown aesthetic, the collaborative project of the Yummiloo Rainbow Power app was a natural partnership.
Playing Smart, Eating Smart
An initial pre-production period between Night & Day Creative Director Brianne Baker, Senior Programmer Justin Hawkwood and the yummico team formed the direction the project would take. First and foremost, Yummiloo Rainbow Power was to be focused on nutrition education and the theme of healthy eating for children ages 2-7 with a target focus of 3-5 year-olds. For parents, often getting little ones to eat their fruits and veggies can be nothing short of a miracle. Our hope was that by creating adorable characters known as the Yum Yums and their world of Yummiloo, we would assist in cultivating young, adventurous, healthy eaters.
Our hope was that by creating adorable characters known as the Yum Yums and their world of Yummiloo, we would assist in cultivating young, adventurous, healthy eaters.
In designing the Yummiloo Rainbow Power game play, the goal was to provide a fun and engaging experience while also helping kids develop food identification skills and healthy eating habits. The game play was envisioned as follows: after being introduced to the Yum Yums, users would be instructed to gather fruits and vegetables by dragging them into the corresponding colored bucket to help fuel the Rainbow Machine. Children would also be provided with a compost bin for spoiled foods, making room for more fresh foods to grow once the rotten ones are removed. Once all five colored carts were filled with food, the Rainbow Machine would begin to run on full power, unleashing the carnival rides and a Yum Yum party. The celebratory end of the game would reinforce the importance of ‘eating a rainbow,’ educating kids about how eating a mix of bright, vibrant colored foods helps their bodies grow. In addition, the app would encourage fine motor skills development, color recognition, and recognition of different fruits and vegetables.
Jumping the Hurdles
Production began in earnest in June 2012 ,as we embarked on the challenge of bringing the Yum Yums and the world of Yummiloo to life. Given the complexity of what we were aiming to accomplish, we were weary of getting tied into Corona as the language, so we chose to build the app in native iOS. To maximize user experience and the ability to interact with the app, we began development right from the beginning in Xcode. One thing that quickly became clear was that the initial conception of having additional games at the carnival was more ambitious than what was realistic for the scope of the project. Scaling back to a fun animated video celebration at the game’s end allowed us to stay within budget and launch in the time-frame we were aiming for.
Scaling back to a fun animated video celebration at the game’s end allowed us to stay within budget and launch in the time-frame we were aiming for.
The biggest hurdle that our developers overcame was switching back and forth frequently between video and interactive app content. Throughout the course of launching the app and reaching the final carnival celebration, the switches occur over ten times. The most common issues we faced when switching back and forth were the appearance of a black screen, the video speeding up and issues with the coloration not matching between the video files and the images used for interactive play.
We found solutions to each of our issues. To solve the problem of the black screen and rapid video play, the developer started the video play earlier, but essentially made it invisible with a very quick fade in. The issues with color shifts between the compressed video and image files required a different approach. Our lead developer built a simple application in which you could run a test of the compressed video and interactive image file to check the color consistency. After a significant amount of trial and error and manually color shifting individual files, we had developed a formula that worked consistently each time to produce color matches between the two files.
As the development process continued, the complexities of all moving parts with the in app grew as well, namely: the growth and rotting of fruits and vegetables, rain falling, clouds forming and parting, compost, food buckets, and the Rainbow Machine filling, as well as different Yum Yum characters movements. Out of these many layers, Yummiloo Rainbow Power emerged as a beautiful blend of video, programmatic animation, animation utilizing sprite sheets and frame animation.
Learning from Children
As adults designing apps for end users who are much smaller and younger than ourselves, one of the most fascinating aspects of our process is when the time comes to dive into user testing. Upon getting the app into the hands of little ones, several important pieces of feedback emerged. Having the two different play modes (tap vs. drag) made the app accessible to a more broad age range of users. Based upon user testing, it was decided that drag mode would be the default setting, as that fit best with our main target ages’ motor abilities. Including tap mode as an alternate option also allowed younger children to enjoy the game. There was a significant amount of testing conducted to determine the right amount of sound that should be included in the app. With the potential for a great deal of voice over, we approached testing this in an additive fashion where we slowly incorporated more sound layers to see how children reacted. As a result, we were able to see what they understood without instruction, as well as the aspects that benefited from more verbal explanation.
As a result of testing with kids, we ended up adding a button to the home screen so the video can be played again without restarting the app.
One surprise we encountered when testing beta versions of the app was how kids reacted to the introductory video. Many of them wanted to watch it over and over again — and as a result, we ended up adding a button to the home screen so the video can be played again without restarting the app. Because of the learning element that results from filling the Rainbow Machine and its function as a metaphor for healthy eating, we did not add an option to play the ending carnival video unless the game is played all the way through. As a result, the child’s focus and effort to fill the buckets with each color of fruits and vegetables is rewarded at the end, while also reinforcing the overarching idea of the importance of eating healthy foods from all colors of the rainbow.
Unleash the Yum Yums!
Yummiloo Rainbow Power was submitted to Apple in February 2013 and launched on March 20th, 2013 in celebration of the first day of spring. Within the first day, it was ranked in the top 50 US App Store Education app downloads and was selected by Apple as a New & Noteworthy or Hot Pick for seven consecutive weeks upon launch. The reception from educators, parents, bloggers, and children themselves has been equally positive. The experience of collaborating with the yummico team on this project was an honor and the process of creating the app was a rainbow-filled joy!
Yummiloo Rainbow Power is available on the App Store for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch. Night & Day Studios has several new app releases planned for this fall.
Otter Bytes Interactive is an independent game studio consisting of five talented artists and programmers. Founded in 2012 by Michael Gill, Island Raid is their first published title and was released in the Spring 2013. Michael shares their story.
An Island Dream
Having recently developed mobile games for clients under my software development company, I decided in early 2012 that I wanted to start making my own games. The new iPad with the retina display had just come out, and because of my design background, I wanted to create a game that was visually appealing and could take advantage of the retina display’s pixel count. So I set out to create an iPad-only game using the Unity platform and self-publish it to the App Store.
My vision started as a top-down island defense game, but I wanted to steer clear of a strictly tower defense game, as I felt that genre was already flooded. Hoping to add a unique spin to a genre hybrid, I drew inspiration from Firemint’s Flight Control HD. Admiring the simplistic approach to a fun top-down game and liking the inherent frantic nature of trying to direct incoming objects, I started merging my ideas together.
Incoming enemies would be small and simple, so the focus would be on the uniqueness of each island, and the methods you’re given to protect that island, using its characteristics to your advantage.
To meet my desire to create a visually rich experience, I decided that the island maps would be the focal point. Incoming enemies would be small and simple, so the focus would be on the uniqueness of each island, and the methods you’re given to protect that island, using its characteristics to your advantage. Now my ideas were filling up sheet after sheet of notebook paper. It was time to put fingertip to keyboard.
Creating the Islands
By far, the most fun I had during development was in creating the island maps. Ironically, they were also the main source of frustration and heartache. My original goal was to have several levels take place on each island. In one level, you may be protecting your shores, then the next level moves the battle inland as you retreat, culminating in the final level of each map being a fight at the center of your island. The problem was I could already hear how repetitive that format would become after the first few islands. I didn’t want the maps to feel like the same formula with a different design, but rather each island be its own experience.
The creative process began to take its course. I ended up with a list of ideas for islands that could be featured in the game, and it was time to start designing the look of them. I found an art piece that inspired our unique design style for the maps. Our designer David began the process of creating all of the shapes that make up our islands. The various curvy layers when placed on top of each other created the sought-for whimsical feel. Once we had the shapes, I got to start the fun process of painting and texturing them. We spent a lot of time deciding on the right color palettes to create the right feel. Designing a top-down island is a challenging process because not all shapes are recognizable from above, and an image of an island is usually bookended by water and sky. Our game would have no sky, so we had to create the feeling we wanted without it.
These island maps became the identity for our game.
Another focus during the design process was on the textures. Once we added the textures to our colored shapes, it all began to click. These island maps became the identity for our game. That made our next challenge even more frustrating. Many of the ideas we had ended up getting cut during the design process, simply because we couldn’t create the visual feeling we were looking for in some of our maps. Now our goal was to release a solid game with only four island maps and add more over time, for the sake of being able to achieve the quality we wanted.
Enemies and Weapons
To meet our goal of the islands being the focal point, we kept our approach to enemies very simple. Enemy ships would come from one or two sides of the screen, and head in a straight line towards the shore. Depending on the type of ship, it would either drop a scout or build an enemy camp when it reached the shore. Once on shore, scouts would head toward the island’s center. The goal in defending against enemies would be to watch the paths they’re taking and put obstacles and traps in their path. The creativity would then come from the play in terms of the best ways to lay out your defenses.
For power-ups, we created things like whirlpools that swallow all ships in the area, and the ability to set enemy camps on fire.
The last ingredient for a fun, yet simple game was the proper mix of weapons and power-ups. Our formula was equally simple: weapons would be placed to stop one or two enemies from advancing, and power-ups would deliver devastating results, eliminating large numbers of enemies at once. For weapons, we started off with sea mines for blowing up enemy ships, and jungle traps for stopping enemy scouts. For power-ups, we created things like whirlpools that swallow all ships in the area, and the ability to set enemy camps on fire. We then began to create unique power-ups for each island that went along with the characteristics of the island, such as the “eruption” power-up on the Volcanic island. Finally, we added a “cool down” meter to each of the weapons, and a max number that can be deployed simultaneously so that the player has to strategize when defending.
When it came to controls, we wanted to stick to what iOS users were already familiar with (Why re-invent the wheel?), so we decided to use simple one-finger taps for weapons, and press-and-hold actions for power-ups. This also helped create a sense of frenzy, which made the game more fun. As enemies are coming in, you can frantically tap to place defenses, but if you want to use a power-up, it takes time away from tapping, so you have to use them wisely and plan ahead.
Challenges Along the Way
A large part of our development cycle was spent setting up the game to detect and load the correct textures for the appropriate iPad resolution.
One of the bigger challenges we faced simply had to do with our texture sizes. It was our first attempt at creating a game with retina display textures, and we learned quickly about the differences in memory between the iPad 3 and the first-generation iPad. The latter simply could not handle the memory usage of our textures, and a large part of our development cycle was spent setting up the game to detect and load the correct textures for the appropriate iPad resolution.
Another mistake we made was using Unity’s built-in GUI system. It wasn’t until I went to the Unite ’12 conference in Amsterdam that I learned even Unity themselves recommend against using it. In version two of the game, we retrofitted everything for NGUI, which handles everything much better.
Adding to the usual challenges of game development was the fact that we’re not yet a full-time game studio. We have to supplement our development with client work, which always seems to creep in and take time away from the production schedule. This was not a huge hurdle, since we didn’t have a publisher’s deadline to meet, but it had an impact nonetheless.
Lessons Learned Post-Launch
After self-publishing our game to the App Store, we learned a few valuable lessons. The first was that the adoption rate for the iPad among iOS users and among gamers is much different. We knew when we released an iPad-only game that we were segmenting the market, but I think in the end it was a bigger issue than we thought. An iPhone release quickly became our #1 request. We worked very hard on version two of the game to make sure it was ready for both iPhone and Android devices to help expand our market.
Achievements were in the plan for the first release, but got left out as production ran past schedule. However, they were able to add them to the next version, available on the App Store.
Achievements were a big feature that was missing from our initial release, which stung a little because it was in our original plan but got left out as production ran way past schedule. We have since added them to version two, but we missed an opportunity with some of our early players who were looking for something more to chase than simply a high score.
Through it all, I was very pleased with the finished product. We met our goals of creating a simple yet fun game, with visually rich graphics, easy-to-understand controls, and a moderate replay factor. We have also continued our goals of providing Island Raid as a free download, expanding it to new platforms, and adding new islands over time. In July 2013, we added two new maps in our version two release, and we have two more maps scheduled for release in the fall. The entire process was a pleasurable learning experience, and I can already see the fruits of our labor manifesting themselves in our currently-in-production titles.
They are currently working on their next two titles, scheduled for release this fall. Follow them on Facebook or Twitter for more information!
You’ve heard the story so many times that it’s hardly worth repeating: A few buddies get together to start a gaming company. They begin as a work-for-hire studio, land a big-budget deal, grow by 400 percent and then collapse when the deal falls apart. Enter anger, bitterness, regret and shame, and sprinkle in a dash of despair. The team dissolves, the dreams are dashed and that unique combination of talent and know-how swirls away like water down the bathtub drain. This heart-breaking scenario has played out hundreds of times before. The great sea of game development is littered with the rotting hulks of sunken teams.
Boo-hoo. Epic failure is just part of the game of games. In fact, many will tell you that it’s an essential part. Any seasoned gaming vet will tell you that great studios sometimes do emerge from disaster to become something better than they might have been had they not suffered early adversity. Spacetime Studios, the makers of Arcane Legends, is just such a phoenix, having risen from the ashes of its own demise not just once, but twice in the span of four years.
Cinco Barnes, Jake Rodgers, Anthony Sommers, and Gary Gattis were the principal actors in this drama. They started Spacetime in 2005, jumpstarting the studio with a sweet deal from NCsoft to build a large-scale MMO. The four were close friends who shared a dream that many of us can relate to. They were just hoping to build a great game for someone else, and to eventually make enough in royalties to build their own IP. In the words of Gary Gattis, “This plan did not work.”
They shopped the IP around to “everyone on the planet,” but no one wanted to take on an expensive, large-scale MMO that had already been cancelled.
After staffing up to seventy-five people under the auspices of NCsoft, their funding was pulled and Spacetime was set adrift. Fortunately for them, they were able to retain the rights to the technology and the intellectual property so though they were cut loose, they were cut loose with a very high-powered MMO client/server technology in their pockets. But nobody likes a second-hand bride. They shopped the IP around to “everyone on the planet,” but no one wanted to take on an expensive, large-scale MMO that had already been cancelled. The Spacetime staff dwindled down to fifteen people and survived on work-for-hire gigs. In 2008, they signed another big deal that allowed them to scale back up, but that project was cancelled too and they were now reduced to six employees - the original founders plus two core developers.
It was looking bleak for Spacetime. Their cash reserves were dwindling. It was time for something new and bold. At that time, they were all riding in a van on their way back from yet another failed publisher meeting. The whole team was playing games on their iPhones when the spark hit: Why couldn’t they be playing together? They began to brainstorm. These devices were all connected, they were powerful enough to run serious software and people were used to making micro-transactions. Just because no one had done it before did not mean that it couldn’t be done. It was the perfect storm. Pocket Legends was born.
“We wanted a pick-up-and-play MMO,” says Gary Gattis. “Something that you could play in line at the movies, or in the dentist’s chair.” Production went on as planned for the first five months, but then Apple saw the game just before it shipped and thought it would be perfect for a mysterious “larger-screen device” they were working on. So Spacetime modified the game significantly to launch with the iPad debut on April 3rd, 2010. Pocket Legends became a hit.
“Our vision then was to build the world’s first 3D mobile MMO”, Gattis says. This particular plan did work, and it worked so well that Spacetime then launched three more highly touted MMOs - Star Legends, Dark Legends, and their most popular title to date: Arcane Legends. It’s a formula that so far seems to be working very well for a studio that suffered what Gattis calls the “soul-crushing” experience of having that first NCsoft game cancelled. “In retrospect, it was probably the best thing that could have happened to us. Funny how life works sometimes.”
In addition to a penchant for coming back from the brink of death, one of the things that sets Spacetime apart from other studios is their approach to crunch time and office hours. They strive to eliminate the need for working long, grueling hours altogether. “Mandatory overtime is a blight on the game development industry,” Gattis says. “I can’t understand how it is still an acceptable practice. It is a fundamental management failure, a sign of over-promising, or under-planning, or poor development practices, or inefficient pipelines, or any number of things that the people that crunch are not responsible for.” It’s remarkable how Spacetime has managed to release hit after hit without the obligatory long hours. And it’s a formula that seems to be working. Gattis says, “Do your eight hours, and then go home. Spend time with the family. Relax. And come back tomorrow refreshed and at the top of your game.” According to Gattis, that’s a law the studio lives by.
Spacetime also seems to have figured out a crucial technology hurdle. The Spacetime Engine is a remarkable piece of technology. It was built for mass-production of content to be delivered continuously on a global scale. They have continued to build on it as the environment has evolved, so they now have a platform where iOS, Android, and desktop users can all play together, in the same server, all around the world. And they can play on extremely slow connections as well, so they are seeing deep penetration into foreign markets with high latency networks. It truly is play with anyone, anywhere, anytime.
Spacetime has pushed the mobile MMO envelope pretty much as far as it can be pushed, and is now working on something they feel will appeal to fans of RTS fans on mobile. With the success of the Legends games, they can finally afford to experiment a little and enjoy the fruits of their labor. When asked what one thing they’ve learned from all their near-death experiences, Gattis had this to say: “Once you are out of cash, you are dead. Manage your burn.”
You can bet that Spacetime Studios will do just that moving forward. Third chances are rare and fourths rarer still. But this is a studio that has been tempered by flame and has emerged wiser, humbler and more grateful. If they can hold onto to that, Spacetime will be around for long, long while.
Sean Clark has worn many hats during his time in the games industry. From designer to studio director and everything in between, Sean’s passion never seems to run out. He worked at Playdom, Electronic Arts, and LucasArts before settling as Director of Content Production at Big Fish Games. He enjoys everything he does in games, but what is most important to him is the fun of building entertainment experiences. “I get a rush from being a part of something coming together through a creative and collaborative effort, and I still get that rush working on great games at Big Fish,” he says. We were able to catch up with him to discuss his view on creating and producing games.
For the Love of Games
Growing up playing Pong and Atari games on the old family TV, Sean learned to love games early in life. When Atari released a Basic Programming cartridge, he immediately began learning the language and realized that programming consisted of a series of logical instructions. He discovered that building games could be an actual job.
Still, he did not plan for a career in the games industry. He graduated from Sonoma State University with a degree in Computer Science knowing he liked building things in software, especially games. LucasFilm Games (later LucasArts) happened to be hiring junior level programmers at that time. Up to this point, Sean had only created games as a hobby, but this sounded like the perfect opportunity for him. He was right: it turned out to be a great time to join the company.
Sean Clark at LucasArts
All of a sudden, he was working with a group of people just as passionate about games as he was; real artists, musicians, programmers- talented professionals who could bring unique creative elements to the product. “It was a blast!” Sean says. “It was also an experience that has helped me through my whole career, right up to today as 3rd-party Director at Big Fish, working to bring fun game content to the company.” In all the roles he’s done, he’s always shown his love of games. He looks for the same passion and excitement for a game from developers, both internally and externally.
Point and Click Adventure Games Anyone?
Having been involved in multiple projects in a variety of roles, Sean has a soft spot for point-and-click adventure games. While at LucasArts, Sean helped develop The Secret ofMonkey Island in 1990, a popular point-and-click adventure. It was a great experience, but problems always arise, and the solutions were often unique. Sean learned a lot about problem solving and creatively mitigating issues during this project.
“I blame it on 3D. At the time, real-time 3D was such an amazing new capability that the faster computers and video cards enabled, it became the sexy new thing.”
However, point-and click adventure games started to slip into the background. In an interview with adventuregamers.com, Sean stated that the popularity of point-and-click adventure games would return. When we asked why he thought they had fallen to the background in the first place, his answer was emphatic. “I blame it on 3D. At the time, real-time 3D was such an amazing new capability that the faster computers and video cards enabled, it became the sexy new thing.” While 3D opened new areas of design, it also started a graphics arms race. Everyone focused on 3D graphics, with a game like The Dig being compared to Dark Force or TIE Fighter. But eventually, people realized that adventure games were a different genre to other games, like first person shooters.
He points out that in 2002, Big Fish took advantage of the 3D distraction and built a successful business recognizing and catering to the adventure gamer audience. Even Escape from Monkey Island still managed to do well in the “Adventure Games are Dead” era. Although there are not many classic 3rd person point-and-click adventure games coming to market, there is the very successful line of Hidden Puzzle Adventure Games that Big Fish is so well known for. These, Sean asserts, are a modern version of adventure game storytelling, similar to those he started his career with.
Another reason adventure games seemed to go dormant was the fact that retail space is both limited and competitive. Because attention was so focused on 3D games, it was challenging to interest retail chain buyers in adventure games. The big factor in changing the situation was the internet. Brick and mortar stores were no longer the only way to purchase games. Sean attributes Big Fish’s success largely to its creation of an online place to find and purchase great casual content, including adventure games.
Adventure Game Evolution
This new cycle of adventure games has evolved, bringing lower-priced games, which are also shorter in length, and tend to tell stories in chapters or episodes. According to Sean, these new games are still high-quality, well-polished games with great artwork, and compelling stories, although the format is different.
Big Fish created a new format for adventure games, brought them to new audiences, and gave consumers a way to try the game before committing to a purchase.
Sean believes Big Fish has been instrumental in bringing more attention to adventure games in a number of ways. They created a new format for adventure games, brought them to new audiences, and gave consumers a way to try the game before committing to a purchase. They figured out how to make adventure games easier to find and consume, at a time when retailers had all but abandoned support for the genre.
Sean is just as excited about the future as he is about the present. “We expect 2013 to be a year of innovation in game, content, and delivery, with games on almost every device and in nearly all casual genres,” Sean says. “In March alone, Big Fish launched 2 highly acclaimed mobile games: Fetch for the iPad, an adventure about a boy on the search for his dog; and Match Up! By Big Fish, the first iOS game to have real-time, 16-bracketed tournament play. Add to that the world’s largest interactive streaming casual game service and continuing franchises like Mystery Case Files, which has been downloaded more than 100 million times, and you can see how there is something to excite all types of gamers.”
Sean reminds us that Big Fish is an incredibly talented and creative company, with exclusive partnerships with more than 140 developers all over the world. He expects Big Fish to continue bringing fun and innovation to the games industry.
