Podcast Interview: The Design Behind the IPhone Game Zen Bound

A designer from Secret Exit talks about designing the IPhone Game Zen Bound

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/zen-bound-iphone-game.mp3

Or listen to it here…

[wp_youtube]CRVN0mfV7MA[/wp_youtube]

Show Notes:
Interviewer: I’m here at the IGF Mobile Competition. With me today is a special guest. How about you introduce yourself?

Jani: Hi, my name is Jani Kahrama. I am the head of studio at Secret Exit.

Interviewer: What game did you do?

Jani: Our game is called Zen Bound, and we launched it for the iPhone about four weeks ago.

Interviewer: What’s it about?

Jani: Well, that’s the more complex question. It is a game and kind of borderlining on what’s a game and what’s an entertainment application or toy. It is a game where you wrap wooden sculptures with rope. It sounds silly, but the fun of the game is actually in the interaction and how it feels – tactile and physical and also calm so the game is at its best when you actually slow down.

Interviewer: What inspired the game?

Jani: The original idea is by Mikko Mononen, the lead engineer for the game. His inspiration was really the realization that some things are fun when you take your time with them instead of trying to rush through.

Interviewer: OK.

Jani: It’s like it can be compared to being bubble wrapped, just interesting and enjoyable thing where the interaction itself is rewarding. You’re not rushing to the end.

Interviewer: Sure. How long did it take to develop the game?

Jani: It’s a three month project spread over one year.

Interviewer: Was most of the development just trying to get the timing right or getting the feel right, or how much of that was tweaking and making it feel like you can get into a state of flow or something like that?

Jani: The interaction itself was actually quite easy to get done from the beginning. Most of the key conversations, we’re all stubborn perfectionists whenever we were discussing stuff. It’s more about the little details, like how does the level end. What is the logics and content for the individual levels? How do we represent the main menu? These kinds of things were actually more time consuming than the game playing. It was actually quitestraightforward to implement.

Interviewer: When you play this game or this toy, what inspires you to play it and why do you keep playing it? Is it to relax? Is it something you’ll open up, say, at night to just take your mind off of things?

Jani: We had a lot of different kind of feedback about it. Some people said they enjoyed playing that game before they go to bed, but also I think that it’s not really a stress reliever so much as just something to do to pass the time. It’s a distraction, but again it’s more of a calm distraction that you can just let your mind wander and focus on that four or five minutes if you’ve had a busy day.

Interviewer: Can you talk more about the game design or development process of your studio? You mentioned stuff like that. So, this is an interesting idea. How did you guys go about developing your game ideas? You guys were here last year for another game, Cinnamon Beats.

Jani: We are all quite creative and everyone on the team does have strong opinions about how some things about the game should be done. I can’t really say that we have a process. We have a common drive to get things done, but it’s more of back stabbing and arm wrestling and all kind of stuff to go there. But, I would say that perhaps we still have enough humility sometimes to kind of drop it and agree that ok we’ll do this and then move forward. There is a common sense of schedule.

Interviewer: Where can people find this game?

Jani: The game is available right now on the iPhone App Store, and it’s selling for $4.99.

Interviewer: Do you guys have like a lite version, too?

Jani: No, the lite version is not yet done.

Interviewer: Are you guys going to be developing more iPhone games, or are you going to focus on other mediums?

Jani: That’s a very good question. Earlier at GDC there was already an announcement that we are doing a project with Engine Modem, so we are definitely developing a new iPhone game and we’re very excited about that one, the concept.

Interviewer: Do you guys experiment then with the mobile platform? I mean, like how do you see the design space? Is it just an iPhone platform, or is it a mobile platform? Are you guys thinking about interesting ways that you can leverage the uniqueness of this platform?

Jani: It’s kind of both ways. When you are thinking about doing a game for the iPhone, it’s clear that we need to take advantage of the benefits of the platform. Even if we were making a game for multiple platforms, it’s never going to be straightforward. It’s more like a reimplementaton that reimagines the core concept with the strength of each platform in mind.

Let’s say that if Zen Bound were for some reason available on PlayStation, then obviously the touch screen which is the strength of the iPhone, would not work from that platform, but there are strengths that we can utilize there to kind of emphasize the different fragments or different elements of the same game.

Interviewer: You guys won two awards here. What were they exactly?

Jani: We won the award for Audio Achievement and a tip of the hat to Ghost Monkey who did the sound track and incredible work for the sound effects for the rope. We also won the Best iPhone Game award which, again, was an incredible experience.

Interviewer: Congratulations. Thanks again.