Podcast Interview: Michael from Akith Games

Michael, from Akith Games, talks about the creative process behind his game designs.

You can download the podcast here…
http//www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/akithgames-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/akithgames-podcast.mp3

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9CGxuW-BVJA]

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: Andrew from IBeta Quality Assurance talks about QA for Indie Games…

Andrew, from IBeta Quality Assurance, talks about QA for indie games…

You can download the podcast here…
http//www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/ibeta-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/ibeta-podcast.mp3

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: Developer from Pangea Software Talks About I-Phone Games

Brian, from Pangea Software, talks about developing I-Phone Games…

You can download the podcast here…
http//www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pangea-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pangea-podcast.mp3

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4L-whXEedc]

Show Notes (thanks to Grace for the great show notes):
Interview with Brian of Pangea Software

Interview was conducted at the Austin Game Developers Conference

http://www.pangeasoft.net/

Pangea produced Enigmo for the I phone and I pod Touch.

Inspiration came because Apple always does good work, and they wanted to do a portable system. Also it seemed to be the easiest and most profitable way to go.

The biggest challenge was learning objective C, which Brian said was the most complicated programming language he ever used by a factor of 20! Yet it only took him 5 days to learn it! He says that games don’t need a lot of it since they are not UI intensive, they’re open GL intensive.

Most of the games the put on Ipod phone/touch were older games that they just ported over. It took them about 2 weeks to port a game over – dealing mostly with performance and memory issues. There’s not a lot of memory on these devices. They have excellent developer’s tools, and API’s. It’s a breeze to develop for.

There’s a simulator you can run on the Mac, so that you don’t have to test your games on the actual Iphone. This speeds things up a lot, because downloading each time you want to test can take around a minute. Everything about working on the Iphone is like working on a Mac. The debugger and the compiler are the same. Mac developers won’t even notice the difference.

Testing is difficult because there’s no way to distribute copies effectively. They just let some people in house test it. Then mostly they relied on the feedback from customers and sent out updates.

You can submit directly on the website, it’s automated and an easy process. It takes 3-12 days to get approved, and then it’s just out there.

Their stuff was featured at Steve Jobs’ keynote. Pangea was one of the first to get out there and their stuff was available to people when the iphone/ipod touch shipped. This was the best time to make the most money because the people who bought those devices were not concerned about price, they just bought what they wanted. First 1-2 weeks were amazing for sales, after that it leveled off to a little less than amazing.

3,000 to 4,000 apps with no competition. Only 820 games last he looked. 99% of the games out there are total garbage, with only a handful of games being very good. The good games all float to the top 10 list. So you’re only competing with a handful of good games. You can compete with price too. Large companies have to charge $10 a game, but smaller companies can charge a lot less.

There’s a cheater method out there for rising up in rank. If someone gives away a game for free and then starts charging money they will move up the list rapidly.
There is a separate list for paid games and free games, but the popularity counter doesn’t change. Free games tend to get downloaded 10x more often, so if someone goes from free to 99 cents, they will change to the paid list but keep the popularity they gained from the free list. This is considered cheating and is frowned upon. People will leave these game developers scathing reviews. However, some of these people can make a fast 10k this way and don’t care.

Some designers like to use the excelerometer to death. They may require you to move the screen too much and then you can’t see all of the screen. Pangea tries to use it more subtly. They do use it often in their games though, because it is expected now.

The three issues with Iphone/touch are excelerometer, touch screen, and network ability. Network ability isn’t very common right now.
The whole technology is still very new. Pangea just submitted an adventure game recently and it’s the first full 3-D adventure game out there. The controls were a challenge. They ended up using a combination of the touch screen and excelerometer. There’s a learning curve for users too. He’s interested in seeing what other designers come up with for solutions to these challenges.

From a game development stand point, if you want to make money you have to do something unique. If you are going to create a game that’s not so unique then it needs to be one of the best ones out there.

He’s been doing Mac games exclusively for the past 10 years but right now he’s staying with the iphone/touch because it’s fun, he’s making lots of money, and it’s easy to develop for!

In the beginning he hired a PR company but it ended up being a waste, because the best advertising is the app store itself. Top 10 list or “what’s new” list are the way most people find games 99% of the time. If you’re not in the Top 100, then no one will ever find you.
Two tips: Make a great game and Apple will help you by putting your icon into “what’s new” or on their “what we’re playing” section. Also you can compete by putting a lower price on your higher quality game. These two things will help you shoot up the list.

If you are on:
Top 100 – safe for a while, but you’ll probably fall off
Top 50 – very safe place to be, people will see you on top 50 list on iphone
Top 25 – You’ll be on the first page of Iphone – so then you’re in Gold!
Top 10 – Main page, premiere! Big bucks roll in!

Exponentially increase in revenue.
Examples:
Their #2 spot game is selling 45x the copies of their #72 spot game
Their #10 spot game is selling at only 1/3 of what the #2 spot game is selling.
At spot #100 you’re only selling maybe 50-200 copies a day.

It’s so easy to make money he’s not planning to do promo ware. Although they do offer a free photo app and they advertise their games on that. They say it helps a little bit.

Advice: Get in and get in quick! Preferably in the next few months!

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: Developer of Audio Surf, IGF 2008 Finalist

Audiosurf
Dylan, developer of Audiosurf, talks about developing the game.

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/audiosurf-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/audiosurf-podcast.mp3

Show Notes:
Audio Gameplay…

Process was a lot of experimentation. Messed with the music idea for 8 years.
Did a First Person shooter based on sound

Once the prototype “felt” good, then knew it was the right design.

Had a lot of usability tests to catch a lot of the issues that caused confusion among players.

Once tweaked, sent it off to IGF

Finding out that was nominated was amazing experience

Wanted to make something that was compelling and different.

To start doing something compelling is very hard…but it’s easy to do something different.
If you do enough different things, you’ll find something compelling.

Used Quest3D as a tool to develop the game, really useuful.

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: Student Developer from The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom

Paul, a University of Southern California Game Design student, talks about developing The Misadventures of P.B. Winterbottom

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pbwinterbottom-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pbwinterbottom-podcast.mp3

Check out the trailer…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDxX3AQHogk]

Show Notes…

0:00 – 5:00
Interesting game where you record a certain action and then it replays in the game.
Game based on playing with time…

Prototyped game in flash and kept prototyping to get enough to hold a team down.

Did other prototype other games while doing this one.

Also used paper prototyping.

Focused on System Mechanics…

Did test board game prototypes on a few team members and users…

5:00 – 10:00
The call to recruit more team-members…

Had a recruitment meeting and showed demo to recruit other folks.

Put up a flier all over campus. Put out an e-mail blast…and went to classes, etc.

Thirty people showed up to the meeting…

All of them were pretty much designers. But they were looking for engineers.

Let everyone stay…and the person that kept showing up week after week…those are the ones with
the passion.

Found a high schooler to help do the programming.

Visual design of the game is very unique…
One of the designers was also an artist

10:00 – 15:00
One challenge was listening to an Engineer professor about using a 3D engine instead of Flash…
so tried it for a month, but it wasn’t working after a month…so went back to flash…it was hard to change
to change back at the time, but it was a good decision.

At University of Southern California, the environment allows for innovation. Design on paper, etc.
Even though most folks in the game design program there are not programmers, try to collaborate with engineering school to
help with games.
2 things learned from game design school…
1) Prototype
2) Get the game out there

Future plans are to get the game out as a downloadable on one of the console games

Wants to be a producer.

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: PMOG Founder

Here’s a quick interview that happened at GDC 2008…

Justin, from GameLayers and the founder of the Passively Multiplayer Online Game (www.pmog.com) talks about developing and designing the unique game…

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pmog-podcast-full.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pmog-podcast-full.mp3

Show Notes:
0-5:00
PMOG.com
Passively Multiplayer Game
Installed as a Firefox Toolbar
Started as an experiment

Builds a player profile based on your surfing/browsing habits

Game Designer Victoria…innovated and created something where folks can leave traps and other
suprises on websites for other players in the system

Wanted to build a game that used everyday actions to play the game

Wanted people to just play as they went about their lives

Having a toolbar in Firefox was a huge breakthrough for the game bacause it allowed for a passive
playing experience

5:00 – 9:00
Interesting Game Mechanics

Players can create missions in the game and allow other folks to play these missions…and so it allows
folks to learn topics by following a mission

There are hundreds and hundreds of missions played

People can lay traps as they create missions. So people use these missions to prank each other.

Two or three surprises as they developed the product…like learning how communities taking place

There is a huge potential for games that are integrated in everyday life.

Your everyday actions help to create new ways to interact and engage with them.

Hopes that games are made open so games can communicate with each other.

Envisions that there is a meta game that works with all games

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: Ego City Developers and 2008 Mobile IGF Finalists…

Hey folks,

Tobin and Steve, from Punch Entertainment, talk about developing mobile games and their flagship product Ego City

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/egocity-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/egocity-podcast.mp3

Show Notes:
0:00 – 5:00
Two developers from the Ego City mobile game
an IGF Mobile finalist

Started into mobile games at the beginning of the industry in North America

Challenges for the initial mobile games…was developing for handsets with very limited capabilities

Also, did not realize how difficult it would be to port games to mobile…and making them work across many handsets

Did a multi-player title with Box Sports Racing…did this a few years ago…and realized how hard it was to do multi-player in mobile. Gave a reality check

The main challenge was to figure out how to get networking to work across different handsets…because networking worked differently on different handsets

Also, was hard to network across different carrier networks

After that first multi-player games several years ago, came to conclusion to focus on more single player games…did feel that community games would be the future, but would immediately
work on single player games…

There are a lot of large business challenges in the space…the marketing and sales channel is very challenging to overcome…because carriers control distribution
Carriers are more into taking already-successful brands and bet on them…they do not want to risk effort on new titles, etc.

5:00 – 10:00
Tried to do another multiplayer game before ego city…did something that worked with bluetooth…but by the time got to market….bluetooth devices needed to make the game work were not available…

Design goals for Ego City was to leverage the mobile space…and focus on the strengths of mobile…mobility and connectivity
So the goal was to focus on a community game

Question was…
How do you create a social game in mobile space that allows people to social/connect with each other?
So developed a system so that when communicated or interacted with other people in the game…would create a change on your ego as well as theirs

Asynchronous gaming vs. synchronous gaming and
how it relates to Ego City design…focus on PASSIVE multi-player design. So when you are off-line, your ego can interact with others…the AI your ego gets is based on the stuff you did in game earlier.

10:00 – 15:00
Changes to the initial design of Ego City
Development process was challenging because of hardware issues
But also found that could put in more customization after initial design
Pleased with that
Was able to add different features like chatting, blogging, and social aspects
End result was way more ambitious than initially started

User testing for Ego City…
most important thing is to make sure game is really fun
Target demographic was teens on up
The biggest change as a result of play testing was…
trying to match a social site like Facebook with the mobile experience

Initial idea was to make something that would complement a social networking site
But in the end, developing something that was its own social site

Other thing realized was that people wanted to do a lot more things with their avatars

15:00 – 20:00
Empowered avatars to do a lot of interaction with others…like
debate with each other, flirt with each other, fight with each other, hug with each other, etc.
There is a lot of interactivity between avatars

Borrowing and learning from mobile games in Japan and Asia
They do wish North America had the handset capabilities of phones in Japan and Asia
could do a lot more stuff with the game

Inspired mainly by Nintendo and most of their games

Games with micro-transactions…inspiring future features for the game

Through actions, can change personality and unlock rewards based on gameplay instead of just buying features

How flirting and fighting works in the game…
Can create interaction by doing something

Can always trigger competitions by giving folks gifts … like if give flowers, triggers a flirt competition.

The website will complement the mobile experience. The flirt and fight club will happen on the website and augment mobility.

Ego avatar helps to express identity and visuals convey what to expect the person

20:00 – 25:00
How does the website relate to the game itself?
Helps to extend the initial experience

Is Ego City in the same design space as Facebook … or is it a different design space?
Not interested in building a competing social network like Facebook. It’s about gaming…and built a community around that.
Wanted to integrate Ego City into current social networks…released a Facebook app to promote Ego city

May eventually allow egos to interact with other Egos on Facebook

Gaia Online released something on Facebook…and it took off.
Is the goal to extend Ego City into Facebook and to get folks to join Ego City
Yeah, goal is to promote the Ego City…and at the same time, the goal is to allow folks that have egos they are working on…
and carry it into other parts of their digital world (like Facebook or other places they hang).

Each platform offers advantages…
Mobile allows for quick messaging

Websites have different experience…sitting down and spending more time. So can have a longer game experience

With Facebook, with “Ego Mail” app…a great way to take your ego and share it with friends.

25:00 – 30:00
Are there any nuances and differences to developing a mobile community vs. a web community?
A lot of these questions are unanswered…cuz pioneering the space.
The main focus is on support once the folks buy the game.

Have a set up where other folks can interact with your ego even when you are off-line…so folks can interact with your ego…and you make
friends while you are off-line

Is this a whole new design space … for mobile vs. developing for the web?
It is a little different because your ego can interact with other folks…even though you are off-line. So it was developing an AI personality
that allows your ego to interact with others properly when you are offline…

That was the main design challenge.

Learn from game actions you take online to develop a personality ai that gets used for your ego when you are off-line

Also realized that to do a good mobile, not necessarily about graphics…it’s about focusing on the FUN factor that takes advantage of mobile features

30:00 – 35:00
Another challenge for mobile is designing a game that works on many handsets

How does Google Android relate to doing mobile games? Google Android is promising…but hopes that it is more than just another platform
Will have to wait and see

Where do you see the future of Ego City going?
Find more things for the Egos to do
That will be more clubs (Fight and Flirt Clubs)…lounges coming out related to having fun and dancing

What about building missions in the game? Is that relevant to the mobile space…or is it too real-time to work in the mobile game space?
Well, it’s a good time to talk about the other real-time game, Mobile Battles…where you do battle others and do have missions to unlock fe
atures. That other game does offer
more opportunities for missions

Mobile experience can only offer so many maps or missions. Developed a way to make something that works with mobile and web. So you play mobile…and if liked that,
then can continue the experience on the web.

Aside from these 2 games, are there any other games you’re working on?
There are other games getting done, but these 2 are the main ones we can talk about

35:00 – 40:00
Where do you see the future of mobile game development going?
Seeing ports of console games where core experience ported to mobile experience
There are 1 or 2 experiences….that are everlasting…
You want to be powerful
you want to have a social circle, friends

Future of innovation in mobile…is taking those core experiences…and figure out how to make it work in the mobile space
Finding that core experience *and delivering it in a new way that is unique to mobile*

Business model challenges for mobile games…
cannot offer stuff for free because of carriers

40:00 – 45:00
Their favorite mobile games…
Games from Gameloft like Prince of Persia, Splinter Cell that took core experience and ported it to mobile

What are your last suggestions for indie game developers looking to get into mobile…
a) There are porting challenges to overcome
b) Need to think about ways to get marketing and distribution; hopefully carriers will be more open to innovative titles in the future

Rookie Series: Podcast Interview: Bouncy Qubes Developer

Hi,

We’re going to experiment with a few new types of podcasts to see how best to help indie developers. One series will be interviews related to new and interesting game development mediums.

Another series revolves around “Rookie Indie Game Developers”….Indie developers that have released their first game.

Oscar, from iikgames.com, is the first interviewee in this series 🙂

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/iikgames-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/iikgames-podcast.mp3

Show Notes:
Podcast:
0:00 – 5:00
Introduces self
Oscar from http://www.iikgames.com/
Talks about getting into games (by first playing them)
Decided to go Online indie game developer so could reach folks directly
Not many publishers in Mexico so it’s easier to go Indie
First game is Bouncy Qubes
Did several games before, but did not have any intention of selling them
Took 1.5 years to finish the game
Developers on the team are all in Mexico too
Work with family on the games
Most difficult part of designing the game was dealing with the game mechanics related to changing the color

5:00 – 10:00
Art style was inspired by Nintendo games
Issues with Game Mechanics while designing first game…
Initially had a keyboard and that was very hard for users
Switched to mouse
Issues with developing a game for Vista
Integrated it with the “Game Explorer” in Vista
Security issues with Vista…
Was saving all game data in program files directory, but Vista does not allow that,
So had to save elsewhere on the user’s hard drive…saved into the Application Data directory

10:00 – 15:00
Tested game as much as possible so that can have responsive and usable game
Tested on very low end machines
When released game, focused on Marketing
Likes the book “Indie Developer’s Guide to Selling Games” by Joseph Lieberman
Sends to several shareware sites to promote games
Right now, focused on porting game system to Mac OS

15:00 – 20:00
Goal is to make innovative, fun, and original games to the casual market
Favorite Games:
Chronic Logic Games
Professor Fizzwizzle Games
Last words for Indie Game Developers
Try out indie game development, it’s worth it
Constantly Improve Skills and Do your Best

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: Mobile Game Developer of Anna’s Secret…

Jan, Developer of the IGF Mobile Finalist Anna’s Secret talks about developing the game.

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/annassecret-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/annassecret-podcast.mp3

Show Notes:
0:00 – 5:00
Description of Anna’s Secret and some of the mobile design features including geocaching

5:00 – 10:00
Educational goals of the game
Interesting features and unique design properties in the mobile design space

10:00 – 15:00
More ways and ideas to leverage the “mobility” aspect in the mobile game design space
User testing for Anna’s Secret and surprises encountered
Location Detection

15:00 – 20:00
Future mobile games that he would like to develop…mainly games that leverage location much better
Multi-player games in the mobile space
Developing a multi-player version of Anna’s Secret
Some of the features of a multi-player Anna’s Secret

20:00 – 24:00
Ubiquitous Gaming
Ideas for future mobile games
Educational Mobile Games
Suggestions for making games for the Mobile Space…like leveraging climate changes in mobile game design

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: George from PiEyeGames…

George, from PiEyeGames, talks about developing games as an indie and some of this experiences as a console developer.

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pieyegames-podcast.mp3

or listen to it here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/dewplayer.swf?mp3=http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/pieyegames-podcast.mp3

Show Notes:
0:00 – 5:00
Talks about getting started as an indie

5:00 – 20:00
Talks about developing games as an indie
Development process
Design of games including Dark Side, Scavenger, and Circulate
Putting games on the portals

20:00 – 25:00
Future direction for games

25:00 – 28:00
Console development vs. indie development
Evolution of game design

Take care,
Action
Action