Podcast Interview: Chocolatier Developer…

Michael, from Big Splash Games, talks about developing a sim game for the casual gaming market…

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

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

Special Thanks to PlayFirst for setting up this interview and a few other upcoming interviews…they provided excellent developers and allowed them to share some really useful information…

Show Notes:
0:00 – 5:00
Chocolatier and Chocolatier 2
They are casual sim games

The best way to bring it to the audience is mostly a question of tuning…it’s pretty hard to
fail in the game

In Chocolatier 2, had to make it a little more challenging…made the mini-games fro level to level

Ramped up pricing on ingredients as moved through levels

5:00 – 10:00
Worked with PlayFirst…and they helped with the extensive testing of the game to make sure that
it was working well. PlayFirst sent it to 100s of beta testers and mined data from that.

Also hired a formal testing company to take care of things.

Chocolatier players are engaged in the story…that was surprising

Started Chocolatier 2 from the story perspective

Allowed for personalization in the game…to allow expression

Development was pretty smooth since had a senior game dev team

The things needed to make a simulation game compelling…
They benefitted a lot from their team
They did a ton of research … visited chocolate factories, etc.
Simulation tuning still matters in the design space…
Changing the price of one ingredient could mess up a series of quests in the game…so requires
a lot of attention

Testing a game like this requires a lot…because the game builds on itself and have to play the game from
scratch again even if change one variable

10:00 – 15:00
Suggestion for indie game developers…
hunger for innovation…there is a lot of cloning…in the Casual Gaming space, if can come up with something new,
you can easily prototype it

With prototyping…it should be fun very quickly…if you are prototyping it and it’s not fun, then move on…it should
be fun in a week otherwise, change gears

If it isn’t fun after a week, move on…there hasn’t been a case where it didn’t work for a week and then all of a sudden working

Have to move back, keep your ego out of it…change and move on if can’t find the “fun” quickly…

Benefit of a publisher vs. self-publishing…
There are trade-offs
Benefit of being with PlayFirst is that they have great relationships with the other portals
With a publisher, they can handle the business side so you can focus on making a fun game.
PlayFirst can handle the QA/High Score server stuff, etc.

Goal of the studio…
Stay small
Generate some more intellectual property
Let it grow organically

*****

Take care,
Action

Podcast Interview: Founder of Wadjet Eye Games

David, from Wadjet Eye Games, talks about starting an indie studio…developing games like “The Shivah” to the Blackwell Series…

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

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

Special Thanks to PlayFirst for setting up this interview and a few other upcoming interviews…they provided excellent developers and allowed them to share some really useful information…

0:00 – 5:00
Wadget Eye Games

Works on casual adventure games. Inspired by the old Lucas Arts Adventure Games

Shiva
Took a month to finish

Released it for free. Then decided to sell it. Worked on improving the game, added some polish to the game.

5:00 – 10:00
Blackwell Legacy

Learned a lot more about team management.

Had little money to work with…

10:00 – 15:00
Have to look for team member loyalty…and have to let undedicated people to let go…
For the folks that stuck with him, they are getting paid more…

List of warning signs to let folks to let go…
cannot keep in touch with contact

As a team leader, needs to definitely touch base with them

So it’s not just them, you need to keep in touch with them

All use MSN…chat on MSN, etc.

Be friendly, etc. with folks working with you

Doing outsourcing …
doing it with local people.

15:00 – 20:00
Released the game and slept for a week

Be pleasant to people even when they criticize you

Be nice, because if you’re not…can come back and haunt you

Finishing the game is not the end

That is only half the battle…

25:00 – 30:00
Approached by Playfirst to do an adventure game for the casual game market

Benefits of partnering with Playfirst…
Immense resources
Whole staff doing art
Whole staff doing PR
Whole staff doing engineering

Can now make the games he wants to make

Now has extra money coming in so can fun Blackwell while doing the game

Game doing for Playfirst is NDA…cannot talk about release date either

30:00 – 32:00
Future of Studio…
Wants to get into publishing
Wants to help other people doing indie games

Top suggestion for aspiring indies…
Just start on a game, get it out there
Uses AGS (Adventure Game Studio) to make adventure games…