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...


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: Dream Chronicles Developer...

Miguel, from Kat Games, talks about developing adventure games for the casual games market.

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

or listen to it here...


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:
Founder of Kat Games (www.katgames.com) and developer of Dream Chronicles 1 & 2

Made an adventure game in the casual games genre

Played adventure games in the 90s...those were more challenging.

Had to find a way to make a new adventure game that is simple enough for the
casual gaming audience

Went through PlayFirst

Before they pitched the game, had a prototype done in Director

Challenge was how to make an adventure game that was easy to start and fun enough to keep people
playing.

People compare hidden objects with adventure games.

Design Suggestions:
Make sure there is little text
Make sure there is eye and ear candy
Have an uplifting experience from the first click

Had extensive play testing when developing the game

Avoided text by making every level self contained

Had to make sure the story elements were split properly to appeal to Casual Game audience...

Playfirst helped them get solid Audio

The studio is based in Spain...and PlayFirst is in San Francisco...so some challenges in working
with PlayFirst.

How PlayFirst helped the game:
a) Offered Professional Usability Testing

Did user testing through game

Benefits of going through a publisher vs. self-publishing...
Did self-publish previous games. But this case, the project was more expensive, so risk was higher.

Hopes that current adventure games will expand the adventure game market for casual game players

Feels adventure games are more gratifying than hidden object games. With adventure games, there is more of a hook.