Deep Dive is part 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, part Tales of Cthulhu, and a little bit of The Abyss, all rolled up into an addictive endless runner for iOS and Android.  You discover legendary treasures and monsters, while competing against your friends and players from all over the world.

We showed Deep Dive at Gamescape and the response was overwhelming–we really loved seeing a large diversity of people playing and enjoying the game.

Our players were obsessed with beating their previous scores, and Ryan Green from That Dragon, Cancer* had the best quote when he told me, “I would play this game while I’m on the toilet!”  That’s the highest compliment you could pay an endless runner.

There are so many endless runner games in the app store that it was difficult to see how we could shake up the formula.  And then Ben shared this image** with the team:

**Source: “Into the Depth” by Patrick Reilly.

We got really excited thinking about the diving theme.  The diving element fit perfectly into the idea of an endless runner.  We settled on a vertical orientation to heighten that weightless feeling of falling through the ocean.  We also tried to incorporate our favorite things into Deep Dive’s theme:  old monster movies, the works of Jules Verne, The Abyss (for the older folks at work), etc.  We also looked at some of our favorite endless runners like Jetpack Joyride, Ridiculous Fishing and Knightmare Tower for inspiration.

Using those starting points, we’ve created the next game that’ll keep you busy while sitting on the toilet — epic monsters, legendary treasures, and awesome upgrades all wrapped up in a short burst game.

This is definitely the best game we’ve made so far, and we can’t wait for you to play it!

* Ryan is developing That Dragon, Cancer with Josh Larson.  If you haven’t heard of it, it’s an incredibly moving game about his son’s struggle with cancer.  They’ve also been nominated as finalists for next year’s Indiecade! You can check out their website here: http://thatdragoncancer.com/

One of the commonly shared problems among these games is the poorly implemented controls.  Yes, I’m talking about virtual joysticks and directional pads in mobile games.  I’m not saying these controls err by default.  But they pose as uncouth solutions, the byproduct of a limited thinking that fails to adjust the essence of a genre to a new platform.

Mikey Shorts is a great example of how to do things right.  Apart from teaching a lesson in the proper implementation of mobile controls, it also offers lessons in the design adjustments required to port familiar console experiences to mobile.

Console platformers traditionally rely on the player’s interaction with a physical controller — the resulting feedback, created from the incremental manipulation of a controller, physically links and heightens the in-game feedback occurring on the screen.  It is this precise manipulation and timing — via a physical object — that elevates the core experience of a platformer.  For example, most of us have very physical and tactile memories associated with playing Super Mario World.  I remember twisting side-to-side with the false belief that this physical pretzeling would somehow create enough of a change to help me grab that extra life.

This physical aspect of playing a game isn’t exclusive or new to video games.  This has existed in everything from the tilting of the pinball machine, to the tactile feel resulting from the meticulous weight with which we move chess pieces on a board.

That’s why the majority of virtual joystick and directional pad implementations are so frustrating — they function under the pretense that simply tacking on such controls will magically create the physical feedback that is absent on a phone or a tablet.

Mikey Shorts simplifies the directional pad by removing the vertical axes.  This reduces the physical feedback required to communicate the nuance of multiple directions by 50%.  With this simplification to strictly horizontal movements, the player is given a clear physical demarcation between two directions.  That is a more digestible and tangible mobile game experience than the resulting rugburn on your thumb from multi-directional virtual joysticks.  The multiple axes of virtual joysticks require too much directional nuance without providing the requisite physical feedback.

I’ve seen this control scheme in earlier mobile games like Mos Speed Run and League of Evil.  What Mikey Shorts accomplishes, however, is to take that scheme and design a platforming game that feels native to the mobile platform.  These earlier games fail to address the larger design issue — the forcing of a precision-based console game experience onto the fluidity-based mobile platform.

A side-scrolling platforming or action game experience on the phone has to be designed for fluidity, rather than precision.  The limited real estate on mobile devices (excluding tablets here, of course) means that precision has to be enormously forgiving; and that allowing such breadth in the player’s input shifts the emphasis on the fluidity of the game’s experience.  Without access to this flow, players will have a frustrating experience with their inability to achieve the precision demanded by the game.

In other words, remove the gates and let the player experience the flow (in this case, running and jumping in a mobile game).

Mos Speed Run and League of Evil, like console platformers, are at heart precision-based games despite being on the phone — they want the player to master high precision skills to complete levels and advance.  And being able to do that largely depends on the interaction and feedback of a control scheme that isn’t native to the mobile platform.

Precision based platform games work on the console because there is a physical feedback that allows the player to measure their input on the screen.  The physical feedback of the controller allows for nuanced character movements, while the visual and aural feedback reinforce the result (and reward) of the player’s physical input via the controller.

That physical and nuanced input allows console game developers to build games that require impeccable precision and hand-eye coordination.  Such games (Mega Man, Super Mario, Ghosts ‘n Goblins) offer designs that demand precision and skills of such punishing order that the slightest mistake leads to punitive consequences.  Yet, we persist with the belief that yes we can because, damn it, I can physically do this with this controller in my hand.

The goal of a console platformer is level completion — in other words, to get the player to finish each level by completing precision and timing based challenges.  The player is given a set number of lives, or attempts, to fulfill this goal.  If the player wants to see more levels, if she wants to play more of the game, she must complete these challenges.  If you look at the design, every element exists to deny this completion from the player.  When you die, you have to start over from the beginning.  Enemies and obstacles will kill you, and they will respawn with every new attempt.

Mikey Shorts doesn’t focus on level completion or precision — it focuses on the fluidity of moving through the levels.  This means that none of the enemies are harmful, but merely obstacles that slow you down; when you fall off a cliff, you start immediately where you were right before you fell; and the game is about how fast the player finishes the level instead of whether the player has the skills to complete the level.  You may require precision to get the three star rating, but the game remains enjoyable and never frustrating (unless you choose to pursue the perfect star rating).

In essence, Mikey Shorts refines the essence of the platforming genre for mobile by considering the platform’s demands and limitations.

Controls in general are tricky for mobile. Ports of traditional games like Metal Slug 3 have shown that certain concepts and certain games are never going to feel right without the presence and feedback that physical buttons provide.  Like Mikey Shorts,  you have to simplify and adjust the controls for the phone.

So for me, designing a mobile game, or taking any idea with mobile in mind, is largely determined by the fluidity of the experience. It is a way to find out how you, as a designer, can get out of the player’s way so that they can get to the experience and the fun immediately.  And to design a level of fluidity that gets the player to voluntarily invest a good amount of his or her time into your game.  How will the controls feel? Are the required player inputs reduced to native and common gestures for mobile? How can I minimize the need to introduce too many control elements?

Ultimately a lot of ideas and traditional game types on console just aren’t a fit for mobile — they need to be adjusted. The question shouldn’t be, “How do I get Zelda to work on my phone/tablet,” but rather, “How do I translate that experience to a mobile experience for the mobile audience?” The answer might be breaking down the game entirely and designing it from the grounds up, so that it fits natively within the demands and constraints of the mobile platform.

1. Know Your Goal, Do Your Research

Unless you just really enjoy meeting strangers, you’re probably going to a networking event with a specific goal. Most events will have a viewable RSVP list online. Pick the top people you want to meet, and do your research on those individuals. I like to look for things that I have in common with them. It’s a lot easier to break the ice. The whole point is to be genuine, to have a conversation that people want to be a part of. Knowing something about that person helps.

What if you don’t have anything in common? Use the information to ask them questions about their interests. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that people LOVE talking about themselves. Asking specific and knowledgable questions about their interests, and getting them to talk about those things will make the other person feel like an expert. And the best part is that you don’t have to do that much talking — all you have to do is listen and continue asking questions. And they’ll love you for taking an interest.

2. Don’t Be That Guy!

I can guarantee you that most people dread networking. The best ones just never show that fear — and in a way, the last thing you want to do is communicate that fear to the entire room. People display that fear in various ways. You basically need to apply the “don’t be that guy” approach. For example, don’t be the Roamer (the guy who aimlessly walks from one end of the room to another), don’t be the Clinger (the guy who latches onto one person all night),  don’t be the Food Whisperer (the person who projects their fear of networking by making love to the food all night), and don’t be the Drunk. The best way to avoid being that guy? As long as you talk to anyone, about anything, you can avoid being any of those guys.

3. Treat Everyone As If They Have a Blackbelt
Never let your guard down. Anything and everything you say is up for grabs. Everyone is connected to each other in one way or another. Watch what you say and treat everyone with respect.

4. Have An Exit Strategy
Not everyone I meet is relevant or helpful to what I’m trying to accomplish, and vice versa. I used to feel very uncomfortable about breaking off conversations — and I’ve been in conversations that lasted the entire event, just so I could avoid being rude. Truth is everyone at a networking event has a goal — they have people to talk to. After you’ve attended enough events, you’ll be able to avoid the awkward break off, and ask them directly, “So are you looking to meet anyone in particular tonight?” There is always the wave of relief that washes over people’s faces as they realize they don’t have to continue the networky conversation. That releases all the tension, and I’ve always found it easier to talk to people as people after that pressure to network is gone.

5. Remember, You’re Just Hanging Out With People
No one likes networking, so you might as well have fun doing it. I know it’s an easy thing to say, but you have to find a way when your job and your company depend on networking. You need to look at it as if you were there to make new friends. Instead of selling, or trying to make connections, get to know people. To me, that means staying true to my own interests and approaches. Some people are great at schmoozing with large numbers of people. I believe in carefully cultivating relationships with a small number of people. That’s my style, and that’s how I like to get to know people instead of “networking” with them.

We’ve been quiet for the last few weeks with the good fortune of having too much work. This has been a good year for us so far, and we have much to be grateful for. We are working on several prototypes for games that we’re really excited about.  Unfortunately, we’re under NDA, so we can’t go into detail just yet.

We’ll keep you updated during production. Stay dry!

Me: “I’m a producer at a game company.”

Person A: Cool…

A long beat as we look down at our drinks.

Person A: So… what do you do?

What does a producer do? I know I didn’t know the answer until I actually started taking on production responsibilities at Pure Bang.

In the simplest terms, a producer generally acts as a project manager. A producer has to make sure that the team (1) completes the game on time, (2) stays within the budget, and (3) completes the game to the highest possible quality.

The job description definitely lacks the auteur allure of becoming a writer or designer. But beyond the management, the producer is often in charge of creating and maintaining the vision (whether it’s for a game or a game feature).  The producer then sets clear goals that the team can pursue in order to achieve that vision.

Hideo Kojima, the master behind the Metal Gear games, is probably one of the most famous producers in the game industry.  In a recent interview, he spoke about how becoming a producer allowed him to realize his vision for the Metal Gear series.

Hideo Kojima — no man has seen more use out of a cardboard box than this man.

“[In order] to create something truly great, you have to create the environment that allows people to create freely. And in order to accomplish that, I decided I had to become a producer, that becoming a producer would allow me to create the teams that I wanted to create.”

I first entered the industry with the goal of becoming a narrative designer (it’s just an industry term for a writer who works on games). Contrary to what most people believe, most designers have very little input in the overall creative direction of a game unless they are very senior. Designers also have no control over matters of budget, scope, and personnel — all essential elements that determine the creative outcome of a game (gamers who complain on comment boards don’t understand how significantly budgetary constraints and lack of time drive creative decisions during production).

I’m not singling out design as an inferior and subordinate discipline. Far from it. Design is a complex discipline that requires the rare talent of being able to combine analytic and creative impulses to create game systems. They are some of the smartest and most motivated and passionate people I know.

Shigeru Miyamoto — I worship this design god.

Let’s face it — we have all gotten to a point, regardless of profession, where we simply went through the motions. For me, I was just “making games.” This is simply my story, and the realization and change I had to make for myself at Pure Bang.

I am not interested in just making games. I am interested in creating a vision. I believe it is this yearning that elevates people from mercenaries to patriots. This is my guiding principle as a producer, and it is something I try to communicate to the team through my actions. 

1. Speak! (a.k.a., Don’t Be Afraid to Speak)
You’re in the room because someone in that room values your ideas, your approach, and your sensibility. The people in the room trust you. I know it’s mortifying to pitch an idea that you might think sounds stupid, but there is no such thing as a stupid idea. Be worthy of everyone’s trust, and stop being a wallflower. They WANT to hear from you.

You have to have faith in your ideas.

2. Think Big
It’s okay to present impossible ideas (as long as the idea is relevant to the discussion). A brainstorming session is about reaching beyond the ceiling to find an idea that inspires the team. That idea doesn’t have to be realistic. So don’t censor yourself on that count!

3. Learn to Let Go
Don’t be the guy who can’t let go of his ideas. Nothing kills a brainstorming session like the guy/girl who interrupts the room’s momentum by repeatedly reminding everyone of his or her “brilliant” idea. Please, don’t turn your idea into the overenthusiastic homeless guy in a trench coat. A great idea, presented in a clear manner, doesn’t need to be exposed again and again.

I often find that people who do this are bad listeners (and sometimes, they don’t listen at all). Look, there is never a shortage of ideas — you will have a million of them. This is just one in a million. By insisting, you not only block the room’s momentum, but also your own ability to generate more ideas. Learn to let things go and move on.

It's time to let your idea go. Seriously.

4. Thick Skin
Don’t spend the rest of the meeting pouting about having your idea shot down. You’re basically telling the team, “Wehhh, I need to be treated with kid gloves!” When production is in full gear, no one wants the responsibility of being your therapist and creating a work regime that won’t make you break down under pressure. Don’t create more work for others.

An adult with even a shred of dignity would never make this face... at a meeting.

5. Don’t Break the Flow
Don’t be the guy or girl who has a tourettes moment and blurts out a totally unrelated idea. That idea that your team spent the last fifteen minutes building collaboratively? Gone.

Everyone’s job in a team is to find ways where their own individual strengths, preferences, and experiences can serve the group’s goal. You can’t do that if you’re not listening. Be mindful of the flow of the conversation, write your idea down so that you don’t forget it, but wait to share it at a time that’s more appropriate.

6. “Yes, And…” (or “That’s awesome, because…”)
Any idea that isn’t terrible deserves a chance, so don’t jump to immediate negatives. The room should try to explore the idea’s potential, and to (hopefully) bring it to its logical conclusion. If the fully explored idea is relevant to the team’s creative goals, then great. If not, at least the team has one less option to consider. I’m not saying you should do that to ALL ideas, so this is where a good creative director can act as a live filter.

Always say YES -- even it it feels silly and stupid.

7. No Judgment
I always exclude people who love putting other people down for coming up with “dumb ideas.” It takes a lot of courage and confidence to present things to the group, so the last thing I need is a brainstorming troll.

8. Prove Them Wrong
And if nobody liked your idea? If you really believe in it, prove them wrong. Build a prototype on your own time, convince them of the value of your idea beyond, you know, just being an idea.

9. Final Words
Great ideas are built, not conjured in a vacuum. Listen to your team members (and not just with your ears, but really feel out the room’s vibe). Stay relevant to the discussion. Think big (be limitless with your ideas), and always respond with a positive.

More importantly, how a team chooses to balance difficulty requires making assumptions about who their players are and which changes will result in the optimal difficulty (not too easy, not too hard) for them. You can do this by “stepping into the player’s shoes.”  In other words, you have to work towards an understanding of the player’s expectation for his or her skill level and progress in the game.

When we tested Super Nut Jump (SNJ), we learned that a majority of the players found the game too difficult the first time they played. Specifically, players found it difficult to “catch” the squirrel with the trampoline once they reached the first nut. The effort it took to get the squirrel to that point would immediately feel like a chore, and they would stop playing shortly thereafter.

When bouncing the squirrel to reach the nuts, the squirrel moves in a smooth arc through the air. But when it hits a nut, it bounces off and speeds to the ground in an unexpected angle. Looking at the game from the player’s perspective, we knew that no player could possibly anticipate that transition based on previously established in-game movements (and the playtest proved this point). We knew we had to organically build up the difficulty, instead of breaking suddenly away from it.

Knowing this, we adjusted the game so that the squirrel moved consistently with established movement patterns in the game, rather than suddenly breaking out into incredible speed, velocity, and angle.  We also made it easier to get up to the nuts, so that if you did crash, you didn’t feel like you wasted a lot of time.

In any creative endeavor, you must serve the work, not your needs. By looking at difficulty from our own perspectives, we ended up creating a game that people found too difficult to play.  By really looking at the game from the player’s perspective, and understanding what their expectations were from the behaviors we established in the game, we managed to make SNJ more accessible and fun to play.

There are over 700,000 active apps in the apple app store. Out of those apps, 126,628 are games.  Last month alone, 1,257 games appeared in the app store, with an average of 97 games released per day.

The reality of the app store is that if you build it, they won’t always come.  

The app icon is a potential player’s initial encounter with your game in the app store.  Needless to say, your icon needs to be appealing (i.e. it has to appeal to the type of person you want playing your game).

We recently created the app icon for Super Nut Jump, which looks like this:

Like the Rocketeer!

I can tell you that we didn’t arrive at this icon right away.  It took many iterations to get us to this icon, and our initial icon actually looked like this:

The original app icon

We discovered a couple best practices through trial-and-error and we thought we’d share those with you today.  Hopefully these will be helpful to anyone looking to enter the crowded app store, and also save you some time!

1. Show, Don’t Tell

Don’t use words in your app icon.  The image and the title are separate streams… so don’t cross the streams! Besides, your game’s title is always displayed beneath the icon anyway, so having the title in your image is redundant.

2. Keep It Simple, Keep It Direct

57 x 57 pixel isn’t a lot of space.  The image has to project, in a clear and direct manner, the aroma of your game experience.  If your game is about jumping squids, then have a squid jumping in the air.  Don’t just put a squid strolling through a park.  There is no room for mystery–just say it like it is.

3. Stand Out From the Crowd

You want to pick bright, simple colors that stand out. Keep it to 1 or 2, and don’t try to make a fancy background. At 57×57, it will get muddy and make the image hard to read. Consider the emotion that your game conveys and incorporate that into your logo… red is good for action games, while blue is a calmer color suitable for less stressful games.

4. Meet Expectations

Whatever you do, make sure that your game is able to meet the expectations generated by your app icon.  It’s important to get the feel of the game through, but you shouldn’t oversell, and submit an icon that creates a false expectation about your game’s experience.  You don’t want to start the game experience with people feeling like they’ve been cheated into a purchase for an experience that doesn’t exist.

So, we set down as a team, as we always do, and made a priority list of things to change or improve the game based on the feedback. One of the biggest issues we wanted to resolve was implementing better communication of the game’s rules and mechanics. These are some of the changes and improvements we’ve made to SNJ.

1. Visual Consistency

We made everything look consistent in terms of the UI.  Now, all the buttons and indicators (such as the game timer, the pause button, and the sound-off button) at the top of the game screen have a unifying style, while remaining aesthetically consistent with the look of the game.

2. Communicating the game

• We now have bomb indicators so that people can anticipate where the bombs will drop.
• The bombs no longer destroy the trampoline when it hits the squirrels. This way, it will be easier for people to discover the ability to bounce bombs back into the sky.
• We made the timer more prominent, and also added touches (like making it pulse during the last ten seconds) to increase the player’s awareness of the remaining game time.
• We added more prominent and different effects for when the squirrel lands on the trampoline, and when the squirrel lands on another squirrel. We hope that this will teach the player that there is a difference between the to landing areas, and that they should try to land on the trampoline for maximum effect.

We think these changes and improvements have already made Super Nut Jump a better and more fun game to play. Hopefully, you’ll like the changes, too!

New   Old

We had a chance to test Super Nut Jump (SNJ), and we are going to list some interesting observations we made about the game. Next week, we’ll talk about what we’re doing to address those issues.

1. People Love the Art

When a grown man tells you that the squirrels look “adorable,” you know you’re onto something.  We’ve always been proud of the way the game looks, and we were happy to get such a positive response about the quality of our art.

2. The Game Skews Female

This one surprised us — SNJ saw the best reactions from pre-teen and teenage girls.  The girls who we watched play (from ages 5 – 15) were a lot more forgiving on the gameplay, and more focused on the overall aesthetic.  Their play sessions, on average, were longer than the boys, and a majority of them would return to play the game again.  The boys, on the other hand, were more focused on the high score performance, and would generally leave after one session (we suspect that the game doesn’t convey a strong competitive element).

3. Mobile Controls

The controls led to confusion, because users tried to flick or tap the screen, and didn’t immediately think about dragging the trampoline. Some would even resort to flicking the jumping squirrel with their fingers.  This occurred after the players either couldn’t get a desired result from the correct controls, or still could not understand the controls even after reading the tutorial screen.

4. We Need a Better Tutorial Screen

Most people, regardless of age and gender, did read our control tutorial screen.  However, some users would immediately resort to tapping the screen to move the trampoline, even after reading the tutorial screen.  Something is not being communicated correctly.

5. Bombs are Bad – AKA What Your Visuals Tell the Player

We initially had the bombs as harmful drops to add a challenge to the game.  But because of balancing issues, the bombs were never challenging — they either appeared in a location that didn’t threaten the player, or dropped in the same location at the same time as the squirrel (and therefore would lead to unavoidable instant death).  That led us to change the bombs into a beneficial weapon for the player.  If the bomb landed on the trampoline then users could bounce it up to blow up the nuts; but if the bombs landed on the squirrels then the trampoline would blow up.

We failed to communicate that change.  First, the bombs looked like bombs, so people would automatically avoid them. Second, the squirrels blew up if they were hit by the bombs, so that feedback reinforced the perception that bombs must be avoided at all cost.

6. Get to the fun as fast as you can

It took new players generally ten to fifteen seconds to reach the first row of nuts.  We plan on making it easier to get into the action by letting them bounce higher earlier.