The new studio have several big projects underway
QuantumSquid's very own Starball has just been released on the App Store, and our review of the game is now live on the site. For anybody yet to read that review; summarise the game for them.
Starball is a score based pick-up-and-play arcade game, with leaderboards in Open Feint. You play by tilting the iDevice to move your ball around the game board to collect as many stars as you can. Each time you pick up a star a hazard will spawn, along with a chance for a power-up to spawn as well. Power-ups help you in various ways, making it easier to collect stars. Touch a hazard and it's game over!
Simple to start. Challenging to master. Always leaves you thinking "OK, one more try...".
As we try to hammer home in our review, the game is incredibly addictive. The menu screen boldly features the words 'Simply Addicting' under the title, which thankfully, it really is. From a development perspective, how did you ensure the game was as addictive as it turned out?
We went out on a limb a little bit by including the "simply addicting" tag line on the actual title screen, but it truely is! I think there is a delicate blend between difficulty and addictiveness. One of our main areas of focus was to continually evaluate the difficulty versus reward. We tweaked the power-up system to provide just enough chances to give you periodic relief and a sense of accomplishment, yet not become to easy; thus becoming boring. We ended up adding in the 3 difficulty selections toward the end of the project and that turned out to be a huge addition to the game. Each one creates a separate desire to see how high of a score can be achieved given the varied game play perimeters of each mode.
From my experience with the excellent Geometrey Wars, which is a very similar game in many respects, the element of competitiveness was key to it's hook. Do you think the inclusion of the Open Feint leaderboards help add to this addictiveness?
Yes, most certainly. On this type of game, bragging to your relatives, friends, and even strangers is the best form of addictiveness. The game plays in such a way that you always feel your next round could be the one that gets you to the top of the leaderboard. The compitition within yourself drives you to want to keep trying, the Open Feint leaderboards just heighten that sense.
Have QuantumSquid got any updates planned for the game? New game modes, power-ups etc?
We plan to support Starball heavily. We already have the first update almost ready to submit and it should be in Apple's hands for approval by the end of the week. Some of the stuff we have planned for future updates includes: the addition of original music, new power-ups, potentially new game board shapes, as well as a couple of new game mode ideas we want to try out. We will be listening to feedback from players too. On a more technical note, we will also be changing the pause functionality of the game so that you will be able to touch anywhere on the screen to pause. This has been a popular suggestion and will make it a lot easier to take a momentary "stress break" when you are on a high-score run.
We plan to add achievements to the game in future updates as well. We already have a fairly lengthy list going ranging from the "standard issue" achievements to some really crazy ones.
Another really cool element we will be adding in future updates are graphic "themes" to the game board and components. Along with our own, original graphic themes, we are thinking about creating some "homage" types themes, recognizing the "visual styles" of some of the more popular games that have come through the App Store. If all goes as planned, we should have 1 or 2 of those new themes included in the first update submission.
Looking even further ahead, can you predict a full-blown sequel in the game's future at all?
It's hard to say on a Starball sequel specifically, but I can say that we have a new game idea that is based on the same responsive, tilt type of control that Starball has. This one will have similar play control as Starball, be just as addictive, but have a completely different game play strategy.
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1 comment
Online Meds / 6th Jun 2010
Pretty insightful post. Never thought that it was this simple after all. I had spent a good deal of my time looking for someone to explain this subject clearly and you’re the only one that ever did that. Kudos to you! Keep it up