Anders Mårtensson, Software Engineer at Illusion Labs.
Are you able to confirm or deny the development of a sequel to Touchgrind? I know our readers would love an answer to this one!
Right now, our focus is to make Touchgrind even greater, for example with the upcoming board editor [this has since been released -Ed]. Seeing how successful Touchgrind is though, it is likely that there will be some kind of spin-off sometime in the future.
Moving on to your latest game Sway, this is another app that has been well received by critics and users alike, where did inspiration for the concept come from?
I asked Mikael Tellhed, the main creator, and he said: Inspiration didn't really just come to me. I simply played with different control schemes in combination with a rag doll simulation I just created and then we iterated it until it felt great. Sounds boring but that’s usually how these things happen.
From the first napkin sketch to the completed game roughly how long did it take to turn around Sway and get it in the App Store?
I would say it took roughly 6-8 months for our small team of developers and designers.
Innovative controls and designing around the systems unique inputs seem to be a recurring theme with your games; it’s almost as if you build your games around the control schemes, is this right?
Many other companies have a lot of (old) games for other platforms that they are porting to the iPhone and tries to adjust the controls to the iPhone's touch screen. Usually the device, for which the game was originally created for, has physical buttons. Trying to simulate this with virtual on-screen buttons is a generally a bad idea since there is no tactile feedback. You really need to feel that you are pressing a button, especially if you are playing a fast paced action game. The same thing with some racing games, tilting your iPhone and pretending it is a wheel doesn't really work that well.
We try to look at things from the other end. When we started doing Labyrinth, we had no idea that we would end up with Labyrinth. We just thought the accelerometer was a cool technical thingamabob, so we started thinking about what to do with it, and along came the idea of creating Labyrinth. Pretty much the same thing with Touchgrind and Sway, the controls were central.
iPhone gaming seems to have formed it’s own micro-industry, where do you see iPhone gaming in a few years, do you think there is a long term place for the iPhone as a gaming platform?
Yes definitely. Even though this is a pretty new market and is changing rapidly, I'm confident it'll be even bigger in a couple of years. We have only seen the beginning. I think Apple is smart enough to continue to give more focus on games for the iPhone as it helps them to sell their hardware. I personally think the next generations of iPhones will have hardware that is more suitable for games, for instance support for OpenGL ES 2.0 would allow us to create even more impressive graphics [This came true with the iPhone 3GS model - Ed].
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2 comments
Cheap Medications / 4th Jun 2010
Thank you for another fantastic blog. Where else could I get this kind of information written in such an incite full way? I have a project that I am just now working on, and I have been looking for such information... Regards…
TYler / 30th May 2010
Fascinating. Thanks Chris for getting this info out of Illusion labs. I like this part "We try to look at things from the other end. When we started doing Labyrinth, we had no idea that we would end up with Labyrinth. We just thought the accelerometer was a cool technical thingamabob, so we started thinking about what to do with it, and along came the idea of creating Labyrinth. Pretty much the same thing with Touchgrind and Sway, the controls were central." The controls are my starting point on my current projects. The hardware is just too neat to ignore!