Recently, we got sent a video of a work-in-progress mobile game called eXfusion. The 3D racer is being developed by Danish start-up Tumbleweed Interactive to run on OpenGL ES 2.0 devices, such as Nvidia's APX 2500.

It looked pretty impressive, so we got back in touch to ask the team some questions. Mobile lead Håvard Christensen was kind enough to answer them. But first, have a look at that video:



PocketGamer.biz: Tell me a bit about Tumbleweed – you all met at university, right?

Håvard Christensen: Yeah. That's right.  We started eXfusion as our bachelor project. At that time, it only ran on mobile phones in theory, that is, we coded it for the next-gen mobile standard, but we didn't have the hardware to test it. We then won a student competition with our project, and decided to start up based on that.

Are you focusing on native game development, rather than J2ME? What platforms are you targeting? I'm guessing iPhone would be a suitable one?

Yeah, we are much more interested in entertainment-based smartphones where you can code directly. You get much better games if you focus on one kind of platform instead of trying to support as many platforms as possible.

There's a chance we'll be doing something on the iPhone, but nothing public yet. We aim to be one of the first to provide games for the new mobile phones with next-gen rendering chips, which will probably be out to buy in 2009.

What are the key advantages in your opinion of developing using OpenGL ES 2.0? How have you found it to work with?

OpenGL ES 2.0 is very nice to work with. It's a lean and mean version of what you got on desktop machines in the last couple of years. So technically, it's easy to work with and really powerfull as well.

For any 3D programmer, it shouldn't take more than a couple of days to 'get it'.However, getting things to run fast and smooth and look good is always a challenge which is a combination of coding and artwork.

The key advantage with ES2.0 is that you get really good control of how things are rendered. With the old standards, there were built-in models for everything: light-effects, fog-effects, moving of objects, etc. In ES2.0 all this is removed and you have to make that yourself. This gives you a lot of control and you can create fancier effects than what's built-in.

What are your plans for eXfusion – are you aiming to sign a publishing deal, or take it to market yourself?

With the actual consumer mobile hardware being a bit into the future, we don't have a clear path to the consumer. This is something that we're really aware of and working on.

We're aiming for a publisher or a bundle deal, but if the mobiles we're targeting provide an open and accessible application market, like what Google's doing on Android, then self-publishing becomes a good option as well.

In terms of the game itself, what are the inspirations behind it?
eXfusion ows a lot to the other brilliant futuristic racers that have been developed. The feel of the game is best described as a mix between the fast racing of F-Zero and the platformish style of Skyroads (a old DOS game).

This means we'll be focusing on racing and jumping from segment to segment rather than a weapon-style approach like WipEout has.

What about the other game mentioned on your website, Umami?
Umami is coming along nicely, and in early November we'll be releasing a gameplay video and more information about the game. Right now we are in the middle of tweaking the gameplay in the early levels, and getting the game to look good. It will be released together with our redesigned web-page at www.tumbleweedinteractive.com/umami.

The two titles are very different, and it reflects the different tastes within our company. We enjoy all sorts of games and graphical styles, and when we find an idea that really inspires us, or a genre we think we can improve upon, we are up for the challenge.
Umami started with a simple, yet very appealing idea, and when we looked at the market we noticed that there weren't really a lot of competitors within that genre, so we decided to go for it.