"People don't want a cheap version of their favourite retail title. They want a unique game experience."
That was the first rule from Donald Mustard, creative director of Chair Entertainment in his talk at the GDC Smartphone Summit.
Entitled 'Infinity Blade: How we made a hit, what we learned, and why you can do it', Mustard said while it might seem cool to have Gears of War on a smartphone, for many reasons - budget, experience, controls - it just doesn't make sense.
"Find out what a small game can do that a big budget retail game won't do," he commented. "Identify or create a hole in the market and fill it."
Know your limits
Still, the spark for Infinity Blade was a call from its parent company Epic, saying it had Unreal Engine 3 working for iOS, and did Chair want to make a game using the technology - in five months.
The first discussion the team had concerned where people were playing iOS games - in front of the TV, shopping and on the toilet.
Basically, these were all situations where you couldn't rely on the undivided attention of the player for a period of time. Another key issue was that you couldn't assume people would be playing the game with sound.
The team also looked at genres that were already popular on the App Store - physics puzzlers, tower defence, card and board games - and looked to do something different.
The result was what Mustard called Pocket Pillars.
This meant its game would: only be played with one finger; would involve super short sessions of around two minutes of core gameplay; have original, unique and device-specific design; and would be skill-based - easy to grasp but hard to master.
Cut your cloth
"Games always come down to how many people and how long you have," Mustard said. Infinity Blade was developed over 100 work days by a core of 12 people.
Taking Epic's call on a Friday, by the following Monday Chair knew it wanted to make a sword-fighting game: one of 30 previously fleshed out concepts it had sitting in its design vault.
Hence the first few weeks of production were spent focusing on the sword fighting dynamic in terms of gesture-based parry gameplay. Within 10 days, it was clear this core mechanic was fun.
Attention grabber
Mustard also spoke about the hook - a feature that would make someone look twice at your game.
"Our hook was graphics so we knew we had to invest a lot of resources in this," he said. "We approached Infinity Blade characters in the same way we produced them for Gears of War."
Obviously, this meant the number of in-game characters would be limited, and it also heavily influenced the game's progression in terms of looping plot, item collection, character update and camera placement.
This is something Mustard called creating a "fully integrated experience" so that every feature in the game reinforces the overall concept.
News
Contributing Editor
A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.
Related Articles
News
Mar 8th, 2011
Wealth of apps on iOS is killing developers says Digital Chocolate's Trip Hawkins
News
Mar 6th, 2011
GDC 2011: High value IAP in freemium iOS games is driving substantial App Store refunds
Top Stories
News
6 hours, 19 minutes ago
Scopely is celebrating Monopoly GO!'s first birthday with in-game events and rewards
News
8 hours, 23 minutes ago
Learn about the state of play in MENA and the changing payments landscape at the Dubai GameExpo Summit
News
10 hours, 23 minutes ago
MAG Interactive revenue falls by 25% Y/Y as it places “big bet” on new crossword game Crozzle
News
11 hours, 49 minutes ago
Monopoly GO! celebrates its first birthday and shares its behind-the-scenes story
News
11 hours, 49 minutes ago
Monopoly GO! celebrates its first birthday and shares its behind-the-scenes story
Feature
Apr 15th, 2024
46 top mobile games in soft launch: CSR 3, Plants vs. Zombies 3, LEGO Hill Climb Adventures, Candy Crush Blast, and more
Feature
Apr 15th, 2024
Hot Five: XCOM Legends’ rumoured shutdown, Squad Busters verges on soft launch, and Royal Match reaches $3 billion
Events
HIT Games Conference Istanbul 2024 | Apr 18th | |
Game Job Fair – Spring Edition 2024 | Nordic | Apr 18th |
Arts DAO Fest 2.0 | Middle East | Apr 20th |
App Promotion Summit London | Europe | Apr 25th |
Esports Future Summit | Middle East | Apr 27th |
Dubai GameExpo Summit 2024 | Middle East | May 1st |
The MENA Games Industry Awards 2024 | Middle East | May 2nd |
Mobidictum Meetup Berlin May 2024 | Europe | May 7th |