This week we wanted to talk about favorite games both known and unknown (at least to most) we are really enjoying. Chris and John share their two. So check it out. Here are links to all the mentioned games.
I’ve been going to the annual GDC in San Francisco every year since Soma Games launched the first title in 2009 while the world of mobile gaming exploded into existence virtually overnight. Every year those of us who make mobile games have seen ourselves (and have been treated) as the younger upstart brothers to console game makers. We saw ourselves as inferiors and we were treated as tag-alongs. But this year I’m seeing something very different : mobile game shops are suddenly disinterested in “growing up” to become console/PC shops – and the large, older-brother game studios seem confused as to why they aren’t getting the love they’ve always enjoyed.
When we made our first mobile game, G:Into The Rain there was a very conscious notion that this was a stepping-stone. It was a way to dip our toes in the water, learn a few key skills, and all part of our deliberate plan to make a future epic XBox title. We were also perfectly normal in that regard. Every mobile game developer we talked too, both at GDC and elsewhere basically had the same plan. After all that was where the “real” game developers were. That’s where blockbuster hits like Call of Duty or BioShock were posting such inspiring headlines. Mobile gaming was to console or PC gaming what the Memphis Redbirds are to the St. Louis Cardinals. We were rookies and we all longed to make it to the big league.
This relationship was dysfunctional from both ends though. We may have looked up to our console counterparts with an unhealthy degree of hero worship but they also looked down on us with a kind of aristocratic patronization. “Thats cute kid. Come back when you can afford a real game engine.” By last year’s conference, the disdain had turned into something more like contempt as several sessions sought to address the “problem” of mobile gaming – specifically that we were sucking up all the attention and resources from real games.
Now in 2012, I’m suddenly aware of some rather obvious facts as I hob-nob quite comfortably with a half dozen very normal, unassuming, sudden mobile millionaires at the TouchArcade party:
Lightning keeps on striking with hit after hit after hit –
I can make a very, very profitable game in just a few months…
I can do the above with a budget that is literally 1/1,000th of what a AAA title is likely to cost…
The newer hardware like the iPad 4G has as much pixel power as an XBox…
What’s the motivation to move into console gaming at all?
Who needs the risk, the headache, the multi-year commitment? Maybe this mobile thing isn’t a stepping stone after all. Maybe its a quite sufficient and complete segment all on its own – a segment with far more generous numbers. Perhaps this is why I’m hearing stories of VCs looking to invest in mobile but hearing “No thanks – we don’t need your money.”
In 2011 GDC felt as though big studios still had the lion’s share of the attention – but this year it seems very different. The difference is easiest seen by glancing around any lounge, any party, or any hang out in town. Everybody, and I mean everybody, is passing around iPads and Androids and Kindles to show off whatever mobile project they’re excited about. They are handing their own personal devices around instead of queuing up at the gorgeous branded game kiosks. Even sitting in the Microsoft lounge with a dozen XBox and Kinnect games waiting to be played I keep watching the staff trying to entice people to dance or shoot or jump…but instead we’re all sitting in their rather stylish chairs doing something else – working our touch screens, totally content to play Mega Jump or Wind Up Knight while the Halo station sits there, alone, silently asking if its 15minutes is up. We truly are no longer pining for console love.
Posted 1 month, 4 weeks ago at 7:39 pm. Add a comment
Are you dreaming. If not why? Last week the Soma team explored yet another possible new office space or as many of us would call it a play space since, well our work is play. We have been confined within what we have come to call a box that is now too small. In nature when overpopulation occurs some pretty scary things begin to take place. So instead of succumbing to all that we are trying to find a place to grow.
One of the first places we dreamed of expanding to was just a few doors down and would have afforded a bit of craziness. Our lead programmer wanted to make a cave in the attic, I dreamed of a tall studio where we could create even better videos, Rande would have an executive office and we all could have a common space to thrash out ideas, play, have our family around for hang sessions and in general keep some breathing room.
The next place was nice, clean and well after we thought about it….too corporate. I think our adult was the one who said that, which actually shocked many of us. But that revealed something. You don’t even know what you are dreaming about unless you begin to try some things on.
As my wife and I raise our two kids we have made a decision to allow them to be exposed to different arts, sciences, other creative outlets in an effort to give them a perspective on what is possible for them as they grow up. We want them to find the things they are good at and the canvas that will allow them to express who they are meant to be.
Soma was birthed as a dream (insert here a really cool video we are making expressing how Chris was reminded of that dream a week ago).
That dreams can get lost in the hustle to pay the bills, complete project deadlines and do the daily stuff we all need to do to even push the vision forward. What surprised many of us is how a dingy, maze like, clean slate of huge space got us all back to a dreamy state of mind. We started saying things like “this would be perfect for a screening room”. So we are still looking even though this might be a great choice. As we do we are keeping an ear close to the heart and taking notes for what the folks at Soma are really dreaming about as we grow.
Posted 3 months, 1 week ago at 1:35 pm. 4 comments
I try to make a semi-regular habit of getting away from any and all technology, usually in the wilderness somewhere, and spending a day alone with The Spirit. We call it a DAWG day – A Day Alone With God.
Two years ago I came back from that bonfire with a strong sense that the next season for Soma would be characterized by a kind of hiddeness or disguise for us.
When I wandered out of the woods a few weeks ago I was hearing something quite the opposite.
“All of that is over now.” is the best way to describe it. The veil was lifting, the lamps were being lit and the song was starting in earnest.
No video today. A few weeks have gone by since our last update. We took some much needed time away over Christmas and New Years. Wind Up Robots and Santa’s Giftship was featured for the third week in a row on iTunes as New and Noteworthy. Today we were pleased to see that Wind Up Robots has been chosen as Gaming App of the Day alongside picks like Temple Run and Bejeweled on the front page of Kotaku! Go read the article, share it out and have a great weekend.
Posted 4 months, 1 week ago at 5:08 pm. Add a comment
Today was just a great day to set us off on a long needed period of rest.
Wind Up Robots launched last week and today it was featured on Apple’s New and Noteworthy section of iTunes. On Tuesday we launched Santa’s Giftship (under our Code-Monkeys label) and it too was featured. That’s two featured apps in the store as we move into the busiest season of the store – what a fantastic opportunity…what a great blessing.
Look, we worked hard on these games, especially Wind Up Robots, but once they go out the door, the reality is that we have a pretty limited ability to effect what happens next. It’s hard to get a break with so much great stuff out there.
But Proverbs has this great line: The horses are prepared for battle..but the victory belongs to the Lord.
So we do a little Tebow, say thank you to our papa, and now we all settle down for time with family and hopefully stop wearing out the F5 keys and obsessing over ranks.
Posted 4 months, 3 weeks ago at 11:41 pm. 1 comment
This Saturday I had the great honor of being the commencement speaker for the mid-year graduation at George Fox University (my alma mater BTW). It was very uncharacteristic of me but I wound up writing the whole thing out whee I always just go on outline notes. For some reason this one didn’t come out that way. Anyway, the text of what I wrote is below and we’ll post the video as soon as its available. (though you’ll see i drift from my own notes quite a bit…)
The Keys To Your Calling For GFU commencement Dec 17, 2011
I remember this moment very clearly though I’m not certain how old I was – probably about ten.
I was lying on my stomach on the living room floor and the family was watching CHiPs.
At some point a commercial came on and I saw something that totally captured me – a computer generated 3D model of a corporate logo spinning in nothingness. It was as if I was a space ship grazing a massive chrome artifact in deep space – and I was so hooked. I made up my mind right there that I wanted to be a computer graphics animator. I told my folks, then and there, what I would be doing with my life and they smiled politely…but not exactly enthusiastically.
Through school plenty of interests flared up and receded, always fascinating in their time, but by graduation time I was still fixed on CG as a career. So I started junior college with that field in mind and I was very excited. One day I sat down for lunch and struck up a conversation with the guy next to me…”what’s your major?” he asked.
“I want to be a computer animator!” I beamed.
He looked me straight in the eye and said “why would you want to do that? That must be the most boring, tedious job I can imagine?”
…I was crushed.
I’d been going so far on pure enthusiasm. I really didn’t know anything about the actual work of CG. For all I knew he was right. And for lack of knowledge I believed him.
..and my spirit died. Or at least went off for a long winter’s nap.
This Saturday I had the great honor of being the commencement speaker for the mid-year graduation at