Yucca Studios releases empire-builder GodZ on Facebook

Image via Yucca Studios

New social game studio Yucca Studios has released its first game on Facebook: GodZ, a social strategy game that’s slowly taking off on the platform. GodZ places players in the role of a God, asking them to grow a small civilization into something grand, creating settlers to expand their land, training soldiers to protect that land, and so on.

GodZ is similar to other Facebook city-builders, as players can build homes to increase their village’s population, can build military structures for training troops, and can build temples and other religious buildings to train prophets. More items become available as players earn experience points and level up over time.

Each type of citizen has a specific purpose within the game. Soldiers, of course, battle against opposing forces, while citizens can become Settlers used to expand into new land squares, as examples. Prophets, meanwhile, are used to “evangelize” other players’ citizens, really bringing the religious theme to the front of the game.

Image via Yucca Studios

Most of the game’s actions require time to complete, but premium currency can be used to speed up those waiting cycles for instant progress. Players can complete quests by building structures, expanding their village and finishing other tasks, and must do so by constantly balancing the use of a variety of resources. These include food, wood and stone, along with more whimsical items, such as Minotaur dust.

Resources are earned in quarries and lumber mills, for instance, which also require time to function, and will produce different amounts of materials, depending on how long a player wishes to wait for them to form.

While GodZ comes with plenty of monetization options, the game is ultimately available to play for free on Facebook. You can follow the game’s progress on AppData, our tracking service for mobile and social apps and developers.

Mediabistro Event

3D printed guitars, belts, and more will be on display at today’s Inside 3D Printing Conference & Expo in San Jose, California. Don’t miss the chance to be a part of the largest B2B 3D printing expo hall worldwide and network with industry experts. Avoid onsite prices and register before midnight.

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Akamon Studios adds Akamon Video Slots to its Facebook game lineup

Image via Akamon Entertainment

Barcelona-based social game developer Akamon Entertainment has released its newest Facebook game, named simply Akamon Slots. The game joins the company’s existing catalog of casual and social casino games, including Bingo Rider on iOS and versions of Roulette, Dominoes, Rummy and Buraco on Facebook.

Akamon Slots features the standard elements of the video slot machine genre, including an experience points system that sees players gaining levels to unlock new slot machines. The more a player bets on each spin of the wheels, the more experience points are earned. Machines can be customized to bet on specific numbers of lines, and to change the base bet amount. There’s no auto-spin button as of this writing, but that’s something that can be added in the future.

Depending on the slot machine, players may activate bonus games, and players will receive free coins each day as a loyalty bonus for continuing to play the game.

Via Akamon’s user base in Southern Europe and Latin America, Akamon expects Akamon Slots to help the company reach $16 million in revenue in 2013. The game is monetized via the purchase of chips, which allow users to keep playing (and winning) for longer game sessions than completely free-to-play users.

Akamon Slots is now available to play for free on Facebook. Check back soon to track the game’s progress on AppData, our tracking service for mobile and social apps and developers.

Mediabistro Event

3D printed guitars, belts, and more will be on display at today’s Inside 3D Printing Conference & Expo in San Jose, California. Don’t miss the chance to be a part of the largest B2B 3D printing expo hall worldwide and network with industry experts. Avoid onsite prices and register before midnight.

View the original article here

Betable partners with Frima Studio’s new real-money gaming division, 3OAK

Real-money gaming platform Betable today announced the newest partner in its private beta program: casual game developer Frima Studio’s new real-money game division 3OAK.

3OAK is a new development studio formed to create casual and social games built featuring real-money gameplay.  Like other developers who have partnered with Betable since the company came out of stealth last summer, 3OAK will be targeting international audiences with the games featuring Betable’s API.

Although real-money gaming has only been seen in social casino games so far, 3OAK isn’t working on these kinds of titles right now. 3OAK director Mikael Lefebvre tells us the studio is working to bring real-money mechanics to genres they haven’t really appeared in so far. As a result, the company has a slate of five game concepts it’s working on, based on the most popular social game types. While he can’t share too many details right now, Lefebvre says the company’s first title will be a humorous/light social RPG which is already in the early testing phase and is expected for an early Q2 launch.

Lefebvre says 3OAK tested out real-money gaming by creating a social game prototype with a cash out mechanic. The prototype showed the retention and engagement were significantly higher than the norm in social games, as well as converting users to paying players. He thinks implementing elements like this will is the way of the future because, “all this makes sense because in the current market the cost of acquiring users is getting higher and higher, so we need higher revenue per user and revenue per paying user.”

While 3OAK’s titles will feature real-money gaming in the territories where such mechanics are legal, Lefebvre tells us they’ll also be available as standard social games in other countries with soft and hard currencies.

Betable CEO Christopher Griffin tells us he’s excited about how 3OAK’s implementing his company’s API; according to Griffin, this is one of the first examples of Betable’s technology in social games outside of the casino genre. He tells us there are other developers working with Betable on non-social casino games, but none of them have been officially unveiled yet.

Griffin believes this is just the start of a larger movement in the social/mobile gaming industries to incorporate real-money elements. “I think this is more than a trend and will be more than a trend,” he says. “This has something that will be very core for how these games monetize and will be essential for them to have some element of real money in them if they want to be competitive.”

Although this is the first time we’ve heard of companies making casual games with real-money mechanics, we’ve known this was a possibility since Betable first came out of stealth. When we initially chatted with Griffin back in July, he provided a mock-up graphic showing how his company’s API would look in mobile titles like Words With Friends and Hero Academy.

Betable’s proven a popular partner in the social/mobile games sector ever since it publicly debuted. Griffin reveals the demand to work with the company has been so great that its team has doubled in size. Before this latest announcement, Betable’s announced partnerships with some major casual gaming companies like Big Fish Games, Digital Chocolate, SGN and Slingo.

3OAK’s first games will be launched for mobile platforms, but the plan is to make them cross-platform sooner rather than later. “Everything has to be cross-platform,” Lefebvre notes.

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Arkadium signs social game publishing deal with Microsoft Studios

Social and casual game developer Arkadium announced a multi-year publishing partnership with Microsoft Studios today that will help the developer accelerate its cross-platform game development.

Though few details were available on the agreement, we assume that it applies to Microsoft’s Bing, MSN Messenger and Zone.com games portal where Arkadium games already appear. Beyond that, it is likely that Microsoft Studios would publish the games on Xbox Live Arcade or Windows Phone 7. It is unclear if the publishing deal extends to Facebook, where Arkadium currently enjoys 1 million monthly active users and over 200,000 daily active users as recorded by our AppData traffic tracking service.

Statements included in the press releases from Microsoft Studios’ Matt Booty, general manager of connected experiences, suggest that Microsoft is looking to expand its publishing beyond its web services, console and phone. Assuming the tech giant isn’t attempting to launch a social network of its own to compete with Facebook and Google+, we could perhaps expect to see Microsoft Studios-published games on these platforms. Already, Microsoft has begun to soften its stance on publishing for rival platforms, recently bringing a version of its Xbox 360 game Kinectimals to iOS.

“Arkadium has a ten-year track record of developing entertaining and well-architected casual and social games,” Booty’s statement reads. “Our team is excited to be partnering with a developer that we believe will help us entertain millions of people as we expand our reach to a broader audience.”

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Microsoft Studios gets social games savvy, buddies up with Arkadium

The studio that now brings you Halo and the Forza Motorsport racing series for the Xbox 360 just got down with the Facebook. Microsoft Studios announced a strategic partnership with Arkadium for the latter to create cross-platform social games to be launched by the former. According to Arkadium, this multi-year partnership is an evolution of the duo's existing relationship.

"We are very excited to be working with Microsoft Studios to develop casual and social cross-platform experiences," Arkadium CEO Kenny Rosenblatt said in a release. "We have been looking to strategically partner with a company that can help catapult our business and accelerate Arkadium's cross platform game development. Microsoft is the perfect partner to help us realize our growth strategy."

However, what's unclear is just how this partnership will work out. Microsoft Studios acts as both a developer and a publisher to its existing game franchises, namely Halo, which is developed by 343 Industries (formerly Bungie). Is that how the studio will interact with New York-based Arkadium, best known for its Mahjongg Dimensions series on Facebook?

"Arkadium has a ten-year track record of developing entertaining and well-architected casual and social games," GM of Connected Experiences for Microsoft Studios Matt Booty said. "Our team is excited to be partnering with a developer that we believe will help us entertain millions of people as we expand our reach to a broader audience."

Well, that doesn't leave with much more answered. Arkadium has partnered with numerous organizations to increase the reach of its social games, most recently The Los Angeles Times and CNN. This, however, seems as if Microsoft Studios will simply provide Arkadium with more resources to create the game they're already making (and perhaps on new platforms?). Your guess is as good as ours, but we've contacted Arkadium for comment.

Why do you think Microsoft Studios has partnered with Arkadium in such a big way? Are you a fan of Arkadium's games, and what do you hope comes of this announcement? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

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Sojo Studios partners with Justin Bieber for "social good" Facebook games

Last month, we brought you an in-depth overview of Sojo Studios' WeTopia on Facebook, a game based on the concept of "Play[ing] for Good," where users earn currency called Joy that can be spent on real world charitable projects in both the US and other countries. While the game may not have shown up on everyone's radar just yet, that's likely to change as music phenom Justin Bieber has signed on to provide marketing support for Sojo Studios' lineup of games, starting with WeTopia.

"Playing online games is a lot of fun already, but WeTopia makes it better by helping children around the world. Some of these kids need to go to school or they need clean water," said Bieber in a company release. "I've been so lucky and blessed and that's why I believe so much in giving back, and I know my fans will feel the same way when they play WeTopia."

Combining efforts with the company's first celebrity partner Ellen DeGeneres, Sojo Studios hopes that the reach both entertainers have in their own areas will be enough to inspire fans to take action for great causes within WeTopia (and eventually other games that have yet to be released), such as Save the Children, buildOn and the Children's Health Fund.

"We're thrilled to partner with Justin Bieber, an amazing entertainer and someone who has emerged as one of the most prolific young philanthropists this world has seen," says Lincoln Brown, founder and CEO of Sojo Studios. "Justin is using his voice to inspire millions of fans around the world – including daughters and their moms – to give back. We can't think of a better way to bring the generations together than on WeTopia, which lets players do good while having fun."

Will this turn into a system of themed virtual items, giving Bieber's fans even more incentive to play these Facebook games? That much remains to be seen, but with the ever-increasing power of social media, anything is possible.

Will you play WeTopia because it is now being endorsed by Justin Bieber? Do you need any extra incentive to play a game focused on helping those who otherwise go without? Share your thoughts on this news with us in the comments.

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New Hires in Social Gaming: Bossa Studios, Kabam and Kixeye

Hiring in the social gaming industry was steady with week, with seven companies reporting 18 new employees. According to data from LinkedIn and other sources, East Side Games and Nanigans accounted for the majority of week’s activity. The biggest hires were at Bossa Studios, who added former Sony vice president Yoshifusa Hayama to the team as creative director and Nanigans who added a new CFO and SVP.

If your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please get in touch with us. Email us at: mail (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get your news into an upcoming post.

If you want to know who else is hiring, the Inside Network Job Board showcases current openings with the industry’s leading companies.

Bossa Studios

Yoshifusa Hayama, Creative Director - Bossa studios kicks off this week’s roundup with the highest profile hire. The London-based developer has brought aboard Hayama as its creative director. Hayama was previously a VP at Sony.

East Side Games

Kevin Okada, Designer/Artist - Vancouver BC based East Side Games added six new employees this week, accounting for most of the hiring activity in this week’s roundup. First up is Okada, who was previously the lead level designer at Rabbit Hole Interactive.Jason Fleming, Software Engineer - Next up is Fleming, who moves from a programming position at Magellan Interactive.Josh Wood, Jr Software Engineer, QA - Wood starts his career with East Side Games, coming from Vancouver Film School.Darius Tam, Software Engineer - Tam also moves from Rabbit Hole, where he was a senior gameplay software engineer at Rabbit Hole Interactive.Dimitri Sirenko, Artist - Sirenko was previously an artist at The Sequence Group.Daphne Mui, Jr System Administrator - Finally Mui comes from Ericsson, where she previously worked as a software development co-op.

Kabam

Traci Hui, UI Artist – A single hire for Kabam this week. Hui was formerly a traffic manager at Image Comics.

Kixeye

Romain Di Vuolo, Software Engineer - Kixeye also makes our list with one hire. Di Vuolo comes from Casualing, where he was also a software engineer.Scott Ward, CFO - Boston based Nanigans make our list with some very high profile hires. First up is new CFO Ward, who was formerly the CFO at Chitika.Ben Tregoe, SVP Business Development - Next up Tregoe, the the former founder and CEO of Getsugar who joins the company as the SVP of business developement.Nanigans also told us it had added four new members to its operations team to keep pace with new business.

Playfish

Sergio De Natale, XML Game Coder - De Natale makes the the jump from Mixel Scarl, where he was a junior developer.

Zynga

Joel Thomas, Senior Concept Artist - Zynga closes out our listing this week with a pair of hires. Thomas was previously a concept artist at Electric Bat Interactive.Jason Kim, Technical Game Designer - Next up is Kim, who was formerly the lead game designer and game programmer at Frozen Codebase.

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Peak Games Raises $11.5M in Funding, Acquires Two Studios and Expands Into South America and Mexico

Social game developer and publisher Peak Games announced a second round of funding today from Earlybird Venture Capital to the tune of $11.5 million. The company has also acquired two developers and expanded operations into South America and Mexico.

When we last spoke with Peak Games, the company was experiencing a wave of growth on Facebook in Turkey, the Middle East, and North Africa. The secret to its success in this case was a mix of in-house developed games that met the specific needs of the regions’ audiences and publishing-localization agreements with developers like TheBroth for top-performing titles. Today, Peak Games’ Chief Strategy Officer Rina Onur tells us that the company will keep up more of the same, with support from new games, new partners, and new regional offices in the Middle East and North Africa.

“We’ve done two strategy core studio acquisitions,” Onur says, explaining how the latest round of funding is being spent. “We want to reach 100 people in our [new] Oman office. The rest is going to be talent and studio acquisitions in Turkey and the Middle East.”

The two studios acquired by Peak Games, Umaykut and Erikhan, are both based out of Turkey. Umaykut is a strategy game for the open web rooted in Turkish history while Erlikhan is a fantasy-themed strategy game for Facebook. Onur tells us that with the acquisition of these two studios, Peak Games moves beyond its current in-house portfolio of card and board games into the rapidly expanding strategy genre currently dominated by Kabam, Kixeye, and more casual strategy titles from Zynga and Digital Chocolate.

As for expanding its Facebook game offerings through partnerships, Peak Games and RockYou recently announced an agreement to publish Zoo World 2 in Turkey, the Middle East and North Africa. Onur says that Peak Game users have been wanting a game similar in theme to Zoo World franchise for a long time, which contributed to the recent success of ??????? ???????, an Arabic-language farming sim developed by Halfquest and published by Peak Games.

The key, explains Onur, is localizing the game for the region in the most natural way possible. “Peak Games has been so successful in this region because international companies have been pushing games in English or in poorly localized versions in Arabic and Turkish,” she says. “Our focus is these emerging markets, so our [games] are highly polished. I think that’s one of the secret sauces to our success. We have aspirations of developing Arabic-specific games for the region as well.”

Over the past six months, we’ve seen companies concentrate on hyper-localized versions of social games for both emerging and established markets. A major barrier these companies face is establishing regional branches in countries that have vastly different business cultures from their own. As an example, it took PopCap Games years to build its offices in Asia and still more time on top of that for the studio to begin producing PopCap content for its market. The content that studio produces is so vastly different from what the Western audience expects that PopCap doesn’t bother to localize its Asian-developed titles for North America or Europe.

On Facebook, Peak Games current enjoys a cumulative 16 million monthly active users and 3.7 million daily active users across all its published and developed games (including figures from the recently-acquired Erlikhan). Its largest game by traffic in MAU is the in-house developed Okey while DAU is dominated by Komsu Çiftlik, which Peak Games publishes in the region on behalf of TheBroth. You can follow the developer-publisher’s progress on AppData, our traffic tracking service for social games and developers.

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RockYou gobbles up 3 Blokes (Studios) for combat Facebook games

by Joe Osborne, Posted Jun 1st 2011 12:05PM

No, U.K.-based social game publisher RockYou did not eat three British folk, but purchased Australian game developer 3 Blokes Studios for an undisclosed amount, TechCrunch reports. The studio has create four Facebook games to date including the 200 thousand-strong Galactic Trader (pictured). 3 Blokes will operate remotely and create combat strategy social games for the publisher to combat opponents like Kabam, Firaxis and even Zynga with its Empires and Allies release.
We can't help but notice how RockYou is rapidly adapting to the changing social games scene. First, it signs on a big-time designer like John Romero with Loot Drop (Zynga has Brian Reynolds), then it begins to buy up smaller studios to increase its development strength and diversity (Zynga bought 14 companies in 12 months). No details on specific games were announced, but we're sure that, if RockYou really wants to compete, they'll be just as strong as the rest.

Do you think RockYou is doing the right thing in attempting to emulate Zynga's progression? Will it lead to success for them? Sound off in the comments. Add Comment.

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Tags: 3 blokes, 3 Blokes Studios, 3 Blokes Studios galactic trader, buyout, civilization world, empires and allies, Firaxis-Games, Galactic Trader, rockyou, rockyou buys 3 blokes, techcrunch, zynga

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New Hires in Social Gaming: 6waves, Cie Studios, CrowdStar, & More

Like last week, the sea of new hires within the social gaming space continues with a significant number of social developers bringing on new team members, according to data from LinkedIn and other sources. The biggest hires, however, came from Loot Drop and 6waves in the forms of former Playdom program manager, Karen Clark, who joins the former as their new director of studio operations, and former Microsoft Game Studios lead producer, Dan Laughlin, who joins the latter as their new director of business development.

As always, if your company is hiring new people or making a notable promotion, please let us know. Email editor (at) insidesocialgames (dot) com, and we’ll get it into this or next week’s post. Also, please note that the information about most new hires, below, comes directly from company updates from LinkedIn, and is only as current as people’s profiles.

Looking for new opportunities? The Inside Network Job Board presents a survey of current openings at leading companies in the industry.

Here’s this week’s full list:

6waves

Dan Laughlin, Director of Business Development — As noted already, Dan Laughlin joins 6waves. Before this, he was a lead producer at Microsoft Game Studios.Bradley Rose, Community Manager Intern — Also joining 6waves this week: Rose was previously a logistics team member for Target.

Cie Studios

Jannay Schroeder, Senior Project Manager — Now at Cie Studios, Schroeder was most recently a senior project manager at Altametrics.

CrowdStar

Dhaval Shah, Software Developer — Joining CrowdStar this week, Shah was formerly an iPhone game programmer at Tornado Studios.Lisa Zhu, Product Manager — Also joining CrowdStar, Zhu was previously an assistant producer at Electronic Arts.

GSN

Colleen Gregus, Digital/TV Sales Associate — In an internal shift at GSN, Gregus changes from her prior role as an ad sales assistant.Katie Sullivan, Account Manager (The Weather Channel) — Now joining the GSN team, Sullivan was an account executive at Fuse Networks, LLC.

Happy Elements

Vitor Luz, Press Officer for Brazil — Happy Elements makes a single hire this week. Luz was previously a press officer at XV Encontro Regional dos Estudantes de Administrção – EREAD.

Kabam

Becca Wood, Player Experience Representative — Now at Kabam, Wood was an English and math instructor at Kumon.Logan Dwight, Interactive Designer — Also joining Kabam, Dwight was previously a media artist at Egan Media Productions.

KlickNation

Dwight House, Software Engineer — KlickNation shows activity this week. House was previously an interactive UI researcher at Sierra Nevada Corporation.Adam Lum, Software Engineer — Also joining KlickNation, Lum was a web developer for California Parks and Recreation.

Loot Drop

Karen Clark, Director of Studio Operations — As noted prior, Karen Clark joins Loot Drop this week. Before this, she was a program manager for Playdom.Franz Lanzinger, Distinguished Engineer — Now at Loot Drop, Lanzinger was previously president of Actual Entertainment.Sveta Trushchenkova, UI Designer — Trushchenkova was most recently a lead artist at Storm8.Patrick Mathews, Senior Artist — Mathews was formerly a lead artist at Metamoki.

Playfish

Lauren Mann, Game Artists — Joining Playfish, Mann was previously an illustrator at Mind Candy.Marc Andreu Fernandez, Software Engineer — Now at Playfish, Fernandez’s previous position is unknown.Carol Braves, Office Manager — Braves was previously the administrative director at Architectural Foundation of San Francisco.

PopCap Games

Robin Yang, Associate Producer — There is a single hire this week at PopCap Games. Yang was previously a producer at Candystand.com.

Nordeus

Marko Milenkovic, Software Development Engineer — In an internal change at Nordeus, Milenkovic shifts roles from his prior position as an intern.

Zynga

Will Lytle, Senior Community Manager, International — Joining Zynga, Lytle was previously the marketing director for YouWin.Huan Zheng, Senior System Engineer — Now at Zynga, Zheng was a student at the University of Electronic Science and Technology, but is also a senior system engineer at Baidu.Krunal Soni, Senior Software Engineer — Soni was formerly a technical staff member at NetApp.Robin DelMonte, Office Manager — DelMonte was most recently an executive assistant at United Space Alliance.Andrew Simmons, QA Analyst — A part of Zynga now, Simmons was previously a QA/functionality tester at Sega of America.Michelle Ewing-Juarbe, Artist — Ewing-Juarbe was a 3D artist at Paradigm Entertainment.Jason Reyero, UI Designer — Reyero was a web designer for Trion World Network.Anant Chaudhary, Software Engineer — Joining Zynga, Chaudhary was previously a student  at the University of California, Davis, but is also currently a member of technical staff at Network Appliance, and MTS at NetApp.

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New Jobs This Week on the Inside Network Job Board: Wooga, Lolgames, Breaktime Studios & More

The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities in the Facebook Platform and social gaming ecosystem.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at, and wooga, lolgames, Breaktime Studios, NaturalMotion, Arkadium and Youtopia.

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Social Games, Inside Facebook and Inside Mobile Apps through regular posts and widgets on the sites. Your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers, and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.

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Highlights This Week From the Inside Network Job Board: Spooky Cool Labs, Buffalo Studios, Acquinity Interactive, & More

The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities in the Facebook Platform and social gaming ecosystem.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at Spooky Cool Labs, Buffalo Studios, Acquinity Interactive, Ubisoft,Daglow Entertainment, and Row Sham Bow Inc.

Daglow Entertainment

Row Sham Bow, Inc.

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Facebook and Inside Social Games through regular posts and widgets on the sites. Your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers, and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.

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Highlights This Week From the Inside Network Job Board: Spooky Cool Labs, Buffalo Studios, Acquinity Interactive, & More

The Inside Network Job Board is dedicated to providing you with the best job opportunities in the Facebook Platform and social gaming ecosystem.

Here are this week’s highlights from the Inside Network Job Board, including positions at Spooky Cool Labs, Buffalo Studios, Acquinity Interactive, Ubisoft, Daglow Entertainment, and Row Sham Bow Inc.

Daglow Entertainment

Row Sham Bow, Inc.

Listings on the Inside Network Job Board are distributed to readers of Inside Facebook and Inside Social Games through regular posts and widgets on the sites. Your open positions are being seen by the leading developers, product managers, marketers, designers, and executives in the Facebook Platform and social gaming industry today.

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In Search Of Epic Wins: Supermono Studios On Two-Man Indie Development

.rss_ul ul {padding-left: 0px; margin-left: 0px;}.rss_ul ul li {padding-bottom: 5px;} GameSetWatch - In Search Of Epic Wins: Supermono Studios On Two-Man Indie Development Our sites:GameSetWatchIndieGames GamerBytesFingerGamingWiM Gamasutra « Road To The IGF: Brinson And ValaNejad's The Cat And The Coup | Main | Exclusive: Behind The Scenes Of Minecraft »

Sunday, February 20, 2011 In Search Of Epic Wins: Supermono Studios On Two-Man Indie Development

[Our own Simon Parkin caught up with ex-Lionhead staffer Tak Fung, founder of Supermono (EpicWin, MiniSquadron), to discuss the company's ongoing attempts at fulfilling its motto of "capturing the imagination" through games and apps.]

Media Molecule isn't the only successful studio to have been founded by ex-Lionhead staff.

Tak Fung, one-time coder on Black & White and Fable, also left the Molyneux camp to start up development on his own, forming Supermono with artist Dave Ferner, and launching full-time into iPhone development a couple of years ago.

Since then, Supermono has found widespread success, not only with more traditional games such as its shoot-'em-up MiniSquadron but also with creative, game-like software such as EpicWin, a to-do list app with an RPG-esque leveling system overlaid.

We caught up with Fung to find out how things are progressing, where things are headed for the two-man studio and what's next on the developer's own to-do list.

How did you get started as an independent developer? What did you do beforehand?

I became an independent developer in a very gradual fashion. I started off in the games industry working for Lionhead Studios just after it had released Black & White, when the studio was just 20-odd people. I was put on integrating physics into the secret Project Dimitri before eventually moving onto Graphics and Special FX coding on Fable and its sequel.

It was a great time professionally and personally, as I experienced working in an environment of a handful of people right up to about 200 people at the end of my six-year tenure. However, it was at this time that I felt I was ready and well-skilled enough to go ahead and try different things. There was talk around this time about more exciting things happening in film post-production, and being a big tinkler in graphics code, I took off to become a mercenary contract coder in London.

This worked out pretty well, and I ended up contracting at many famous visual effects and film studios, including Passion Pictures and United Visual Artists. Once I got the hang of looking for work by myself and getting "half my independence" back, I eventually decided to try and actually go ahead and make things by myself and bring on "full independence".

So eventually, I took a final contract job at Sony, and after that, hooked up with the iPhone and created MiniSquadron as a full independent developer! It was a long journey, and fairly gradual -- but importantly, each step was a small leap of faith that you have to take. I guess you get bolder with each leap (until you jump down the wrong hole).

Where are you based? Do you work primarily from home?

I am based in London, and I primarily work from home. My Art Director Dave Ferner (whom I met at UVA) works in North London and I'm in the West, so although we try to communicate by phone and Skype, there are times when I do a lot of cross-London trekking to get together.

I also work with a group of contractors all around the world, which is pretty cool. I am looking to expand and get "an office", whereby I actually mean "moving out of my parents' house and getting a shitty one-bed flat in London to live/work in" but it's a struggle since the whole property situation in London is a total mess.

Although it may sound like this is an unrelated thing, when you are an independent developer and you get to sample things like the labor market first-hand and living costs of your chosen locality -- everything matters. It's not a case of you work and "go home"; everything is one and the same, and your whole ethos of living changes (or at least it did for me).

How did the idea for EpicWin come about? What was the reception like?

EpicWin actually came about from my friend Rex (of Rexbox and LittleBigPlanet fame). He was looking into creating a fun to-do application for the iPhone that people like us would actually use. They all simply lacked the "silliness" and "fun" that would get our attention in the first place. You have to understand that my favorite to-do application up until this point in my life is basically paper and a pencil, so anything beyond that would be confusing for me!

Anyhow, EpicWin was designed with this simplicity in mind, and with loads of charm from Rex's illustrations, and it just so happened that there was all this "gamification" topic being bandied about (this was near when Jesse Schell gave his talk at DICE about gamification of everyday activities).

So when it was released, everyone pretty much got it straight away and the reception was pretty amazing, to be honest -- getting picked up in places like the New York Times, Lifehacker and eventually LA Times, too.

It's really exciting for me, because it is being used and played by people who are not particularly interested in games, and I find communicating and playing with people outside of my immediate interests always generates new ideas for me.

Is game creation your sole source of income? If so, how is that working out?

Game creation is indeed my sole source of income, and it's working out fine -- I am able to pay bills and rent (to my parents - yes I still pay rent! I just keep it in the family, as opposed to random landlords). I worked really hard to diversify MiniSquadron by putting it on Android, WP7 (coming soon), PSP (also coming soon) and also putting out more titles like Fox Vs. Duck and EpicWin quickly in order to give myself a buffer of sorts.

Since all my games are paid apps, I have to compete harder than free apps with DLC, although in the future my pricing strategy will likely change. I would probably say we are precariously balanced in keeping afloat, but that's the nature of running a small business in what is an intensively competitive industry.

What have been your most successful titles thus far?

Both MiniSquadron and EpicWin have been super successful, lots of downloads, nice reviews, awards and nominations! Fox Vs. Duck was probably a bit too simple, but that was my attempt at trying out a super-casual one-mechanic game, with a very unconventional art style (monochromatic and very design-centric). The intersection of those aesthetics with the casual audience market is probably not so great, though.

How have you been working to make your titles stand out? Where do people primarily come across them from?

Being a naturally graphics-inclined person along with Beardy Dave, we strive to make our games and apps stand out by being visually impressive. Dave in particular has a strong eye for design-centric visuals -- clean lines and economic use of forms and all that -- but I guess I have the more "bizarre" ideas.

Sometimes they come together and make our titles look great! Alongside this, I like to make sure our games are fun and "non-frustrating" to play -- which can be a challenge when the UI is touch-based. The real secret I have, though, is bigger than any specifics like graphics or gameplay and it's basically "capturing the imagination" (this is our company motto).

Can you capture the imagination of someone looking at or hearing about your idea for the first time? Will it fire up their minds and let them go on journeys of what may be possible? That is far more important to me and everything I do is to hopefully get that effect.

People come across my games mostly from the app store features and from web reviews. I'm still learning about advertising intelligently on a non-existent budget!

Which has been the most successful distribution channel for you thus far?

The App Store has been really successful, but that's also down to the fact that all my games are developed for the iOS platform as a primary platform.

MiniSquadron has also done well on Google's Android Marketplace, but that was helped by being a launch title, along with OpenFeint's crossplatform strategy. The recent improvements in the Marketplace have also been encouraging -- but they need to move faster.

Do you have any frustrations with the App Store as it currently stands? What could Apple do to improve the service for you?

It's not too bad at the moment -- I mean, for my purposes, it's very slick and has massive reach. There are the perennial problems with discovery, but it's not Apple's job to market my game for me (although they have been very good at featuring all my games - yay Apple!). I'm pretty happy with it, to be honest with you -- it's good enough that I don't think too much about it, and just get on with making games and ideas.

What are your influences?

My influences have changed as I get older -- which isn't unusual, I guess. Being born in Hong Kong and surrounded by a very Asian culture that involves giant Mechs and anime has undoubtedly had an effect on my tastes, especially in that I enjoy the full spectrum of Japanese animation and anything with giant transforming, combining robots in them.

This has grown to include all animation, but I find the weirder the better -- things like FLCL (Yoji Enokido), Dead Leaves (Production I.G) and Evangelion (Gainax). MiniSquadron's "busy cartoon graphics" was inspired in part by the "Pixel Art"/"8-bit Art" that a lot of web designers have been introducing to the world. Paul Robertson's stuff always makes me laugh!

Gameplay-specific influences vary; I generally enjoy quick arcade games like Street Fighter, but I play all sorts (including 5 a.m. binges on Civilization). I also find inspiration watching music videos - Michel Gondry, so-me are recent favorites (got to love those French designers!). The weirder the better really - I get influences from anything, in fact I think I sometimes go out of my way to try and be influenced by things outside of games on purpose.

Aside from visual things, I get influenced easily by world events. Security and privacy (with Wikileaks only being one facet of it that has been popular with the masses) is very exciting to me, and also in a very general sense, people and the everyday problems they face particularly in difficult countries (e.g. creating an interactive map to avoid police kettling -- stuff like that is cool).

What's your primary aim in your games?

The primary aim in my games is to convey my idea at the time to the players. This may be "fun" or "excitement", but it depends on the idea in the first place. Essentially with games I am trying to get other people to experience what I would enjoy - it's my medium to share my views through the power of interactive pixels, man!

Concretely with MiniSquadron I am trying to get people to enjoy a busy shoot-em-up and collect cute little planes, but sometimes I wish to make something that amuses people, maybe a little toy they can play around with - who knows. I certainly am not limiting Supermono into creating just games - one of my useful tricks I've devised for myself when I think of what to make is by trying to catch myself saying "Wouldn't it be cool if ..."and then using the "..." as a basis for an idea.

Obviously, I am severely constrained by the immediate problems of having to make things commercially viable so that puts a dampener on what I would *really* like to make, but I hope to make the journey so that one day I can be in a position where that won't be such a problem.

What's the biggest challenge currently facing you as an indie dev?

Money and visibility. As is the same with most small businesses - cash flow is very important. We live in a wonderful world of fiat currency, and I need it to survive. And because we do not live in a vacuum that means competing in a global pool of superbly talented people all vying to catch the eye of buyers.

Being indie and having low costs does give us some slack in staying afloat, but I am certainly not in this to simply "stay alive" - I am not brave enough to say that I will die for my art as it were. So in the end it's a fine balance between making what you want and making something that sells, in order to creep towards *another* level of independence - one where you can make whatever you like and not fear the consequences.

Where would you like to be in 12 months?

In 12 months I would like to have a couple more games out, and to complete rolling out the network backend I am developing in order to link all my games up into a giant SkyNet type system for online social/multiplayer goodness. I will call it "TakNet" and I hope it will become sentient by 2020. Investors take note - you really don't want to miss out on this bad boy...

Posted by Simon Carless on February 20, 2011 12:00 PM | Permalink

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