Developer Interview: Robinson Technologies

  Recently we were fortunate enough to interview Seth of Robinson Technologies, the developers of Dungeon Scroll and Mind Wall. We were able to speak with Seth about his past releases, upcoming releases, and some of his thoughts about the iTunes app store.

 Here is our interview:

The Current Gamer: So first things first, I would like to hear some details about Robinson Technologies. Can you tell us about your team, and some of your history?

 Seth: We’re a tiny husband and wife team located in Japan.   I got started by writing BBS (Bulletin Board System) door-games twenty years ago and have been writing games on many platforms ever since.

 The Current Gamer: What reasons contributed to your decision to begin developing games for the iTunes app store?

 Seth: Last year a client asked me to port an existing BREW phone game (Prey Invasion) over to iPhone.  I was able to get my feet wet and check out the process.  After I heard that an app simulating body functions made a kajillion dollars I figured I would give in to the peer pressure and write something.

 The Current Gamer: Your next game planned for the iPhone, 4-player Arcade is your first title developed just for the iPhone. How has that changed how you approach the development of the game?

 Seth: When porting it’s always a question of “how the heck can I make touch-controls work with this?”  For this new game I am designing the games around the touch controls from the beginning.

   Dungeon Scroll and Mind Wall were easier to test because I could just run the windows version and use a single mouse – but with this one, you sort of have to put it on an iDevice and find some friends (it does support CPU players too, but.. meh)  to really get the feel.

 The Current Gamer: You said on your blog, that you started out making 4-Player Arcade to see if a game that allowed 4 people to play simultaneously on the iPhone could work. Can you talk about where that path has led you, and where you are now with the development of 4-Player Arcade?

 Seth: The original idea came to me when I was at a friends house trying to placate four children.  After I was unable to download any four-player games from the app store I figured I would see if it was even technically feasible.  As usual, I go overboard with a simple prototype and decide to add more features and make it a full product.  After the more cerebral Mind Wall and Dungeon Scroll, it’s fun to work on something more arcade-like.

  I would say the game is 90% complete.  At this point I’m tweaking the rules, the visuals, and making sure the framerate is high enough to give silky smooth gameplay.  It’s a bit of a challenge because it has to process hundreds of update messages a seconds when four touch and drags are happening at once.

 The Current Gamer: Can you tell us when we can expect to see 4-Player Arcade on the app store?

 Seth:I’m hoping to have it available for download by the end of October. It will cost $0.99 (US) and include at least three games. (Each game will support up to four players simultaneously)

  The Current Gamer: Your two currently released games for the iPhone, Dungeon Scroll and Mind Wall both have a 4 star review average in the user reviews in the app store. So both games have gotten very good user feedback. Have you taken any lessons from these releases that you are applying to the development and release of 4-Player Arcade?

 Seth: I am going to take beta testing more seriously this time around and try to build up a group of iPhone beta testers who aren’t afraid to yell at me.  With the (two week?) delay involved in submitting even a small change to your game, testing becomes that much more important.  I will put out a call for help on my blog soon so if you have any extra critical players with extra time, please send them my way.

 ”Mind Wall”

 The Current Gamer: I am interested to hear about Dungeon Scroll. Dungeon Scroll was very well reviewed both in its PC and iPhone iterations. I am very curious to hear how you came about the idea for the game.

 Seth: hmm, I can’t remember exactly when I knew I wanted to do that game.  I’ve worked on so many medieval themed games (Legend of the Red Dragon, Dink Smallwood) I think it’s impossible for my brain to NOT attempt mixing in wizards, potions, headless ducks, and monster slaying with every idea that floats through it.

 The Current Gamer: Have you considered doing a sequel for Dungeon Scroll?

 Seth: A design exists… <rubs hands evilly>  But not sure if I’ll be getting to it next because there are so many things I’d like to do and I’m pretty slow.

 The Current Gamer: After working on 2 titles for the iTunes app store, what would you like to change most about the app store if you could?

 Seth: 

* The submission requirements should be less vague.  I have a few ideas I’m afraid to develop because I’m worried the whole concept would be rejected.

* App rejections that happen for extremely minor things (like, they didn’t like a keyword, or the website, or..) shouldn’t get pushed to the back of the line.

* They should give me a way to verify who bought a game.  That way, I could give people who bought Dungeon Scroll iPhone a free copy of the PC version or something like that.

 The Current Gamer: In a presentation Steve Jobs gave not to long ago, I think he said there are something like over 21,000 games available on the itunes app store. A very large portion (if not almost all) of the top 25 apps in the store are games. Are you surprised just how  fast gaming on the iPhone and iTouch has taken off? Also, what do you think this all means to the industry as an independent developer?

Seth: Yeah, Apple really nailed it.  Everybody is now madly running around making their own app store clone on every gaming platform out there. Despite the race to the bottom in pricing I think this is overall a good thing for independent developers and a giant win for players.

  A robust rating system (combined with word of mouth online, gaming blogs, etc) should cause bad games to fall off the top seller lists and good games to rise.  It won’t matter how much marketing muscle you have if your game is mediocre.

 Thank you Seth and Robinson Technologies for participating in our developer interview series!