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POST MORTEM
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Ethan Einhorn - History
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SEGA Producer, Digital Content
• Sonic The Hedgehog iPod• Super Monkey Ball iPhone• Sonic’s Ultimate Genesis
Collection X360/PS3• Future Premium iPhone
games
Ethan Einhorn - History
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Chris Sharpley - History
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Chris Sharpley - History
Consultant Art Director at Other Ocean Interactive, & Learning Manager at Holland College, Prince Edward Island.
15 years working as a digital artist and designer in the video game industry.
Recent credits include "Ultimate Mortal Kombat" on DS and "Super Monkey Ball" on iPhone.
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Previously worked on "Archer Maclean's Mercury" for PSP and "Mercury Meltdown" on PSP, PS2 and Wii. Similar art production pipeline to Super Monkey Ball.
Games made use of a prototype tilt controller for the PSP.
Chris Sharpley - History
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• Pitch to Apple - easy to imagine mechanics
• Gameplay tied to the strengths of the device
• Can Other Ocean stay for a few weeks?
Along Comes iPhone
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• Work begins on the stage demo
• Game up and running in three days
• Two programmers, and one artist.
Crunch Time
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• Four stages• Photo-realistic
backgrounds (not in final version)
• Place-holder UI
Apple Town Hall – The Debut
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• Twelve weeks to have a full-featured product ready
• No specific release schedule
• Surprise request to show the near final product to the public
Quick to Alpha, Quick to Beta
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• In Apple we Trust• Internal
excitement• Hitting on day one• A high profile
opportunity for Other Ocean.
LAUNCH!
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Level Design
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Level Design
Initial SMB game design required at least 100 levels.
Rough ideas were modeled in 3D and explained on annotated design sheets.
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Level Design
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Level Design
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Level Design
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Design meetings allowed the team to explore their designs. Many of the rough ideas were thrown out.
All were modified.
Some levels were combined with others.
Level Design
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Level Design
Eventually 150 levels were chosen to be properly modelled and tested.
All levels were intended to be completed by players in less than 4 attempts.
This would have meant that the entire game could have been completed in just 2 or 3 hours.
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Level Design
Each level was given a secondary objective: Collect the bananas!
Many levels were adjusted to make banana collection more challenging.
An extra 10 unlockable levels were added as a reward for collecting bananas.
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Level Design
After testing gameplay, we decided our bonus levels would use 25 bananas instead of the usual 50.
At one stage, we used apples instead of bananas.
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Level Design
Final game used 110 levels.
Levels were tested and assigned a difficulty rating. 10 "Classic" levels were imported from other Monkey Ball titles.
The final order was intended to evenly distribute levels based on dexterity, fun, speed and difficulty.
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Art Production
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Art Production
Art style for Super Monkey Ball on the iPhone inspired by "Banana Blitz" for the Wii.
No Wii assets were actually used - everything was recreated for the iPhone.
(...apart from 4 monkey sprites from "Touch & Roll" on the DS)
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5 unique sets of level textures.
Each world used one checkerboard texture, and one abstract texture.
Checkerboard textures were used for rectangular sections.
Abstract textures were used for non-geometric sections.
Art Production
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Art Production
Level animations were kept simple.
Mostly slow rotations and horizontal movement.
Large vertical movements caused camera motion that would confuse the player.
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Art Production
Tutorial was planned for the game, but not included in final release.
Our ability to release updates via the Appstore allowed us to add a tutorial to the game.
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10 THINGS WE LEARNED10 THINGS WE LEARNED
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1. LISTEN TO FEEDBACK, RESPOND QUICKLY
• Understand the value of user reviews
• Read the needs of the audience
• Learn to better target your audience through product updates
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1. USE AN INTERNAL TEST TEAMIF POSSIBLE.
• Instant feedback.• Less confusion.• Speeds up the
development process.
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2. DON’T PLAY PRICE WARS
• Don’t under-charge for your Apps
• Keep the highest price you can while staying in the top 50
• A good brand is evergreen, and every week brings new users
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2. STRETCH A NEW DEVICETO ITS LIMITS.
• If a cell phone has “console power”, create console content.
• Casual gamers want high production values.
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3. CONSIDER THE PROs AND CONsOF “LITE” VERSIONS.
• Good for New IP and complex games
• Less helpful for well-reviewed games that are already easy for consumers to understand.
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3. DON'T UNDERESTIMATE THE CHALLENGE OF BRINGING A
HARDCORE GAME TO A CASUAL MARKET.
• Casual games aren't “simple” games.
• Sometimes, content has to be added to make a game suitable for a casual audience.
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4. MANY OF YOUR USERS WILL BE NEW THE PROPERTY
• A high number of consumers state that their first exposure to Super Monkey Ball is on iPhone
• Do not assume that your customers will buy your game based on brand awareness alone.
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4. MAKE EFFICIENT USE OF COMMUNICATIONS BETWEEN PUBLISHER AND DEVELOPER.
• Tight deadlines require quick responses.
• Spanning three timezones can be challenging.
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5. USER REVIEWS ARE KING
• This product is not tracked on Gamerankings or Metacritic.
• User reviews begin to act as a massive forum, both for owners of the game and curious customers
• Thousands of reviews for SMB
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5. WHEN CREATING 100'S OF LEVELS, START SIMPLE,
THEN ADD REFINEMENTS.
• Dealing with 100's of assets can be confusing.
• Start with basic ideas, then add complexity.
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6. DON’T MAKE IT TOO HARD
• Customers do not want a steep learning curve
• There is a need for players to feel success for every two minutes of gameplay
• Getting to the end of a game should be foolproof
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6. AGGRESSIVE DEADLINES FOCUSTHE DEVELOPMENT PROCESS.
• Only the most important features of the game could be addressed.
• Time wasn't wasted on superfluous features.
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7. BUILD TO THE DEVICE
• Super Monkey Ball succeeded in good part because only the iPhone was capable of delivering on the ‘tilt’ gameplay
• The mechanics are very easy to describe and demonstrate
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7. NEW OPPORTUNITIES CAN BE RISKY.
• Super Monkey Ball for the iPhone was initially a risky venture.
• Its success opened us up to a wide range of iPhone opportunities.
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8. MAKE SURE CONSUMERS “GET IT” IN 10 SECONDS
• If an iPhone game does not look fun right away, players will move on
• “Over the shoulder” impressions are important
• Keep tutorials interactive
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8. AN SMALL, EXPERIENCED TEAM CAN BE MORE AGILE.
• Expanding the team was an option.
• Adding less experienced members would probably have slowed-down production.
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9. KEEP THINGS SIMPLE
• SMB Monkeys all control the same
• No jumping• No pressing /
touching• Just tilting
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9. BE OPEN TO WORKINGWITH LICENSED I.P.
• Use licensed I.P. and recognizable brands to your advantage.
• This strategy can provide resources that enable you to develop your own I.P.
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10. CONSIDER THE PLAY ENVIRONMENT
• Bite-sized gameplay
• Make saving your progress frequent and invisible to the user
• Avoid dark backgrounds
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10. IF POSSIBLE, USE A TEAM THAT UNDERSTANDS A BRAND.
• Team were already fans of Apple, SEGA and Super Monkey Ball.
• SEGA of Japan places a high value on developers who appreciate their I.P.