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Today we have our first interview that spans multiple games. QuantumSquid Interactive has released three Xbox Live Community Games: Battle Havoc, Rabid Gophers, and Dock’em. Dane Emerson from QuantumSquid Interactive has answer a few questions for us about their titles and developing XNA games in general.
Question: How and when did QuantumSquid Interactive form?
Dane Emerson: QuantumSquid Interactive was actually created several years ago, however, it was not until the later part of 2008 that we actually started focusing full-time on XNA and XBLCG development. Prior to that, we had done some R&D and conceptual work with the Torque engine, as well as some of our own engine development. We have actually developed an impressive real-time 3D engine and editor in XNA prior to switching to 2D and smaller scope games. We are still planning on a large scope, full 3D adventure game sometime in the future.
Question: Who all is involved in creating games with QuantumSquid?
Dane Emerson: We are a relatively small group right now and intend to keep the company pretty lean if we can. There are 3 of us that work full-time at QuantumSquid currently, with the potential addition of 2-4 more in the near future. We each wear a couple of different hats but it is mainly split into coding, art, and biz/design. Shawn Lehner does the coding, Nat Iwata does the art, and I handle the broader creative design decisions and business stuff. We all contribute to game specific design ideas throughout the project. Nat also did the original music for the Battle Havoc game.
Question: You guys have released three Xbox Live Community Games in the 6 months since else. Can you tell us a little about each one?
Dane Emerson: Yes, we have released 3 XBLCG titles so far: Battle Havoc, Rabid Gophers, and Dock’em.
Battle Havoc can best be described as an artillery type of game in the vein of Scorched Earth and Worms, with the added element of jet thrusters and real-time combat action, rather than turn-based. A deathmatch-flying-artillery game, if you will…
Rabid Gophers is a collection of reflex type mini-games where the player uses the buttons on the controller to put a gruesome end to rabid gophers terrorizing a small farm. It’s an easy game to jump in and play for a few rounds when you only have a few minutes. It also has a peer-to-peer leader board for bragging rights.
Dock’em is a “chaos management” game in which the player must direct various ships to their respective docks without crashing into each other or the land. Ships start appearing at increasingly shorter intervals, keeping the player on their toes at all times. This game also has a leader board that shows the top 50 players and the number of boats they have docked in a single game.
Question: What is the most challenging part of creating Community Games?
Dane Emerson: Working in XNA is very nice, so there is not really anything “challenging” in the technical respect. Overall, the XNA development community is excellent and it has been great being a part of it. From our experience so far, the lifecycle for most of the games on XBLCG is very short and this makes it difficult to be financially viable in developing for Community Games. The biggest issue, as with any marketplace that is continually expanding, is exposure. Currently with XBLCG, you pretty much have 2 lists that you can get your game on and be noticed: New Arrivals and Most Popular (and now a third, with IGN Top Picks list). You will eventually fall off of the New Arrivals list. So, if you can manage to get/stay on the Most Popular list in some capacity, you will get some sales. However, once you are off the “lists”, sales become almost non-existent.
Question: Which of your games Rabid Gophers, Dock'em, or Battle Havoc was your favorite to create?
Dane Emerson: This is sort of a hard one to answer. We are proud of each of them for different reasons. In some respects it would be Battle Havoc because this was the first one we released collectively and is the game we have the most fun playing as a group. It was also the game we spent the most time working on due to its larger scope.
Question: Are you working on your fourth game already? If so, can you give us an idea of what it will be?
Dane Emerson: At this time we are taking a small step back from the XBLCG distribution channel to see how it continues to evolve. We are currently in the process of working on an original iPhone game to be released later this summer. All I can say at this time is that it’s a pickup-and-play casual game, with a completely original take on “chaos management” type of game play. We also have a much larger scope game that we have begun development on as well. We are looking to release this title on the XBLA channel. More details to follow, once our QuantumSquid website gets completed.
Question: Looking back on your games what are you are most proud of?
We are very proud of the fact that all 3 of our games so far have been on the XBLCG Most Popular list for at least 2 or more weeks, with all 3 of them being on Major Nelson’s Top 10 list at least once. Battle Havoc and Rabid Gophers were 2 of the 9 games selected to be in the inaugural IGN Top Picks list when it debuted on the Xbox. It’s great to see that people like our games.
We are also quite proud of Dock’em in that we developed this game from start to final submission in under 10 days. We are particularly proud of this because we wanted to test our ability to release a polished, casual game in an extremely short development cycle.
Question: If you could change one thing about Community Games what would it be?
Dane Emerson: First, I would like to say that having XBLCG as a distribution channel for our games is a pretty revolutionary and valuable opportunity. Where else are you going to be able to potentially distribute your game to such a large “captive” group of game buyers without the higher costs and hoops of developing for a managed distribution channel like XBLA or PSN? The internet is one alternative but getting your game noticed on the web, with even minimal sales (let alone decent sales), is statistically an extreme long shot. The iPhone app store is another alternative with a “captive” audience of potential buyers, but that is steadily becoming just like the web in terms of your game being lost and never found (bought) by anyone. However, the one thing that the iPhone app store has that XBLCG does not is UPSIDE. One week of sales being in the Top 10 on the iPhone app store would generate revenue equal (if not significantly more) to having your game consistently at the #1 spot on the Most Popular list on XBLCG for months. There is no comparison if you take into account your game’s potential to attain the #1 spot on the app store, if even for a few days. Granted, this is a bit like saying “If I could just make it into the NBA, I would be set…”, but at least there is an UPSIDE. That being said…
The overall download numbers for trial games on the XBLCG channel seems very low. Consequently, even a relatively high conversion rate does not produce that many sales. Some examples are excellent XBLCG games like Weapon of Choice, Biology Battle and Carneyvale Showtime, where they had a lot of initial buzz but all have publicly said that sales were much much lower than they had hoped and/or needed. Assuming that these games had a decent conversion rate, the issue all starts with the low number of trial downloads. Make the XBLCG channel more prominent on the Xbox. I am not necessarily suggesting that they make it more prominent than XBLA or the rest of the channels, but make it much easier to get into the XBLCG channel and feature a few of the more polished XBLCG games with some equal exposure. If XBLCG can simply just get a huge increase in the amount of free trials being downloaded, a great game and a decent conversion rate will, in turn, take care of the rest.
Speaking for ourselves as developers, all we really want is an opportunity to have “access” to the millions of potential buyers on Xbox Live and let the quality of our games determine if they want to make the jump from trial to purchase. As it stands now, millions of potential buyers go to XBLA to check out new games, only a small fraction of those buyers ever see/download an XBLCG trial. Without a lot of eyes on our games, there is not much of a chance for an upside. Perhaps the solution is to combine XBLA with XBLCG and just have one source for downloadable games on the Xbox, similar to the iPhone app store. Here is a question that I don’t really know the answer to, but I will pose it anyway, “How well would Castle Crashers have done had it been released in the XBLCG channel the way it currently is now?” Would it have gotten near the number of free trial downloads it would have needed to make it the hugely successful game it is now? If a game of exactly the same high caliber were released on XBLCG, I maintain that it would have a fraction of the success currently.
I know you said “one thing”, but my other suggestion is to separate “non-games” and actual games within XBLCG. It is clear that users on Xbox Live are interested in non-games for their consoles, as demonstrated by the consistency of non-games being at the top of the Most Popular list. If there was clear separation between the two types it would still give the Xbox Live community what they seem to be interested in, but it would also help some of the games stand out separately as well. This separation would most likely amount to continued downloads/purchases for the top non-games; in parallel, increase the downloads/purchases of the top games as well. Right now XBLCG is having trouble being identified as a source for the millions of Xbox Live players to get great, lower cost games. As you can see on XBLCG there are more and more non-games being released and maintaining top spots in the Most Popular list. Ultimately this will continue to drive out dedicated game developers looking to release polished, upper-end games for XBLCG, especially if they see that releasing a good game does not translate to downloads/sales.
Question: Are there any hints or tips players should know about for you games?
Dane Emerson: For Battle Havoc, it’s all about getting really good at using your jet thrusters and spending a lot of time in the air (flying targets are a lot harder to hit). Also, if you get a full set of Gold Medals in the single player mode, you get a “Golden HUD”. This gives you a permanent 10 point increase to your health. This extra 10 health allows you to take 4 shots with default weapon before dying, as opposed to 3 shots without the “Golden HUD”.
In Rabid Gophers it’s really about memorizing where the buttons are on the controller. After that, is all about getting in a groove once they start popping really fast.
My advice for Dock’em is to make use of the auto-targeting when selecting ships. It can get quite chaotic when several ships are all coming in. You don’t necessarily have to move the cursor so that its directly over a ship. If you move the cursor so that it’s just closest to the ship you want to target and press the A button, the cursor will auto-snap to that ship. This helps out a ton when going for that high score. |
The other way to stay noticeable is to be a contest winner, not many games in that category, so it's decent long term exposure.
What kind of advertising are you doing? Twitter is pretty huge on viral marketing...are you guys on there?
I wish they were rolling out the rating system sooner...I'm itching for the opportunity to 1-star all the crap that is poisoning CGs.
How about a couple more levels for Dock'em? Would like to see some maps that have more islands/obstacles to increase the difficulty (Medium and Hard). Shouldn't be too hard, considering the game itself took 10 days to make.