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Tag: interviews

  • ‘Samba De Amigo Party-To-Go’ Apple Arcade Interview – Shun Nakamura on Reviving Amigo, Song Choices, Motion Controls on Nintendo Switch, and More – TouchArcade

    ‘Samba De Amigo Party-To-Go’ Apple Arcade Interview – Shun Nakamura on Reviving Amigo, Song Choices, Motion Controls on Nintendo Switch, and More – TouchArcade

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    SEGA recently released Samba de Amigo: Party-To-Go () on Apple Arcade and Samba de Amigo: Party Central on Nintendo Switch worldwide as the first new entries in the series in ages. Read our review of the Apple Arcade game here and Nintendo Switch game here. Following both of those launches, I had a chance to talk to the legendary Shun Nakamura from SEGA about Samba de Amigo, reviving the series, other SEGA franchises he hopes to bring back, song choices, future plans, motion controls, his favorite coffee, what he’s playing right now, and a lot more.

    TouchArcade: Firstly, a belated Happy Birthday to you.

    Shun Nakamura: Thank you. I turned 51. Usually in Japan, people will work until 60, so for now, I’d like to do the best I can within the 9 years so that I have no regrets.

    TA: Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you’ve been doing recently at SEGA.

    SN: Yes, so recently, as you may be aware, I have been actively working to bring back Samba de Amigo to this modern era. Even at this age, regarding new hardware, I was reminded again of how new and fun it was to have it in my hands, and how fascinating it is to think of making something new. As a creator, I’ve been mainly focused on developing Samba, but other than that, my department has been busy working on a lot of titles planned to be released, such as Sonic Superstars and the Sonic Frontiers update.

    TA: The Samba de Amigo series has been around for over two decades. What led to it getting a revival across Apple Arcade, Switch, and VR?

    SN: A big factor is that it has been common in the industry as of late to bring back previous IPs. With that in mind, when the Nintendo Switch hardware was explained to me for the first time, I thought we may be able to develop a new Samba if there are two Joy-Con included on the Switch. At first, we tried making a different title that had a unique twist, but it ended up not making it to release. Even then, I wanted to challenge myself to try again, and so this trend in the industry was a big reason why Samba has gotten a revival. With that in mind, with the appeal of all these other platforms, such as the ease of use with Apple Arcade, and the immersive feeling of VR, I thought both were appropriate to spread the casual side of Samba, so we’ve made the decision to develop it as multiplatform title while focusing on each platform’s strengths.

    TA: How did you approach resurrecting Samba de Amigo for the modern era?

    SN: Bringing back older IPs can be very difficult, because if it stays the same as it was in the past, we won’t attract new users, and if we make everything new, it may not be appealing to the original game’s fans. Taking this, we took the method to keep the base of the concept the same, but modernizing it. This title has the concept, “silly and fun.” Even if the generation may have changed, the appeal of the concept itself doesn’t change. In the past, we had places like arcades where people were able to have fun around others, so I questioned where people would do that now. To me, it would be places like TikTok or social media. There is a common connection there where you would play music and have so much fun dancing while everyone watches. With that, I revived the new Samba that kept the same core “silly fun” concept of the original, and then implemented that modern TikTok culture where people can have fun with music and movement into the game.

    TA: While the Switch version is getting paid DLC, Apple Arcade likely will see new content through updates. Tell us a little bit about how the songs were chosen for Samba de Amigo Party-To-Go.

    SN: Yes, regarding Apple Arcade, songs will be added through updates, so please look forward to it!

    We also discussed a lot on how we could modernize the music along with the game. We received a lot of feedback during the Dreamcast days that people wanted to play with songs that are not only from the Latin music genre. Back in the day, we used to only develop for the arcades in Japan, so we weren’t thinking about branching out to the overseas market at the time. This time, as we worked on modernizing the game, we chose songs that a lot of the users from around the world would be able to enjoy. Also, it was extremely difficult to choose the songs from the perspective of someone living in Japan, especially regarding current Western trends. We now had overseas staff, and a Western advisor helped choose the songs, and left it in their hands to make the final list. In addition, what us on the dev side thought was important was whether our concept would fit with that given song. Some tracks with a good rhythm may have this upbeat tempo that continues forever, but has no intonations in between, which we felt was key to having a dynamic and enjoyable experience. To that end, we chose our song candidates for the game based on if people would be able to let loose and feel the “silly fun” of Samba.

    TA: How was it translating the traditional motion control gameplay to touch controllers?

    SN: Even in the previous Dreamcast version, there were more users that enjoyed using the controller, so I already had a feeling that it was going to be fun even if it wasn’t with motion controls. Regarding the touch controllers, I made a title in the past called Rhythm Thief & the Emperor’s Treasure for Nintendo 3DS and I put a Samba minigame inside of it. That game was played via touch – it also worked pretty well, and players had fun with it. Touch controllers also don’t have that random “wing it” aspect that motion controls tend to have, so I thought that users would still have plenty of fun. Therefore, in this case, I had no concerns in translating it over. However, aspects such as body movements and finger movements do differ with the motion controls compared to touch, so the “fun” people find in the game can differ as well. Either way, I’d be thrilled if players could give both a try.

    TA: Will Samba de Amigo on Apple Arcade get motion controller support with Joy-Cons in the future since iOS devices now support Joy-Cons?

    SN: The game does support Joy-Con controllers, but the buttons on the Joy-Con are different from those found on other controllers. Therefore, those who want to use them will need to adjust the button mapping through their iPhone settings, so that works. But while with other games, it is simply a matter of changing the controls, this game puts a lot of emphasis on specific buttons and their positions in relation to what’s happening on the screen, so players will need to keep this in mind when making those adjustments.

    As for motion controls, due to the complexity involved with what I just went over, we do not plan to support that at this time.

    TA: A lot of classic SEGA songs from prior games aren’t included in Samba de Amigo Party-To-Go. Are there plans to bring Samba de Janeiro to the game? It felt like the theme song for the series.

    SN: As I shared in a previous answer, we are planning on adding a variety of songs through future updates to the game. Various things are still currently under consideration, so I would ask to please look forward to what we have planned!

    TA: Sega has a rich history of music across its own games, and also Atlus titles. Will any of those songs be added to Samba de Amigo Party-To-Go?

    SN: Likewise, we have received a lot of feedback. We hope that this title reaches more people, and from there, we’d like to add even more songs.

    TA: What are your thoughts on the current state of rhythm games today?

    SN: In the department that I’m part of, there is a Music Team that makes a very popular arcade game in Japan called “maimai”. We were able to ask for their advice and have them involved in the development as well. In the classic rhythm games, there are video games like this, and additionally, Sega has a mobile title called “Hatsune Miku: Colorful Stage!”. We think that these games both deliver both the deepness and the variety, thus reaching more users.

    I feel like there are a lot of games that are closer to that feeling of playing a live instrument, and you are just making these very predetermined or predictable moves while playing. I personally want to leave those types of games for others to make and instead create something that has the charm of something that lets players think outside of the box but still has that important appeal of a video game, like Samba.

    TA: What is your favorite game that you’ve worked on across all the years?

    SN: I mentioned it before, but there is a game called Rhythm Thief & the Emperor’s Treasure that I love and is a game I feel like we could have done more with. It combines music and gameplay, linking both of those elements together instead of just standard gameplay, and there’s also a storyline on top of that. There are some parts that weren’t quite there, but it’s definitely a title I love.

    TA: If you could, which SEGA franchise would you bring back today that you haven’t had a chance to so far.

    SN: The Sonic series, which I continue to work on, is supported by a vast amount of fans and has multiple games to its name. So, in terms of games that I’ve had a deep involvement with and do not have a sequel, one would be Billy Hatcher, and the other, again, would have to be Rhythm Thief & the Emperor’s Treasure. I have a lot of ideas I want to try out now for both games so I’m hoping I will have an opportunity, just like with Samba.

    TA: What have you been playing recently?

    SN: I played Pikmin 4 recently. It’s a game I’ve loved since the first game so I’m personally happy that this game reached a lot of people with this 4th installment. The GameCube had a lot of great games. Billy Hatcher’s a great game as well by the way! Haha

    TA: What is your favorite kind of coffee if you have one?

    SN: I just absolutely love my café lattes and I drink over 3 cups a day. It’s a great stress reliever to have when I’m overworked so I can’t imagine a world without it.

    We’d like to thank Shun Nakamura and Apple for their time here.

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    Mikhail Madnani

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  • Fate/Samurai Remnant Interview – Director Ryota Matsushita on Working With the Fate IP, the Steam Deck, Learnings From Prior Games, His Dream Action RPG Projects, and More

    Fate/Samurai Remnant Interview – Director Ryota Matsushita on Working With the Fate IP, the Steam Deck, Learnings From Prior Games, His Dream Action RPG Projects, and More

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    Ahead of this month’s launch of Fate/Samurai Remnant, I had a chance to talk to Ryota Matsushita (Director at Koei Tecmo Games) about various topics relating to the game and his career. I’ve been a huge fan of the Warriors/Musou games for years now, and was curious how the team approached this action RPG which feels like the developer’s most ambitious game in a while. I also covered the Steam Deck, his dream action RPG projects, how this is approachable for newcomers and more. There will be no spoilers for the game in this interview.

    TouchArcade: You’ve worked on some of my favorite Koei Tecmo games ever with Samurai Warriors 4, 4-2, 4-Empires, and even worked on Nintendo’s Hyrule Warriors Age of Calamity that had excellent gameplay. How has it been working with Omega Force over the years?

    Ryota Matsushita: Thank you, and I hope this title becomes one of your favorites! Game development is both fun and challenging work, and every day seems to bring a new series of challenges. I feel blessed to have the opportunity to collaborate with other companies, as it allows me to gain new insights and grow. Working with TYPE-MOON on Fate/Samurai Remnant was also a very exciting experience.

    TA: Tell us a little bit about how Fate/Samurai Remnant aims to be accessible to newcomers and also to fans of Warriors/Musou fans?

    RM: While this title will of course deliver the experience longtime fans have come to expect, it’s also designed so that it can actually be an introduction to the Fate series. The main character, Iori, and his Servant, Saber, are involved in battles without sufficient knowledge of the Holy Grail War (the Waxing Moon Ritual), so the game progresses as they naturally learn the rules behind the Holy Grail War. Because of this structure, players are able to learn the world and tone of the Fate series. In addition, since Iori is a master of the sword, he can perform exhilarating Warriors-like actions when dealing with human opponents. Only if you are dealing with humans, though…

    TA: What was the biggest challenge in working with the Fate IP from TYPE-MOON?

    RM: Since the consistent goal of this work was to “depict the Holy Grail War from the Master’s point of view,” we were particular in our approach of expressing “the action between the Master and Servant”. (This was quite a difficult journey) Servants are far stronger than the human protagonist, and there is a huge difference in power, but I believe we were able to achieve a completely new experience of “partner action with an unequal and united sense of togetherness,” while still maintaining both the exhilaration and strategy of an action game.

    TA: Based on my time with the game, Fate/Samurai Remnant feels more ambitious than prior games from Omega Force. What do you think makes it stand out from prior Fate IP action RPGs, and also Koei Tecmo’s action RPGs?

    RM: Thank you very much. We worked in full cooperation with TYPE-MOON, and in particular, we faced the issue of whether the story of Fate could be expressed accurately in the form of a game, from a fair standpoint. This allowed us to create a unique game experience where the story and gameplay are not disconnected, and the player becomes Iori and survives the Holy Grail War while being caught up in the unforeseeable development of the story.

    TA: What learnings from Samurai Warriors 4, Warriors Orochi 4, and prior games you worked on helped with Fate/Samurai Remnant?

    RM: In fact, the title “SAMURAI WARRIORS: Spirit of Sanada” included a gameplay element of walking around the castle town, which lives on in some of the designs of the city of Edo in this title. On the other hand, “a protagonist who can outwit anyone” is not at all feasible in a game in which a human Master confronts a powerful Servant! The harshness and recklessness of surviving the Holy Grail War and the challenging experience of working together with a partner to face a powerful enemy are the points we put a lot of effort into when creating this title.

    TA: You have been playing the game and it is releasing on PS5, PS4, Switch, and PC. How has it been working with many platforms for such a big game in terms of optimization, and which is your favorite version of the game?

    RM: We have support from our company internally, but it’s not always easy because we actually create several different game titles at the same time. But of course, it’s not a bothersome task, especially since we are working on this new approach to the Fate series, so that many people can enjoy the same experience worldwide. And of course, I won’t answer which platform is the best!

    TA: Fate/Samurai Remnant works great on Steam Deck so far. Has the team done additional work and tested on the handheld?

    RM: Thank you for noticing. We actually did test it out on Steam Deck, as it’s a title that we hope you will take the time to enjoy the story in your living room. We just didn’t have enough time to do so, so we passed on acquiring the badge. (Editor’s note: I think he means the Steam Deck Verification badge for the game)

    TA: What games are you playing in your free time and what are your favorite games of 2023?
    RM: It’s “Armored Core 6″! I can’t believe that learning how to evade guided missiles 20 years ago is still useful today…

    TA: What is your dream brand to work with on an action RPG in the future?

    RM: This is just off the top of my head, but I’d have to say “LEGO” and “The Elder Scrolls”.

    TA: What is your favorite feature in Fate/Samurai Remnant from a director’s perspective?

    RM: My favorite part is that Saber is always with Iori. Saber seems uninhibited and selfish, but they’re very charming. Saber is very interested in the culture and scenery of the Edo period and will call out to you like a three-year-old child, “What is that?”. Even if you (Iori) are tired of the carnage of battle (or the stress of reality), Saber will always be there to brighten your journey.

    Fate/Samurai Remnant launches on September 29th worldwide for Nintendo Switch, Steam, PS5, and PS4.

    We’d like to thank Ryota Matsushita, Koei Tecmo America, and One PR Studio for their time here.

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    Mikhail Madnani

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  • Haim Say They’re Working With Jai Paul on New Music

    Haim Say They’re Working With Jai Paul on New Music

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    Haim were on a new episode of Lauren Laverne’s BBC Radio 6 Music show to discuss their All Points East performance, the anniversary of Days Are Gone, and more. The trio also played some early 2010s songs, including Jai Paul’s “Jasmine.” At one point, Laverne asked the group, “What can you tell us about future plans? Looking ahead, will there be a new album soon?”

    The Haim sisters answered variously, “Hopefully”; “We’ve been working with some cool people”; “We played Jai Paul earlier; we might’ve been in the studio with him”; “We may or may not have been in the studio with him”; and, “Cannot confirm or deny.” (Representatives for Haim could not be reached for comment.)

    Haim are longtime admirers of Jai Paul. Danielle Haim shouted out Paul in The Wall Street Journal in 2014, and a 2013 Haim feature in The Fader includes the following anecdote:

    Nested in a booth, Danielle tells a story about emailing the enigmatic British producer Jai Paul last year to express her admiration—the only time she says she’s done this—and invite him to a show. He responded three weeks later and had only nice things to say about her band.

    Jai Paul made his live debut earlier this year at the Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival. He followed the California performances with shows in New York and London, and he has more concerts lined up for later this year. He recently released Leak 04-13 (Bait Ones) on vinyl.

    Haim shared their third album, Women in Music Pt. III, in 2020.

    RIYL: Haim’s Women in Music Pt. III

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    Matthew Strauss

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  • Trump calls his four indictments ‘nonsense’ during Tucker Carlson interview airing opposite the GOP debate

    Trump calls his four indictments ‘nonsense’ during Tucker Carlson interview airing opposite the GOP debate

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    “‘I got indicted four times, all trivia, all nonsense.’”

    That was former President Donald Trump speaking to former Fox News host Tucker Carlson in a pre-taped interview that was posted just a few minutes before the Republican presidential debate kicked off Wednesday night. 

    The wide-ranging chat that ran roughly 45 minutes saw Trump and Carlson taking shots at Trump’s legal troubles, his GOP and Democratic rivals, cable news networks and more. They did not get into pocketbook issues like inflation, Social Security or student loan debt.

    Trump confirmed over the weekend that he was skipping the first GOP primary debate for the 2024 race because “the public knows who I am,” and he had little to gain from joining his rivals on stage.

    He said something similar during the Carlson interview. “We’re doing this interview, but we’ll get bigger ratings using this crazy forum that you’re using than probably the debate,” Trump mused. “I think cable [viewership] is down because it’s lost credibility.”

    It remains to be see what sort of ratings the Fox News debate will pull in from the live broadcast, from streams and from later viewings, of course. Just before 10 p.m. Eastern, the clip posted to Tucker Carlson’s feed on X.com was approaching 75 million views.

    Read more: Non-Trump Republican presidential candidates to try for ‘breakout moment’ in this week’s debate

    Trump had teased on his Truth Social platform ahead of the debate that “sparks will fly,” and the sitdown with Carlson at the former president’s private golf club in Bedminster, N.J. And Carlson’s wide-ranging interview topics were designed with soundbites in mind, such as asking Trump about Jeffrey Epstein, or whether another civil war is brewing in the U.S. — as opposed to many issues top of mind for voters, such as high inflation.

    Tucker Carlson speaks with former President Donald Trump during a pre-taped interview, which was posted to X at the same time as the first Republican presidential debate for the 2024 primary on Wednesday.


    “Tucker on X” via X

    Some highlights from the Trump & Tucker show:

    • On why Trump skipped the Fox News debate:

    “Do I sit there for an hour or two hours, whatever it’s going to be, and get harassed by people that shouldn’t even be running for president? Should I be doing that?” he asked, especially since he’s such a frontrunner in the polls, so far.

    “I just felt it would be more appropriate not to do the debate. I don’t think it’s right to do it if you’re leading by 50, 60, one poll I’m leading by 70 points,” he said.

    And he threw in a dig to Fox News, calling it “A network that isn’t particularly friendly to me.” 

    He also said the network made “a terrible move” in firing Carlson.

    • On the state of the nation:

    “We have a country that is very fragile right now,” Trump said, arguing he’s a candidate for the left, the right and independents, alike.

    “You have great people in the Democrat party, you have great people that are Democrats. Most people in the country are fantastic,” he said, “and I’m representing everybody, I’m not just Republican or conservative, I represent everybody, I’m the president of everybody.”  

    • And on his legal issues:

    “The four indictments, and maybe there will be more, I don’t know,” he said. But he said his poll numbers and fundraising keep going up after each indictment because, “I think the people in this country don’t get enough credit for how smart they are. They get it, they really get it … I got indicted four times, all trivia, all nonsense. Bullshit, it’s all bullshit.”

    And catch up to what his GOP rivals were getting into by following MarketWatch’s debate live blog here.

    • Carlson ended the interview by asking Trump whether the country is headed for civil war or open conflict. Trump called Jan. 6 “an interesting day,” and said he didn’t know. “There’s a level of passion that I’ve never seen. There’s a level of hatred that I’ve never seen. And [that’s] probably a bad combination.”

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  • ‘Warcraft Rumble’ Interview – Game Director Tom Chilton and Executive Producer Vik Saraf on Lore, Accessibility, Potential PC Version, and More – TouchArcade

    ‘Warcraft Rumble’ Interview – Game Director Tom Chilton and Executive Producer Vik Saraf on Lore, Accessibility, Potential PC Version, and More – TouchArcade

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    In the lead up to its launch on mobile worldwide, I had a chance to talk to Warcraft Rumble Game Director Tom Chilton and Executive Producer Vik Saraf from Blizzard about the game’s lore, accessibility, a potential PC version, changes from the beta, their favorite features, and a lot more. If you’ve not followed it at all, Blizzard announced Warcraft Rumble as announced Warcraft Arclight Rumble which was revealed as a mobile game that takes place in the Warcraft universe. It has undergone changes through its betas and has soft launched in select regions worldwide. I got into the Warcraft universe through Hearthstone, so I’ve also been curious how Warcraft Rumble will be at bringing people into the world. Tom has been at Blizzard for a very long time and Vik has been working on mobile games for ages. This interview will also have a few specific questions to both Tom and Vik at the end.

    TouchArcade:Tell us a little bit about yourself and your work on not just Warcraft Rumble, but also Blizzard in general over the years.

    Tom Chilton: I’ve been at Blizzard since way back in 2004, when I was part of the team working on the initial release of World of Warcraft, first as a senior designer, then as lead designer as we released WoW, and then eventually as Game Director from Cataclysm through Legion. I eventually went on to start the Warcraft Rumble team, and since then it’s been my responsibility to guide our vision for the game, and make sure that what players get their hands on matches that vision.

    Vik Saraf: I actually joined Blizzard specifically to work on Rumble after spending most of my
    career working on mobile games. As the Executive Producer, my job is to help our amazing development team with whatever they need to make Warcraft Rumble everything we want it to be.

    TA: While most people back then played and enjoyed Hearthstone because of the Warcraft lore being included, I was actually introduced to Warcraft lore through Hearthstone. Will Warcraft Rumble do the same for newcomers?

    TC: That’s absolutely one of our goals! We think Warcraft Rumble can be a great way for people to dip their toes into Warcraft who might never have played a game in our universe before. We’ve got a ton of fan favorite characters and locations from the other Warcraft-games, distilled into miniature form to give new players a whirlwind tour of all the highlights of Azeroth. At the same time, we also want to make sure this is a game that appeals to players who want more ways to interact with the Warcraft universe, so there are a ton of fun callbacks and references to for instance Classic-era World of Warcraft that we can’t wait for players to see.

    TA: How does Warcraft Rumble stand out from the many games in the genre on mobile?

    VS: I think one of the things that has been really important to us is striking the right balance between making sure the game is accessible to new players, but also has the kind of depth and polish that you’d expect from a game inspired by Warcraft’s strategy roots. We’ve also got a huge amount of both single-player and PvP content, including a massive campaign (to which we’ve added a new Heroic mode) as well as game modes like Dungeons and Arclight Surge.

    TA: So far, Warcraft Rumble seems like a more ambitious take on the genre in ways, but still looks like it was designed for playing on mobile. How do you balance a game like this to cater to newcomers and veterans?

    TC: That’s a great question. I think this has a lot to do with making sure the onboarding experience is solid so that players can quickly get a handle on the mechanics, and this is something we’ve put a lot of effort into refining during our closed beta. We’ve also thought a lot about how to make the game easily readable on a small screen. You need to be able to see which mini is which, and what those minis are doing on the map. Our artists and animators have done an amazing job here!

    TA: What changes have been made to Warcraft Rumble since its announcement and closed beta?

    TC: So many! We’ve really added a lot to the game, as well as refining and reworking a lot of what was already there. Some of the biggest ones are the Heroic Campaign, which adds a handcrafted layer of extra difficulty on top of our existing campaign missions, Arclight Surge, which infuses two zones on the map with chaotic modifiers, as well as a complete PvP overhaul. Our PvP system now features rotating maps, towers and modifiers, and we’ve also added new zones, dungeons, talents and PvP maps.

    TA: How was the response to the closed beta?

    VS: We are super grateful to our closed beta players, who shared with us both so much of what they love about the game, as well as some areas in which we could improve. Their input is a large part of why we’ve been overhauling the onboarding experience, as well as adding the Heroic campaign.

    TA: Will Warcraft Rumble be fully playable as a PvE experience or will PvP be forced?

    TC: We want people to be able to play our game in the way that is most fun for them. If you’re a hardcore PvP player, then there are loads of opportunities for you to both progress and test your skills against others. At the same time, if you’re more into PvE and want to focus on our campaign, dungeons and other solo content, you can advance, expand, and even max out your collection of leaders and minis without ever setting foot into PvP.

    TA: Are there plans to bring Warcraft Rumble to PC in some form?

    VS: We’ve heard a lot of folks asking for this! Right now, the team is really focused on making sure our upcoming launch on mobile is as good as it can be, but we’ll keep listening to our players and evaluate this in the future.

    TA: Over the years, many Blizzard game releases included bonuses for players of the developer’s other titles. Will Warcraft Rumble unlock anything in other Blizzard games?

    TC: We’ve got some fun plans in the works here, but nothing that we can announce today. Keep your eyes peeled, though!

    TA: What are your plans for Warcraft Rumble following its launch? Should we expect seasons, battle passes, and regular content?
    TC: We’ve actually already got seasons in our PvP system! They come with rotating modifiers and towers to keep the meta fresh and players on their toes. That said, we absolutely plan to keep introducing new minis, maps and more to our players at regular intervals after our launch. As with the game as a whole, our goal is for players to be able to access all of it for free, should they choose to!

    I also had a few questions specifically for each interviewee. They are below.

    TA: (For Tom) You’ve worked on both Ultima Online and World of Warcraft. What learnings from those releases did you take into Warcraft Rumble?

    TC: There have certainly been an enormous number of learnings from the development of both games that I’ve carried into the development of Warcraft Rumble. A few examples would be the importance of having an efficient content-creation pipeline, an understanding of player motivations, and various learnings about the systems and feature development process. From World of Warcraft specifically, some of the most significant experiences to carry over have been learnings about world building, content/encounter design and balance, onboarding players to a game, the fundamental structure of content and systems, and plenty more lessons about game systems design to go with it all.

    TA: (For Tom)How has it been seeing the response to your work at Blizzard over the years across projects?

    TC: It has been an incredible and wonderful journey, no doubt. As I approach my 20th year at Blizzard, I can’t help but feel as though those years have gone by in a blink. I’m still in disbelief on a daily basis that we have team members now that were children when World of Warcraft was first released, and it continues to be such a humbling and fortunate experience to remember that the work we’ve done has touched the lives of so many people. I very much hope that as people play Warcraft Rumble, they’ll have a fantastic time with a game that the team has lovingly crafted, ideally for years to come.

    TA: (For Vik) You joined Blizzard in 2019 after working at loads of places across generations of games on mobile. What do you think of the current state of the mobile industry?

    VS: I’ve been fortunate to work on mobile games for two decades and witness its evolution from small, 64KB games to the high-quality experiences that you find on the stores. I’ve never been more excited about a game’s launch or an era in mobile gaming than the one we are in right now. Some of the best AAA games are living and thriving on iOS and Android, and we feel now is the perfect time to introduce a new Warcraft experience to gamers. One that was thoughtfully designed to deliver a deep and rich Warcraft experience that gamers have come to expect of the brand, but also with the broad accessibility desired by mobile gamers.

    warcraft rumble mobile starting game area location

    TA: (For Vik) What is your take on how we’ve seen subscription services like Apple Arcade and Netflix Games grow over the years?

    VS: I’ve always felt that continuous exploration of different service offerings is what has made mobile gaming evolve so quickly. It’s great to see so much excitement around trying to find opportunities to offer subscription services.

    TA: (For both) What is your favorite feature in Warcraft Rumble ?

    VS: It changes so much, even on a session-by-session basis. I would say that being able to collect and progress my minis in so many unique ways always fills me with excitement and anticipation.

    TC: Ultimately the campaign (including the heroic campaign) is the backbone of the Warcraft Rumble experience, so I think it continues to be the feature that is the most defining feature of the game. That being said, it is ultimately the core moment-to-moment gameplay that makes everything about the game work, with the individual features of the game creating great reasons to experience the gameplay.

    Thanks to Tom Chilton and Vik Saraf for their time here.

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    Mikhail Madnani

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  • Yahoo CEO says the company plans a return to the public markets

    Yahoo CEO says the company plans a return to the public markets

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    Yahoo, an early trailblazer of the Internet boom, is “very profitable,” and ready to return to public markets via an initial public offering.

    That’s according to Chief Executive Jim Lanzone, who made the comment in an interview with the Financial Times published Tuesday. Yahoo soared to prominence in the 1990s, rising in the public consciousness alongside its share price — under the ticker symbol “YHOO” — during the dot-com boom.

    Apollo Funds purchased the Yahoo business from Verizon Communications Inc. 
    VZ,
    +0.24%
     in 2021.

    IPO Report: Like choosy shoppers at a retail store, IPO investors are demanding discounts and displaying price sensitivity

    The web services provider, which competes with the likes of Google parent Alphabet Inc. 
    GOOGL,
    +0.17%
    and Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc. 
    META,
    -0.33%    ,
    said earlier this year that more than 20% of its workforce would be laid off. At the time, Lanzone reportedly said that the cuts would be made in an unprofitable area of its business but that they would be “tremendously beneficial” to the company overall.

    “Whether it’s finance, or sports or news, that’s still what we do, and why we’re No. 1, or No. 2, in all these important categories all these years later,” Lanzone reportedly told the FT. “While the company has had struggles [at] different points in time, we’re still huge in traffic, and we have our best days ahead of us productwise.”

    He said Yahoo would be aggressively looking at the chance to build businesses in related sectors via M&A — it recently bought Wagr, a sports-betting app. While Yahoo is still “too small” to take on Google and Microsoft’s
    MSFT,
    -0.75%
    search engine Bing, Lanzone said he’s optimistic, and also sees AI offering up new opportunities for the company.

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  • Tee Lopes Interview – The Music of Sonic, Streets of Rage 4, TMNT Shredder’s Revenge, Soundtracks, and More – TouchArcade

    Tee Lopes Interview – The Music of Sonic, Streets of Rage 4, TMNT Shredder’s Revenge, Soundtracks, and More – TouchArcade

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    Over the last few years, I’ve interviewed Playdigious multiple times. Playdigious was responsible for bringing Streets of Rage 4, TMNT Shredder’s Revenge and more to mobile. Both of those have music from Tee Lopes, who most people know thanks to Sonic Mania. I’ve been a fan of Tee Lopes for ages now, and have always wanted to interview him. With the recent announcement of Sonic Superstars from SEGA for all consoles and PC platforms, I figured it was a great time to finally chat with Tee Lopes about video game music, the current state of Sonic, Sonic Superstars, his favorite soundtracks, composers, and more. Note that this interview was conducted before Penny’s Big Breakaway featuring Tee Lopes was recently showcased.

    TouchArcade: Tell us a little bit about yourself and the journey you’ve had over the years going from starting out, doing music for games like Fling, the Sonic 2 HD project, to where you are today as one of the premier composers in the industry.

    Tee Lopes: It’s been an incredible journey so far. I started out as a hobbyist, creating music for fan projects and indie games like Fling and the Sonic 2 HD fan project. These early experiences helped me refine my skills and develop my own unique musical style. As I gained more recognition, opportunities started opening up, leading me to work on bigger projects and collaborate with talented developers. I’m grateful for the support of the gaming community, which has allowed me to grow as a composer and pursue my passion on a professional level.

    TA: How do you approach composing for long-running franchises compared to working on something for a brand new property?

    TL: When composing for long-running franchises, I approach it with a deep respect for the legacy and history of the series. It’s important to understand what makes the music in those franchises iconic and beloved by fans. I study the previous soundtracks, immerse myself in the universe of the game, and try to capture the essence of what makes that franchise special while adding my own musical voice to it. On the other hand, working on something new gives me more creative freedom to explore different styles and experiment with fresh ideas. It’s an exciting opportunity to help shape the identity of a brand new property and contribute something unique to the gaming world.

    TA: Building on the previous question, what was your thought process on the Streets of Rage 4 Mr X Nightmare DLC: Did you aim to try and fit in with the base game or the series as a whole?

    TL: When working on the Mr. X Nightmare DLC, my aim was to strike a balance between respecting the base game’s incredible soundtrack while also adding my own personal touch. I wanted to maintain the energetic and hard-hitting vibe that the Streets of Rage series is known for, but also infuse it with my own musical style. It was important to create music that would feel like a natural extension of the base game while enhancing the overall experience for players.

    TA: You’ve recently been confirmed to be working on Sonic Superstars. You’re also doing Metal Slug Tactics this year and the TMNT Shredder’s Revenge DLC. You teased on Twitter many more projects. Can you say if those will be revealed in 2023 or will they be released this year?

    TL: I’m really excited to be a part of those games! As for the other projects I’ve been teasing, I can’t provide specific details at the moment. However, I can say that some of them will be revealed this year, while others are scheduled for release in the near future. I appreciate the enthusiasm and patience of my fans, and I can’t wait to share more about these upcoming projects when the time is right!

    TA: How has it been working with big publishers compared to working with indies over the years for you?

    TL: Working with both big publishers and indies has been an enriching experience in different ways. Big publishers often have well-established development pipelines and larger teams, which can provide a lot of resources and support. Collaborating with them allows me to work on high-profile projects and reach a wider audience. On the other hand, working with indies offers a more intimate and personal experience. It allows me to be closely involved in the creative process, have direct communication with the developers, and contribute my ideas and expertise in a more hands-on manner. Both types of collaborations have their own merits, and I’ve enjoyed the unique challenges and rewards that come with each.

    TA: A lot of people associate Tee Lopes with Sonic music. It almost feels like you’re the music equivalent of when Christian Whitehead or Headcannon are involved in a game to some fans. How do you feel about being so closely associated with Sonic?

    TL: It’s an incredible honor to be closely associated with Sonic and to have the support of such a passionate fanbase. Sonic holds a special place in the hearts of many gamers, myself included, so being entrusted with the responsibility of composing music for the franchise is a dream come true. I strive to create music that captures the spirit and energy of Sonic while also bringing something fresh and exciting to the table. The positive reception from fans motivates me to continue pushing the boundaries and delivering memorable sonic experiences.

    TA: What game would you love to score given the chance (something that hasn’t happened yet)?

    TL: There are so many amazing games out there, but if I had to pick one, I would love to score a Castlevania or a Mega Man game. These series have always had a breathtaking musical identity, and it would be a thrilling challenge to contribute to their iconic legacy. The rich lore, and memorable characters of those universes offer endless inspiration for creating an eclectic, kick-ass soundtrack.

    TA: What do you think of the current state of Sonic and Sonic Frontiers?

    TL: I think Sonic is doing amazing! Sonic has been doing a fantastic job of reaching out to different fan groups and making sure they don’t leave the older fans behind. Sonic Frontiers, in particular, has been incredibly bold by exploring new territory, which is a great move. What’s even cooler is that it’s still growing and changing, which means the future of the franchise looks promising. The Sonic movies have also been a blast, reaching new heights and even breaking the rules in some ways. I can’t wait to see what’s coming next for Sonic, and I really hope I get to be a part of it.

    TA: Your work in TMNT Shredder’s Revenge is easily my favorite. How was it working with Jonny Atma on one of the best songs of 2022 (Panic in the Sky)?

    TL: Thank you for the kind words! Collaborating with Jonny Atma on “Panic in the Sky” for TMNT Shredder’s Revenge was an absolute blast. Jonny is a talented musician, and his vocals added an incredible energy and intensity to the track. We had a great synergy, and he definitely pushed the song to new heights. It’s always a pleasure to work with fellow passionate artists, and I’m glad our collaboration resonated with fans.

    TA: What are your current favorite soundtracks across all media?

    TL: There are so many incredible soundtracks across different media that it’s hard to pick just a few favorites. However, some soundtracks that have left a lasting impression on me include the works of Nobuo Uematsu, particularly the Final Fantasy series, Yuzo Koshiro’s compositions for the Streets of Rage series, the haunting melodies of Michiru Yamane in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, and the iconic compositions of Koichi Sugiyama in the Dragon Quest series. These are just a few examples among countless others that continue to inspire and captivate me.

    sonic superstars

    TA: Is there a composer you’d love to work with in the future that you haven’t had the chance to make happen yet?

    TL: One composer that I’ve always dreamed of collaborating with is Yuzo Koshiro. You’ve definitely heard his incredible music in games like Streets of Rage and the Shinobi series. He has always known how to make those catchy, high-energy tunes that stick with you. I think teaming up with him would be a blast, and our musical styles could totally bring something unique and awesome to the table.

    TA: Can you give us a hint of what we can expect from your score for Sonic Superstars?

    TL: I can’t provide specific details about my score for Sonic Superstars at the moment, but I can assure you that I put my heart and soul into contributing music that captures the essence of Sonic and brings a fresh sonic experience to the game. I hope that fans will enjoy the music and feel a sense of excitement when playing Sonic Superstars!

    Thanks to Tee Lopes for his time here.

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    Mikhail Madnani

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  • TOMS Shoes founder is pledging $100 million for psychedelic research – Here’s why he’s doing it.  

    TOMS Shoes founder is pledging $100 million for psychedelic research – Here’s why he’s doing it.  

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    A nascent category of mental health treatments is getting a major cash infusion. 

    Blake Mycoskie, founder of the canvas-footwear phenomenon TOMS Shoes, has committed to giving $100 million to support psychedelic research and access, Mycoskie told MarketWatch in an exclusive interview. The money will help fund academic institutions investigating psychedelics’ potential to treat anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and other mental-health issues, as well as nonprofits helping to connect patients in need with psychedelic treatments. 

    Traditional psychedelics include hallucinogens like LSD and psilocybin, or “magic” mushrooms–recently legalized in Oregon and Colorado. Other drugs that can alter mood and perception–such as ketamine and MDMA, also known as ecstasy–aren’t classical psychedelics but are broadly included in the research and policy discussions generating a surge of interest in this class of treatments. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for example, has granted psilocybin and MDMA “breakthrough therapy” status, a designation designed to expedite development and review of drugs for serious conditions, and could approve MDMA for treatment of PTSD as soon as next year.

    Given the rapid developments in the field, ”we really need to get this right, and we really need to have these foundations and nonprofits funded properly,” therapists trained, and clinics open and running smoothly, Mycoskie said. “I felt a real sense of urgency,” he said, and asked his wealth manager, “what’s the most that I can give?”  

    The $100 million answer to that question amounts to about a quarter of Mycoskie’s net worth and marks a major milestone in psychedelics’ delicate image transformation. Shedding some of their dangerous-party-drug reputation, psychedelics are gaining attention from top pharmacologists, the scientific community, biotech companies and investors who see them as a critical part of the solution to America’s mental health crisis. 

    Cracked open 

    Mycoskie, 46, said his interest in psychedelics dates back to 2017, when a friend returning from a trip to Central America described his incredible experience with ayahuasca, a plant-based psychedelic brewed into a tea. As an entrepreneur under intense pressure to perform, Mycoskie said, he decided to try it for himself. The experience “cracked me open, and it connected me more to my faith in God, made me feel that we were all connected and everything was fine and perfect,” he said. “I came back just feeling like, wow, that was more powerful than any therapy I’d ever done.” He later tried MDMA-assisted therapy, he said, which also helped him process issues that traditional talk therapy had left unresolved. 

    Realizing how many people could benefit from similar treatments, Mycoskie started giving money to academic groups and the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, or MAPS, a nonprofit organization. He also got involved in last year’s Colorado ballot initiative, which legalized psilocybin and several other psychedelic substances, including ibogaine, which has shown potential to treat substance-use disorders. Mycoskie has already given about $10 million to psychedelic research and access, he said, and plans to give about $5 million annually for 18 more years. 

    Mycoskie was a bit squeamish at first, he acknowledges, about publicly backing research on drugs that are largely illegal. “Am I going to get held up at TSA every time I go through the airport?” he remembers thinking. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration categorizes LSD and MDMA alongside heroin as “schedule one” drugs, defined as “drugs with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” But with growing public awareness and acceptance of the drugs’ potential as mental-health treatments, he said, he felt emboldened to make a big public commitment, and “the research has caught up,” he said. “It’s important that people like myself put their name out there and their money out there to show that this really is a path forward,” he said. 

    Mycoskie’s $100 million commitment “is the biggest that we’ve ever seen in the psychedelics space,” said Joe Green, president of the Psychedelic Science Funders Collaborative, a nonprofit supporting philanthropy in the field, and a MAPS board member. Now that research has made great strides to support use of the medicines as mental-health treatments, that money can help ensure that “these actually come to the world in a safe and beneficial way,” Green said. With certain treatments legalized in Oregon and Colorado, for example, “the system requires licensed guides, facilitators, licensed service centers,” he said. “It’s not like cannabis medical–you won’t be able to take the mushrooms outside the service center.” 

    Psychedelic therapeutics market could be worth more than $8.3 billion by 2028

    Mycoskie plans to publicize his pledge at the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies’ psychedelic science conference–billed as “the largest psychedelic conference in history”–this week in Denver. On the agenda: Sessions ranging from state policy and regulatory considerations to clinical trials of psilocybin- and MDMA-assisted therapy and “sex and psychedelics: weaving altered states for healing and pleasure.”   

    The news comes as lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are pushing for new funding for research into the use of psychedelics to treat PTSD in military service members as part of the fiscal year 2024 National Defense Authorization Act, which the House Armed Services Committee will consider Wednesday.  

    Already, public companies like Atai Life Sciences
    ATAI,
    -6.91%    ,
    Compass Pathways
    CMPS,
    -3.37%
    and Cybin
    CYBN,
    +6.81%
    are developing therapies based on psychedelic substances. The psychedelic therapeutics market could be worth more than $8.3 billion by 2028, according to InsightAce Analytic. Even the federal government is throwing money at this niche, funding efforts to develop psychedelic mental-health treatments without the hallucinogenic side effects. 

    More than one in five U.S. adults live with a mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health, and less than half of the roughly 58 million adults with any mental illness are receiving treatment. Suicide rates, which have been on a long upward trajectory, declined briefly between 2018 and 2020 before returning to peak levels in 2021, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Nine out of 10 U.S. adults believe the country is suffering a mental health crisis, according to a survey last year by CNN and KFF, a health policy nonprofit. And commonly prescribed antidepressants, such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) don’t work well for many patients.  

    Nushama, a New York City wellness center offering ketamine-based therapy.


    Courtesy of Nushama and Costas Picadas

    Mental illness “is truly an epidemic, and we are losing the fight,” said Dylan Beynon, CEO and founder of Mindbloom, which offers a telehealth ketamine treatment program. While there are some existing solutions that are helping to bend the curve, he said, more research and educational support for providers and patients is needed, he said.

    Indeed, some substantial hurdles still separate psychedelic mental-health treatments from many of the patients they might benefit, including a lack of insurance coverage for the currently legal treatments and debate over how to administer them safely. In the case of ketamine, for example, which is FDA-approved as an anesthetic and used off-label as a mental-health treatment, some providers favor in-person guided sessions while others, like Beynon, advocate for telehealth prescribing–a model that boomed during the pandemic.

    Some experts have lately warned that the practice of psychedelic medicine may be getting ahead of the science. Given the growing public and commercial interest, “there is the risk that use of psychedelics for purported clinical goals may outpace evidence-based research and regulatory approval,” the American Psychiatric Association said last year in a position statement on psychedelic and “empathogenic” agents–a category that includes MDMA.

    Mycoskie has also made some investments in the psychedelics space, although he said profits aren’t his motivation. He has invested in Mind Medicine Inc.
    MNMD,
    -0.50%    ,
    which says it is developing “psychedelic inspired medicines” that aim to treat the underlying causes of distress in the brain. And Mycoskie helped fund a public benefit corporation linked with MAPS, which is taking MDMA through the FDA approval process–an investment that will pay dividends when the treatment is commercialized, he said.        

    Providers currently offering ketamine treatments say they’re eager to expand into MDMA and other therapies in the category as soon as they’re legal. Mindbloom, for example, currently offers a ketamine treatment program that’s available through telehealth in several dozen states and aims to start offering MDMA-assisted therapy late next year after FDA approval is finalized, Beynon said. Psilocybin-assisted therapy could come a couple of years after that, he said. 

    Nushama, a New York City psychedelic wellness center that offers ketamine-based therapy, delivered through in-person IV infusions, also hopes to expand into MDMA when it’s approved, said co-founder Jay Godfrey. 

    Treatment without the trip 

    Still on the horizon: New treatments that could produce psychedelic medicines’ mental-health benefits without the trip. University of North Carolina School of Medicine pharmacology professor Dr. Bryan Roth is leading an effort to create new medications for depression, anxiety and substance abuse that work similarly to psychedelics but without the hallucinogenic, disorienting side effects. His effort is backed by a $27-million grant from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Such treatments, Roth said, could help the many patients for whom such psychedelic effects are unappealing or ill-advised–such as military service members. “You would never want to give psilocybin or ketamine to somebody who has a gun,” Roth said. 

    Having worked with Vietnam veterans suffering from PTSD while training as a psychiatrist earlier in his career, Roth said, he’s keenly aware of the need for safe and effective treatments. “There was nothing we could give them for their symptoms,” he said. “The most we could do was give them medications to stop their ability to have dreams, so they wouldn’t have nightmares. That was basically it.” 

    “Undoing 52 years of propaganda is a heavy lift,” said Nushama co-founder Jay Godfrey.


    Costas Picadas

    Roth’s team has already developed compounds that have shown antidepressant effects without psychedelic side effects in mice, he said. The team is now working to find a clinical candidate suitable for testing in humans, he said. 

    Treatments that can help “break bad emotional or psychological patterns without scary, high-friction psychedelic experiences would be a great thing for patients, providers and the healthcare system,” said Mindbloom’s Beynon. 

    Much more remains to be done to reduce the stigma associated with psychedelics, experts say. It has been 52 years since President Richard Nixon declared drug abuse “public enemy number one,” and billions of dollars have been spent since then telling people that “these medicines are dangerous, that they’re addictive, and that they’ll fry your brains,” Godfrey said. “Undoing 52 years of propaganda is a heavy lift, but one thing I’m optimistic about is that the outcomes are starting to speak for themselves.” 

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  • Cava Group CFO is confident restaurant chain will be profitable — but she won’t say when

    Cava Group CFO is confident restaurant chain will be profitable — but she won’t say when

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    Cava Group, the Mediterranean-focused fast-casual restaurant chain that’s making its trading debut on Thursday, is confident it has access to enough funding to expand its business and make a profit, according to Chief Financial Officer Tricia Tolivar.

    But Tolivar declined to provide a timeline to profitability in an interview with MarketWatch.

    The…

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  • Devolver Digital Mobile Games Interview – Mark Hickey on Premium Ports, Subscription Services, the Importance of Exclusives, and More

    Devolver Digital Mobile Games Interview – Mark Hickey on Premium Ports, Subscription Services, the Importance of Exclusives, and More

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    I’ve been covering and enjoying Devolver Digital games for a long time now. Many of my favorites like Gris or the first Hotline Miami are published by them. Devolver Digital has released many games on mobile across the years ranging from premium titles, Netflix Games releases, Apple Arcade games, and more. Poinpy from Devolver Digital was our Netflix Game of the Year for 2022. I had a chance to talk to Mark Hickey, head of all things mobile at Devolver Digital, about all things mobile and also the state of the industry. Mark also worked at Gameloft and Apple prior to joining Devolver, so I wanted to cover those parts of his career in this interview.

    TouchArcade: Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Devolver Digital.

    Mark Hickey: I’m originally from Montreal, Canada and have been working on mobile games for about 20 years. I got my start at Gameloft in 2002, running an online store for downloadable games on Palm Pilot and Pocket PC (RIP www.gameloftpocket.com). We pivoted to Java games on mobile phones in 2004 and since Gameloft was a sister company of Ubisoft, we had access to IPs like Prince of Persia, Rainbow Six and Splinter Cell, which were among the first mobile titles we shipped. Back then mobile games were discovered on wireless carrier “decks” (aka mobile storefronts) and delivered “over the air”. So I developed partnerships with Canadian telcos like Rogers, Bell, Telus, and Fido and shipped a lot of games with them.

    In 2007, I moved to the Bay Area to work on games for the iPod click-wheel (true story), which brought us closer to Apple. Thanks to that relationship we were able to be part of the first wave of titles to ship on the iPhone when the App Store launched in 2008 and released 80 or so more games in the next 3 years. I left Gameloft and after a two year stint at Behaviour Interactive, I joined Apple in 2013 and managed several key developer partnerships like EA, Activision, Blizzard, Microsoft, Epic, and the big cheese, Devolver Digital. After all those other companies said no, I joined Devolver in 2018 and moved back to Montreal. At Devolver, I lead mobile operations, managing partners like Apple, Google, and Netflix, overseeing release management, contracts, and working with new and existing development partners.

    TA: You began in the gaming business over two decades ago at Gameloft. You then went to Apple in 2013 before joining Devolver Digital. As someone who has been in the industry since before the App Store launched, how do you view the state of mobile gaming now compared to back in the early 2010s?

    MH: It’s gotten a lot more challenging for a variety of reasons. Discoverability problems, rising UA costs, privacy improvements (a good thing), intense competition and staggering amounts of consumer choice across every screen have all combined to make mobile games a complex business. In order to cut through the noise it’s often not enough just to have a good game anymore. There is no sure fire recipe for success but a great game has much better chances when supported by some combination of compelling IP, live service, cross platform play (where applicable), smart marketing and strong business partnerships.

    On the plus side, it’s never been a better time to be a gamer. There are a dizzying number of games available on practically every screen with some kind of store or service to suit consumer tastes.

    TA: What made you want to join Devolver Digital back then?

    MH: Great games worked on by great people, both inside Devolver and among the amazing community of developers we get to partner with. That and Fork Parker is holding my cat hostage so here we are.

    TA: Devolver Digital has gotten a lot bigger over the years, with more games hitting multiple platforms. What is your goal with the mobile side of the company?

    MH: The mission on mobile is the same as it is on any other platform. We want to help indie developers turn their unique, beautiful, bizarre, and sometimes bloody visions into (digital) reality on every platform in the hopes of making them (and us) fabulously rich. And repeat.

    TA: Having worked on the App Store and now publishing games there, what learnings from within Apple did you bring to elevate Devolver Digital’s portfolio on mobile?

    MH: Certainly having contacts within Apple helps when needed and they are great partners. Beyond that I have a decent grasp of the platform features, processes and policies that aid in having strong launches. I also have some insight on what works well, and doesn’t work well, on mobile devices though I am by no means a game designer. That said, the thing that elevates games most, be it in the eyes of Apple or anyone else, is the quality of the games themselves. So I/we are very fortunate to work with so many talented developers.

    TA: Gameloft and Apple are definitely the biggest from the places you worked at before Devolver Digital in gaming. What do you think of Gameloft and Apple’s current gaming outlook as someone who worked there and saw how they operate before?

    MH: Apple and Gameloft, while vastly different companies, have very smart people working there who are passionate about games and I have no doubt they will continue making valuable contributions to the industry for years to come. Devolver Digital on the other hand, well, who knows.

    TA: Devolver Digital now has over 20 releases on the App Store across premium games, subscription services, and free releases. Do you see this mix of monetization methods continuing for the publisher’s releases on iOS and Android?

    MH: Yes. Yes I do.

    TA: Devolver Digital has a Reigns game exclusive to Apple Arcade and one exclusive to Netflix Games on mobile. The series is amazing, but do you think decisions like this fragments the fanbase?

    MH: Exclusives are a reality of the business, regardless of the platform. The truth is, Apple and Netflix are making premium games a viable business again with their subscription services, and they have been pretty cool about letting these titles onto other platforms after some period of time. So while audiences might be somewhat fragmented as a by-product of signing exclusives, it’s certainly a better outcome than the game not getting made at all – which is what would happen in some cases. Plus, contract terms don’t usually last for eternity. Terms end, and our goal is to get our dev partner’s titles onto as many platforms as we can. So if you don’t see a particular Reigns game on your phone today, our hope is you will, one day.

    TA: Back to Netflix for a bit, Poinpy was our Netflix Game of the Year for 2022. I still see a lot of discussion around it. Are there plans to bring it to more platforms?

    MH: I think the answer to this question lies in between the lines of my previous response.

    TA: Devolver Digital launches games across price bands on PC and consoles, but we haven’t seen many of the bigger titles from the publisher hit mobile. Do you think subscription services would allow these to shine on mobile, or are you just waiting for the right hardware or for sales to slow down on other platforms to bring games like Trek to Yomi or Return to Monkey Island to mobile?

    MH: There’s a few reasons for this. The simple one is some games just don’t make sense for mobile, period. Either the controls wouldn’t work, the performance demands are too high, the install footprint too big, whatever. Some games are just a bad fit for pragmatic reasons. When talking pricing, for sure mobile game shoppers are more price conscious, as you rarely see anything sell for over $10. There’s a reason for that. It makes business sense to get those full price sales on PC/Console first before shipping on mobile where market forces require you to discount. And even then it’s a tough go. All that being said, you will continue to see some of our PC/Console titles make their way to mobile when it makes sense.

    TA: It is always interesting seeing the response to games being announced for mobile alongside other platforms versus the reaction to what clearly is a mobile game only releasing on other platforms. What is your take on how some perceive a multiplatform game that includes mobile as a “lesser” release?

    MH: I think the obvious answer is there’s a lot of salt and cynicism about the mobile games market being flooded with ad/gambling/mtx driven skinner boxes designed to extract maximum value from players and have little or nothing to do with good game design. It’s definitely true there are a lot of games out there like that and the reason why is because lots of studios have made ungodly amounts of money with that model. But I think there’s a sort of popular/mass allergic reaction emerging to these kinds of products, and rightly so. You’re not going to see us put something like that out, unless of course it’s Devolver Tumble Time. In that case, it’s ok and I retract all my previous statements on this topic.

    TA: Devolver Digital has had a ton of games over the years that I’ve enjoyed playing, and some feel like a perfect fit for mobile like Inscryption. There are also others I’d love to see hit mobile like Ape Out or The Red Strings Club. How do you decide on what premium game to bring to mobile, and when to do said conversion?

    MH: Thanks for the support! The calculus for shipping on mobile is pretty simple, if not unromantic. Our job is to help our partners be successful. If putting their game on mobile isn’t going to contribute to that success, then we shouldn’t do it. Conversely, if we have a great opportunity for a partner via a mobile release then we will do it so long as our partner agrees we should and it’s going to be a good experience on the target device.

    TA: As a publisher that has premium games and also games in both of the most popular gaming subscription services on mobile, how has it been working with both Apple and Netflix? How much support do they give with the aspects beyond porting to mobile?

    MH: There isn’t a lot of detail I can go into there other than that Apple and Netflix have both been great partners and created opportunities for their respective customer bases to enjoy some of the kick ass titles we have had the good fortune to be able to publish.

    TA: Devolver Digital has been doing premium ports priced quite a bit lower than PC and console over the years. Will there ever be a day one simultaneous mobile, PC, and console release from Devolver Digital charging the same price point on all platforms or do you see simultaneous mobile only possible through subscription services now?

    MH: Again, it’s all about how we can contribute to the success of our partners. If a “one price point to rule them all” situation arises and it makes sense in context of working well on a touch device, then sure, why not? If we are going to drive better results for our partners via a subscription deal, then the path is clear. As we navigate these waters, helping build success for our partners is our North star, and how we stay afloat. So we will always try to steer the ship in that direction. Whether you choose to infer from these statements that we are working on some kind of nautical themed game is up to you.

    Thanks to Mark Hickey, Andy Kelly, and Devolver Digital for their time here.

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    Mikhail Madnani

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  • Yacht Club Games on Mobile, Working With Netflix, Spin-Offs, the Future, and More – TouchArcade

    Yacht Club Games on Mobile, Working With Netflix, Spin-Offs, the Future, and More – TouchArcade

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    Following this week’s announcement of Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon coming to mobile alongside new DLC, I had a chance to talk to Yacht Club Games’ Marketing Director Celia Schilling about the game, the possibility of Shovel Knight Treasure Trove coming to mobile, future plans, working with Netflix, and more. Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon is coming to mobile soon through Netflix Games, and as a fan of the developer for many years, I figured now was the best time to interview them.

    TouchArcade:Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Yacht Club Games.

    Celia Schilling: Hello! My name is Celia Schilling. I’m the Marketing Director at Yacht Club Games. I have my hand in everything public facing from large platform announcements (like Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon launching on Netflix) to social media or even in-person events. I also handle licensing. An example of that would be our newly released Shovel Knight Nendoroid with GoodSmile. We’re a small team so we wear a lot of hats.

    TA: Shovel Knight, many years ago, impressed the hell out of me when I played it on Nintendo 3DS. I’ve since bought it on everything and it remains one of the best games I’ve played in recent years. How has it been supporting and working on the IP all these years?

    CS: Oh, wow. Thank you for your kind words. It’s hard to believe it’s been so many years since then. As for your question, it’s been a wonderful adventure. We’re beyond thankful for all of the amazing friends and legions of fans who have supported us for all of these years. Our community is something truly special.

    TA: What led to working with outside developers for Shovel Knight games Pocket Dungeon and Dig?

    CS: We’ve always imagined Shovel Knight as an all encompassing franchise. So, it does make sense that we ended up working with other studios to create some awesome new adventures. Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon and Shovel Knight Dig’s origin stories are kind of long so I’ll try to keep it short and sweet.

    Both games were conceptualized around the same time when we were wrapping up development of Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove.

    For Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon, we kind of stumbled upon it. A colleague of mine was lurking Twitter and spotted a rad screenshot by a solo-developer called Vine. At the time, the game Vine was posting about was called “Puzzle Knights”. It had unique game mechanics mixing roguelite and puzzler styles of gameplay. We love both of those genres so it piqued our interest. The game’s vibe also bizarrely fit well with the Shovel Knight world. It had skeletons, blob monsters, and knights. It was perfect. Sooo, with that said, we thought it would make sense to reach out and see if he would be interested in working together. He said yes, we high-fived (aka did some paperwork), and built a team around him. The rest is history.

    As for Shovel Knight Dig, we were already fans of Nitrome’s previous work. We had the idea of making an ambitious Shovel Knight game where every time you played it was different and you could make a crazy build with cool new abilities. They just finished up Leap Year, so we reached out with the idea. They came back with their pitch for it. We loved it, and we all went straight to work on it.

    TA: Are there more spin-off games in the works externally?

    CS: We’re currently working on a TON of free DLC for Shovel Knight Dig and Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon. As for the future, I am not sure. I’d love to see more.

    TA: With Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon, I was actually surprised that it wasn’t coming to mobile from the start given its name. Did the team at Yacht Club Games consider doing a premium standalone release for it before Netflix got involved?

    CS: Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon’s name took inspiration from miniaturized spin-off titles like “Pocket Fighters”. As for a mobile release, we love giving fans as many opportunities as possible to play our games. So, when the Netflix conversation started, it just made sense to bring Pocket Dungeon’s fun to their service.

    TA: How has it been working with Netflix Games on Shovel Knight Pocket Dungeon?

    CS: They’re a bunch of passionate folks so it’s been an absolute joy working with them.

    TA: How was the porting experience bringing it to mobile?

    CS: The Vine team has actually rebuilt the game from the ground up. We brought in some pretty talented folks to make it a seamless and fun experience with intuitive touch controls.

    TA: Can we expect more Yacht Club Games releases to come to Netflix Games for mobile like maybe Mina the Hollower in the future?

    CS: Whoa! Hollowing around via touch-controls would be super fun. Though it’s not in the pipeline, I personally would love to see Mina everywhere.

    TA: How do you decide what platforms to launch a new Shovel Knight project on?

    CS: We try to put our games on as many platforms as possible as long as it makes sense for us and our community.

    TA: There is now a Shovel Knight game coming to Netflix Games with Pocket Dungeon, and Shovel Knight Dig on Apple Arcade. A lot of people have controllers on mobile, so will the original Shovel Knight Treasure Trove ever hit the platform?

    CS: Who knows what the future holds. I’d love to play Joustus on my phone.

    shovel knight treasure trove

    TA: One of the highlights of Shovel Knight barring the amazing gameplay in each release, is the soundtrack and the aesthetic that come together to make Shovel Knight. How has it been working with Jake Kaufman all these years? Is he involved with any of the games barring the music?

    CS: Working with Jake is a collaborative process. He starts making music as we develop the game side-by-side.

    Side note, Jake is actually a part of the Yacht Club Games crew. He has an office and everything. As for involvement besides music, our studio works a bit differently than other ones. Everyone can be as involved (or uninvolved) as they are comfortable with in other departments. An example of that is in the writing room. We have something called the “Jake Pass” where he looks at the character’s dialogue and does a pass on it. (He’s an excellent writer!) Jake has also pitched TikTok ideas to me before too. They were equally as awesome.

    TA: What are your thoughts on the current state of gaming with subscription services being more prevalent each year?

    CS: Personally, I love it. Growing up, I didn’t have access to many games. I had to borrow them from a friend/Blockbuster or wait to get a “used” copy on my birthday. Subscription services enable accessibility at a manageable monthly price point. It’s something that I dreamed about as a kid.

    TA: What games are you playing right now on any platform?

    CS: I’m primarily playing on my Switch. I’m a Nintendo kid at heart haha. I’ve been making my way through a bunch of Zelda games to get ready for The Legend of Zelda: Tears of a Kingdom. I just beat Minish Cap. It’s such a good game.

    TA: Are there any plans to do a PS5 physical of Shovel Knight Treasure Trove and a native PS5 release?

    CS: There are no plans in the pipeline as of yet. If that ever changes I’ll be sure to make a whole lotta noise about it.

    TA: Following the original launch, we now have multiple Shovel Knight games, updates, and even saw it be the rare third party game to get an amiibo when it did. What’s next for Shovel Knight?

    CS: It’s a secret as we have a ton of unannounced cool stuff. What I can tell you, is that the future is looking very bright for our favorite blue burrower.

    Thanks to Celia Schilling and Yacht Club Games for their time here.

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    Mikhail Madnani

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  • Sid Meier’s Railroads, Choosing Games to Port, Subscription Services, Future Plans, and More – TouchArcade

    Sid Meier’s Railroads, Choosing Games to Port, Subscription Services, Future Plans, and More – TouchArcade

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    Sid Meier’s Railroads ($12.99) is out now on iOS and Android. Ahead of the launch, we spoke to Feral Interactive’s Head of Design Edwin Smith about working on the game, the developer’s plans for the rest of the year, subscription services, Switch ports, working with Android, and a lot more. The company has done a lot since 1996 across Mac, Linux, iOS, Android, and even Nintendo Switch, and it is always fun discussing how premium game developers approach ports, the state of the platform, and more. This interview was conducted prior to the game’s launch.

    TouchArcade: Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at Feral Interactive.

    Feral Interactive: My name is Edwin, and I manage the Design team at Feral. In the Design team we’re focused on working out what changes and improvements are needed to make a great desktop (or console) game work well on mobile. This means we also spend a lot of time with other teams in Feral, from Development to Marketing. One day we might be discussing how best to implement a new control method, the next we might be talking with the media team about what features or controls exist, so they can make the best trailer possible. Every day is different.

    TA: Following the tease for Feral Interactive’s newest project, I saw a lot of speculation, and even started looking into games by Feral Interactive on Steam to try and see what was possible. I didn’t expect Sid Meier’s Railroads. How did you decide on working on this one next rather than tackling another Total War release?

    FI: We try to expand our range and avoid making just one type of game. So far we’ve made a racing game, GRID Autosport, a few RTS games with Company of Heroes and the Total War franchise, a turn-based strategy game with XCOM 2, a first-person horror game with Alien: Isolation, and a sim-type game with Tropico.

    Sid Meier’s Railroads! is a tycoon game, which is a genre we haven’t brought to mobile before. It’s also a type of game that perhaps isn’t well-catered for on premium mobile. We think it fits well into our portfolio of premium games for mobile gamers.

    TA: Having spent some time with Sid Meier’s Railroads on PC and Steam Deck over the last week, I was curious what the biggest challenge was with bringing it to mobile platforms?

    FI: Fitting all the information on screen in a clean and simple manner was the toughest problem. However, with Sid Meier’s Railroads! we also optimized the gameplay loops with mobile in mind. For example, we’ve added extra warnings and UI to highlight route congestion, as well as extra summary warnings so players are alerted if something needs attention. They still need to take that information and use it to inform their decisions, but can now see important information at a glance without having to check multiple areas. With mobile players often playing in shorter bursts, facilitating easier access to key information really helps the enjoyment of the game.

    TA: Will there be 120hz support on modern iOS and iPadOS devices?

    FI: No, but this is a deliberate decision taken after testing the game. Gameplay in this type of game doesn’t benefit much from a 120fps frame rate, unlike a racing game for example, and running at such a high frame rate would significantly impact the battery usage and temperature of the device. By limiting the performance mode to 60fps, users will still get a very smooth gameplay experience with the added benefit of extended battery life while playing.

    TA: Will Sid Meier’s Railroads be feature complete on iOS and Android compared to the PC version?

    FI: Yes, the game has the same content as the original single player game, though multiplayer is not available.

    It’s worth noting that eight of the game’s sixteen scenarios had only a single objective on desktop — ‘Be the last Baron standing’. For mobile, we have given each of these scenarios a full set of new objectives.

    TA: Will map editing be included here in any form?

    FI: No, Sid Meier’s Railroads! doesn’t come with a map editor. A map editor could be enabled in the desktop version (via manipulating an INI file in the game’s data), but it was a developer tool and came with a warning that no official support was offered for it. We did look at this during mobile development, but for the initial launch we focussed on the core single player experience.

    TA: A lot of these classic PC games that Feral Interactive works on have amazing music. When you work on bringing the games to mobile from PC, is there any additional work done on the audio side?

    FI: Often, the biggest audio challenge is to update all the sound libraries to versions that work on mobile. In terms of the actual music and sound files – they often use older audio codecs that use up a lot of space, so we’ll always look to re-encode them to use the very latest codecs. As a result of this work, the game audio still sounds amazing but takes up less storage space.

    TA: Feral Interactive continues to bring premium games to mobile, and we’ve started seeing recent releases come to iPadOS, iOS, and Android simultaneously compared to launching on just iPadOS before. What changed with the development pipeline in recent years?

    FI: You’ve got a good memory! The reason for our staged support was part of a step-by-step plan to make sure we focused on one problem at a time and always offered the best experience to our players. We didn’t want to try to do too much at once.

    Our first mobile release, ROME: Total War, targeted the iPad first. The reason was that tablets have bigger screens so we could focus on the problems of converting AAA games to touch controls, without having to worry about smaller screens as well. Once we had released a game on iPad — and it was well received! — we moved onto making the same game work on the smaller iPhone screens.

    This was quite a challenge, and took many months of research and design iterations, but the knowledge gained from the initial iPad release made it a much easier task.

    With these two challenges met we then focused on Android. On iOS the hardware is limited to a relatively small pool of devices, whereas Android has a much more fragmented installed base. As such, supporting a wide range of Android phones and tablets is a much more involved process, not only due to the variety of hardware, but also the fact that many vendors use customized versions of Android which, in turn, use different graphics drivers and can offer slightly different functionalities. There are also completely different APIs to iOS which needed brand new libraries.

    With Android we focused on making sure we could offer a high quality experience on the most popular devices. During development, we relied on our QA team to make sure we tested as many different popular phone types as possible. This ensured that we uncovered as many device-specific issues as possible before the game was released.

    As we completed all these stages, and felt confident in being able to offer a great experience, we started combining the multiple platforms on newer releases. This has resulted in all our more recent releases being released simultaneously across iPadOS, iOS and Android.

    TA: What do you think of the current state of subscription services on mobile across Netflix Games, Google Play Pass, and Apple Arcade?

    FI: Subscription models have their pluses and minuses, both for developers and players. However, it’s not our area — we are very much focused on bringing standalone premium games to mobile.

    TA: Will there be more from Feral Interactive on iOS and Android this year?

    FI: Yes, but we aren’t giving any clues!

    TA: Feral Interactive’s Switch ports have been amazing so far. Are there more Switch game conversions in the works for this year?

    FI: See the answer above.

    TA: What are your thoughts on Steam Deck? Is it something you test on for Linux releases?

    FI: Like most players and developers out there, we’re fans of pretty much all gaming hardware, and the Steam Deck is an interesting device, but not one we support or work with. Our Linux titles are officially supported on Ubuntu only, and we aren’t planning to update them for further compatibility with Steam Deck or its operating system, SteamOS 3.0.

    Thanks to Feral Interactive for their time here.

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    Mikhail Madnani

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  • Apple CEO Tim Cook explains why consumers would want a mixed-reality headset

    Apple CEO Tim Cook explains why consumers would want a mixed-reality headset

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    Apple Inc. Chief Executive Tim Cook, GQ’s latest cover boy, has a sales pitch for a mixed-reality headset.

    “The idea that you could overlay the physical world with things from the digital world could greatly enhance people’s communication, people’s connection,” Cook told GQ, without confirming the rumored June 5 announcement of Apple’s
    AAPL,
    +0.77%
    Reality Pro headset.

    Apple’s plunge into the so-called metaverse would offer a jolt to a flagging industry as well as serious competition to Facebook parent Meta Platforms Inc.
    META,
    +0.53%    ,
    Alphabet Inc.’s
    GOOGL,
    +0.61%

    GOOG,
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    Google, Microsoft Corp.
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    Snap Inc.
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    and others.

    “ ‘It’s the idea that there is this environment that may be even better than just the real world — to overlay the virtual world on top of it might be an even better world.’ ”


    — Tim Cook

    Creative users, the lifeblood of Apple’s business model, stand to gain the most from virtual-reality products, according to Cook.

    “It’s the idea that there is this environment that may be even better than just the real world — to overlay the virtual world on top of it might be an even better world,” Cook told GQ. “If it could accelerate creativity, if it could just help you do things that you do all day long and you didn’t really think about doing them in a different way.”

    Cook also looked inward during the far-ranging interview, explaining his persona and the challenges in succeeding the legendary Steve Jobs as Apple CEO. Jobs died in 2011.

    “I always hate the word normal in a lot of ways, because what some people use to describe normal equals straight,” Cook said. “Some people would use that word in that kind of way. I don’t know — I’ve been described as a lot of things, but probably normal is not among those.”

    Added Cook: “I knew I couldn’t be Steve. I don’t think anybody could be Steve. I think he was a once-in-a-hundred-years kind of individual, an original by any stretch of the imagination. And so what I had to do was to be the best version of myself.”

    From the archives (October 2011): Steve Jobs: MarketWatch’s CEO of the Decade

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  • New Lyft CEO: ‘I don’t think of this as just an Uber battle. It’s a battle against staying at home.’

    New Lyft CEO: ‘I don’t think of this as just an Uber battle. It’s a battle against staying at home.’

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    Lyft Inc.’s incoming Chief Executive David Risher looks at the ride-hailing company’s competition with Uber Technologies Inc. as a way to keep both companies “honest and focused,” he said in an interview with MarketWatch on Monday.

    “There’s lots of two-service dynamics, or market dynamics, like Coke and Pepsi, or the Nasdaq and the [New York Stock Exchange],” Risher said. “You want that level of competition.”

    Lyft
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    -2.74%    ,
    which has lost $2.2 billion, or about a third, of its market capitalization since it reported earnings last month, announced Monday that board director Risher will take over as CEO of the struggling company. He will replace company co-founder Logan Green, who will become chairman of the board.

    Lyft is competing with much larger rival Uber
    UBER,
    -0.42%    ,
    which has gained ride-hailing market share in recent years at the expense of Lyft, according to YipitData, which says Uber now has about 74% of U.S. market share vs. Lyft’s 26%. Risher declined to say much about how he would differentiate himself from the outgoing CEO, but he indicated that Lyft will not attempt to compete with Uber in other services, such as delivery.

    “I don’t want to get in a car with someone that’s just delivered a pizza,” he said.

    “At some point, I don’t think of this as just an Uber battle,” he said. “It’s a battle against staying at home. How do we get people out? How do we get them playing and working together?”

    Lyft’s new top executive was for the past 13 years CEO of Worldreader, a nonprofit that focuses on children’s literacy through digital reading. Risher said because of that, he’s familiar with “doing more with less… you have to be more efficient.”

    Risher will receive a signing bonus of $3.25 million and have an annual salary of $725,000, according to Lyft’s filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday. He confirmed to MarketWatch that he intends to donate $3 million of that signing bonus to Worldreader.

    “I told the board it’s very important to me that Worldreader become stronger instead of becoming weaker,” Risher said.

    Risher is also active in efforts to encourage wealthy philanthropists to give away their money faster. He and his wife, Jennifer Risher, launched a group called Half My DAF in 2020 that aims to move money out of donor-advised funds and into the hands of working charities more quickly.

    “My wife and I do that on the side,” Risher said. “For a long time, I’ve been a purpose-driven leader. But Lyft is my No. 1 focus.”

    Before leading Worldreader, Risher was an early employee of Amazon.com Inc.
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    becoming its first head of product and head of U.S. retail, as well as a general manager at Microsoft Corp.
    MSFT,
    -1.49%    .
    He said that experience gives him an “understanding of competition.”

    He said Lyft will compete by focusing on customers and drivers, such as making sure drivers are picking up customers on time. He said there won’t be much difference in the company’s stance on treating drivers as independent contractors when he takes over.

    Lyft, like Uber, has been under pressure from investors to become profitable. The way to get there is through making sure to address it from both the “cost side and the volume side,” Risher said.

    Risher officially takes the helm on April 17. Like Green, co-founder and President John Zimmer also will relinquish a role in day-to-day operations, but will continue as vice chair of the board.

    MarketWatch staff writer Leslie Albrecht contributed to this article.

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  • De La Soul Honor Trugoy, Chat and Perform With the Roots on Fallon: Watch

    De La Soul Honor Trugoy, Chat and Perform With the Roots on Fallon: Watch

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    De La Soul’s Maseo and Posdnuos appeared on the latest episode of The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon. The two surviving members of the group sat down with Fallon to talk about the long-awaited arrival of their discography to streaming platforms, as well as the tragic passing of Trugoy the Dove. They also performed “Stakes Is High” with the Roots. Watch it happen below.

    Posdnuos and Maseo reminisced about their early days together, with Questlove sharing how De La Soul’s dynamic influenced the development of the Roots. Maseo led the audience in a “Thank you, Dave” cheer at the end of their interview, and the musicians concluded their performance with another nod to their late colleague.

    Read “De La Soul Is Finally Streaming—But at What Cost?” and “Remembering De La Soul’s Trugoy the Dove With 6 Essential Tracks” on the Pitch.

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    Evan Minsker

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  • Interview: David F Sandberg on ‘Shazam! 2’ and How ‘The Flash’ Changed the Movie

    Interview: David F Sandberg on ‘Shazam! 2’ and How ‘The Flash’ Changed the Movie

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    “Big” is the operative word in most superhero movies. They’re blockbusters with epic stakes and budgets. But the original Shazam’s goal was not big but “Big” — as in the Tom Hanks bodyswap comedy about a boy who magically transforms into an adult. When Shazam!’s orphaned protagonist Billy Batson (Asher Angel) says a magic word, he becomes a swaggering superhero — while still maintaining his teenage brain and preoccupations like underage drinking and impressing girls.

    Although there’s been a lot of upheaval behind the scenes of DC Studios since the last Shazam! movie — like a new pair of co-CEOs that includes Shazam! producer Peter Safran — the new sequel, Shazam! Fury of the Gods, was made by almost the exact same creative team as the first. That includes Safran, co-writer Henry Gayden, and director David F. Sandberg who did a stellar job turning 2019’s Shazam! into one of the most purely fun movies in the history of DC.

    When I spoke to Sandberg about directing Fury of the Gods, I asked how his marching orders changed from the first movie to the second, and — because Billy Batson shares his powers with his adoptive siblings — about the challenges of directing a movie with six superheroes instead of one. He also revealed why Fury of the Gods didn’t build off the post-credits scene of the first Shazam and how DC’s original release calendar, which would have seen The Flash hit theaters well before Fury of the Gods, affected his film.

    When I spoke to you about the first Shazam!, you’d said that the original pitch that Warner Bros. brought to you for the film was “Big with super powers.” What was the pitch for Fury of the Gods?

    “We wanna go bigger.”

    I see, so “Bigger with super powers.”

    Yeah, Bigger with super powers. [laughs] No, I mean, that was kind of the thing. In the first movie, we got to see a little bit of the family, they all got powers. But in this one it’s like let’s see more of them. Let’s have a bigger threat, and have Shazam face something much bigger. This would be the movie where he has to grow up, you know? Become the adult superhero.

    Warner Bros.d parents. It’s like doing a little

    You mentioned the whole family being involved, which was such a fun surprise at the end of the first movie. But here, they’re a much bigger part of the story. How much more complicated does it get making a movie with basically six superheroes instead of one?

    Very complicated! Like you say, it’s six superheroes, and like three villains and monsters and parents. It is like doing a little Justice League or Avengers, but without those resources. So it’s a challenge. And it’s a practical challenge as well, just how you stage and block things when you have like 11, 12 people on screen at once. So it’s hard. And also story-wise; everyone needs to have their moment and their own little journey. So it’s hard, but it’s cool to get to do something so big.

    When you say it’s challenging blocking a scene with 11 people, how do you solve that? Do you use storyboards? 

    Yeah, with the more complicated things, they’re storyboarded or pre-viz. But a lot of times, you kind of have to figure it out on set. Because we were working pretty fast.

    But to be honest, there are a couple moments like a scene towards the end where they’re all in that house and they get a visitor. And I was like “I don’t even know how to fit the people into this room and how to do it in an interesting way.” So they all just bunched up or lined up. They’re all just standing there in a big clump of people. Because it’s like, I don’t even know what to do here.

    Right. The other thing I was wondering regarding the family was whether it was tough to get all of these actors back. The first movie they had cameos; now they’re full supporting characters. Did they all have to agree to return for a potential sequel when they signed on for their roles in the original?

    Yeah, you have to get them all to agree. But the good thing is that they really are like a Shazam family — or the “Shazamily” they call themselves. And they all really like each other. They hang out together when we’re not shooting. So it was like a big reunion that everyone was very eager to happen.

    READ MORE: Shazam! Director Warns Fans to Avoid Film’s New Ads

    You tweaked Shazam’s costume a little for this film. What was the impetus behind changing it, and what were you going for with the new design?

    To me, it was just about trying out some new things. We did the first movie, let’s do something different and not just do the same things. Let’s see what we can improve upon. Some things weren’t necessarily even about improvement; more just trying something different. Like in the first one, I did the version of the shorter cape with the hood.

    Right.

    The hood is from “The New 52.” For this one, it was like “Well, we did that. Let’s try and do more of a traditional cape and see how that feels.” The funny thing is that for me, I knew we were [originally] supposed to come out after The Flash and I knew that movie was gonna mess with timelines and multiverses and things like that. So I was like “Well, you know, we can get away with changing all this, because Barry messed with the timeline.” Now we’ve come out before The Flash, and I don’t have a good explanation for it beyond, like, “It’s magic!”

    [laugh] That’s interesting that you made the movie assuming you’d be after The Flash but now it’s coming out months before that film. Tell me what it’s like making a movie like this in the midst of the DC Universe being in flux like that. From the outside, it seems like you’re not only a piece of bigger puzzle, but you’re a piece of a puzzle that’s changing as you solve it. I’m curious how that works.

    The good thing is that Shazam! has always been in his own corner, doing his own thing. It hasn’t really been tied to the bigger [DC] story. We haven’t had to incorporate things, or not been able to use certain things; we’ve just been able to focus on our little Shazam! movies. I think that’s been beneficial, especially now with all the changes.

    They’ve told us that there’s nothing in these movies that contradicts what they’re doing for the future. So nothing needed to change. If they want, they can do more Shazam! movies. That’s the good thing about being more of a separate thing.

    I was going to ask whether all the changes behind the scenes had a tangible effect on the finished product. It sounds like maybe not, but you tell me.

    No, no, the movie didn’t change. And the movie’s been finished since the end of October last year because we were originally coming out against Avatar. So we were on a much earlier schedule.

    Warner Bros.

    The first Shazam! ended with a post-credits scene teasing a team-up between Mark Strong’s Sivana and the classic Shazam bad guy Mister Mind. Fury of the Gods’ villains are the Daughters of Atlas. How did you decide on them as the antagonists in the sequel, and did you ever consider actually making Mister Mind and Sivana the focus instead?

    They were never seen as sort of the main villains in this movie. But there was an early version before we wrote the full script, when it was still at the treatment stage, where Mr. Mind and Sivana were in it. And it was actually Mr. Mind who enabled the Daughters of Atlas to come to Earth as part of his bigger plan. But that turned into just being too much story to tell in the runtime, you know? So we had to lose that and just had the Daughters come here on their own. But that was the plan, to continue on with that, or at least show that he’s still in the background working his thing.

    Tell me about working with Helen Mirren on this film. Is she an actor who comes with a lot of questions about her character or DC Comics?

    Well, I don’t think she cares too much about the DC of it all. [laughs] But I know she loved the first movie, I think that’s why she wanted to do it. But she’s ready to do anything. She does her own stunts in this movie; we had to talk her out of doing certain stunts. And then, she’ll tell you, she actually broke her finger doing one of those stunts. She didn’t tell anyone; I didn’t find out until much later because she just kept going. She’s hardcore like that.

    What did she want to do that you had to talk her out of?

    Well, it was things like getting thrown into a wall, yanked into a wall, things like that. But we did put her in a harness and do all kinds of things with her. There’s that moment where Shazam lifts her up and holds her above his head. That’s actually Helen getting lifted up above his head. That’s why we have that camera angle from the top, just to show people that she did that. And she’s the one throwing Zach between the walls and all of that.

    One character I was surprised was in the movie was Djimon Hounsou’s Wizard, who seemingly died in the first movie. And, I mean, foolish me, no one ever really “dies” in comics, but I thought he was dead after Shazam! And then not only is he in the sequel, he’s got a much bigger role this time.

    Yeah, we just loved Djimon so much and, like you say, he didn’t have a big part in the first one. We wanted to do more with him. And I think the pairing up of him and Jack Dylan Grazer worked even better than I thought; like him as the straight man and Jack as the annoying kid. Djimon’s really funny! I love that we could use him more, and like you say, no one in comic books is ever really dead.

    Getty Images

    You mentioned Jack Dylan Grazer’s Freddy, and he was my favorite part of the first movie and he is really fun in this one as well. He’s so good, I could easily see him spun off into his own series or movie. Have there been any kinds of discussions like that? Because to me, he is the secret ace in the hole of Shazam!

    There’s never been talks about it, but it’s certainly not a bad idea. I really like Freddy, and think he’s such a great character, which is why we wanted to have more of him in this movie. The tricky thing is since you have two actors playing the same part [Grazer plays Freddy in human form, Adam Brody plays his superhero form] and they’re both really good, it’s like “Ugh, we want Jack Dylan Grazer but we also want Adam Brody!” You have to pick and choose.

    But we wanted to have a lot of Freddy in this one and give him an arc of finding out that there’s value to him as a human — that he isn’t just valuable as a superhero. He can be a hero all his own.

    Yeah. What you’re talking about in terms of balancing both actors; that’s a problem you have five different times in this movie, because all the heroes except Mary are played by multiple people. That had to be very hard to balance.

    Yeah. And also, if these people can be superheroes, then they would probably be superheroes a lot of the time. Which is why you have to do things like “Oh they lost their powers,” and things like that, just because we then get to see our great young actors as well.

    You’ve managed to introduce some pretty wild ideas from the comics in the two movies, like Mr. Mind and so on. As someone who enjoys the outlandish side of comics, I would love to know if you think there will ever be a Tawky Tawny [Shazam’s friend from the comics who is a talking tiger] in a Shazam! movie. You’ve alluded to him, paid homage to him, but he hasn’t shown up.

    I think there could be. When we first started talking about what this movie would be, and we were looking at what they were doing in the comics, we were like “If we do have these different lands you get to through these doors [in the Rock of Eternity, the Shazam Family’s lair] then we could have Tawky Tawny come from one of those doors and have that be the explanation. Because we have wanted to put him in the movies. We just think that you have to have a little bit of explanation for something like that. You can’t just have a tiger in a suit that’s talking right away.

    Shazam! Fury of the Gods is scheduled to open in theaters on Friday, March, 17.

    Every DC Comics Movie, Ranked From Worst to Best

    From Superman and the Mole Men to The Suicide Squad, we ranked every movie based on DC comics.

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    Matt Singer

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  • Lead Designer Dan Chequer Discusses the Final Fantasy VII Midgar Pack DLC, the Future of the Studio, and More – TouchArcade

    Lead Designer Dan Chequer Discusses the Final Fantasy VII Midgar Pack DLC, the Future of the Studio, and More – TouchArcade

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    Last year, a developer of some of my favorite games from many years ago released PowerWash Simulator, published by Square Enix, on Steam and Xbox platforms including Game Pass. There are tons of simulator games out there, with more releasing daily, but something about PowerWash Simulator struck a chord with many people including myself. I featured it as one of the best Steam Deck games of 2022. Today, it sees a collaboration with a legendary game with the PowerWash Simulator Midgar Special Pack bringing in iconic Final Fantasy VII vehicles, locations, and more as levels. In the lead up to today’s launch, I spoke to Futurlab lead designer Dan Chequer about how the team decided to do PowerWash Simulator, the studio’s future, a potential iOS version, gyro suppoer, the response to the new ports, and more.

    TouchArcade: I’ve been a fan of FuturLab from the days of Surge and Coconut Dodge. How has the studio evolved over the years with its size and how it approaches games today?

    Dan Chequer: I joined FuturLab in 2020, but had always been aware of FuturLab since their early games. They had gradually scaled up to be a team of around 20 or so people when work on PowerWash Simulator started.

    I joined at the start of the game’s pre-production phase, and during my interview I asked the company founder James Marsden about the eclectic selection of games they had made over the company’s (then) 16 years. He said they have always been genre-agnostic and simply follow where the good ideas take them.

    Since the success of PowerWash Simulator the size of the team has increased significantly, but that open and exploratory spirit is very much alive.

    TA: Velocity 2X is a superb game, but it seems like PowerWash Simulator is the biggest success for the studio. How did the team decide to tackle something like this?

    DC: There was a future projects brainstorm meeting and one of the points on the agenda was to come up with ideas for a first-person shooter that could be attempted with a team as small as FuturLab. It had also been noticed that one simulator game or another always seemed to be high up in the Steam charts.

    During the meeting, James made a throwaway comment about perhaps making a FPS pressure washer game, which was immediately and very enthusiastically leapt upon by the Development Director Kirsty Rigden, who had just so happened to have been recently watching a series of short powerwashing videos online.

    A prototype was made soon after, which was released on itch.io to a warm reception from those who played it in 2020. This gave FuturLab the confidence to take the idea into pre-production.

    TA: What has been the highlight of the PowerWash Simulator development cycle so far?

    DC: Our initial Early Access release was definitely a highlight for me. We knew we had something fun, but we had no idea how broad of an appeal it would have. When we started to see people enjoying it on Twitch and YouTube it was very rewarding, and its continued popularity on such platforms has been incredible to see.

    Keeping up to date with player reviews on Steam also continues to be very enjoyable, and a huge motivation while making the new content. It’s really fulfilling to read what a positive impact PowerWash Simulator has had for so many people.

    The whole development has honestly been a joy, the team is incredible, and we’re thrilled that people are enjoying the game so much!

    TA: How has the response been to the game’s new platform launches last month?

    DC: It has been fantastic to get the game into a whole new audience’s hands with both the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4/5 launches. We are always blown away by the response of the community and it has been fun to see first time players discover the story and new content.

    TA: There are tons of simulator games out there, but PowerWash Simulator managed to get its hooks in me and many others unlike anything else. How did FuturLab work on making the core gameplay loop this good?

    DC: One of the advantages that PowerWash Simulator has over many, if not most, simulator games is that its theme is also its primary action, so the core gameplay is exactly what the player expects it to be from the title.

    The washing also happens to be very input-intensive to perform, with almost constant positive feedback. Our aim was to emphasize that feedback to that as we could, maximizing the contrast between the dirty and clean surfaces, and making sure that the act of cleaning felt powerful and exaggerated while still seeming plausible. We also ensured that the objects to clean were as varied in shape and size as possible.

    Breaking the objects down into sections that are meaningful to the player is also a huge part of the design process when creating a job for the game. The white flash and audible ‘Ding!’ that accompanies each of those sections being complete is an incredibly satisfying mini-payoff that permeates the experience.

    With a core mechanic this strong, our main focus for the design was to keep everything else out of the way of the player. For example, the story is an almost optional element delivered via text messages that can happily be ignored if the player isn’t interested (although we hope they are, as we put a lot of time and love into it!).

    TA: The Tomb Raider DLC was a nice surprise, but the Midgar Special Pack is superb in every way. How was it working on this beloved Final Fantasy game’s iconic vehicles, locations, and more?

    DC: Whenever you work with another company’s IP there is a huge sense of responsibility, and we certainly felt that with both the Tomb Raider and Midgar packs, both of which are beloved by fans and our own team alike. It’s a bit of a dream for us all really – we joked it would be great to one day work such packs in when we started work on the game, and its success has meant that these have now become a reality!

    The first time I saw the Scorpion Sentinel in PowerWash Simulator was a big moment that really embodied how far the game had come. It’s amazing to be clambering over these vehicles and locations from a first-person perspective, and we had a lot of fun identifying all the different components that they are consisted of.

    Tying the story and cleaning jobs into the original timeline was also a great challenge. We hope players feel we did the crossover justice!

    TA: How much input did the team in Japan have on this DLC?

    DC: Everything from the original job concepts, to the models and the story was run past and approved by the team in Japan. It was always very reassuring to get their critiques and approval of what we were making. They had fantastic advice, suggestions and feedback throughout the pack’s creation that ensured the Midgar pack became the authentic experience that it is!

    TA: PowerWash Simulator shines on Steam Deck thanks to gyro controls. Will we see those implemented on PS5 and Switch in the future?

    DC: They are being investigated currently, and we will be revealing more when it’s ready.

    TA: What about DualSense haptics and adaptive trigger support on PS5?

    DC: We’re also investigating these features. More details will be coming soon!

    TA: There’s an in-game tablet, and we are primarily a site covering mobile games so I want to know if there’s any possibility of PowerWash Simulator coming to iOS and iPadOS?

    DC: There are currently no official plans, but we’ll let everyone know if that ever changes.

    TA: Can we expect more collaboration projects like the Midgar Special Pack DLC in the future?

    DC: We have a lot of content for PowerWash Simulator being worked on right now but can’t share any specifics just yet. However, 2023 is going to be a great year for PWS fans!

    TA: I was listening to the Final Fantasy VII Remake soundtrack while playing the DLC on PS5. The combination of the attention to detail in the DLC levels and the music made me want to revisit the original game on PS5 again. Is there any chance that we can see this DLC expanded on through additional content in the future?

    DC: It has been an honor to work on content set in this iconic Final Fantasy franchise, but there are no current plans to expand this right now.

    powerwash simulator

    TA: What can we expect from FuturLab in 2023?

    DC: As mentioned, FuturLab has an expanding team working on lots more content and updates for PowerWash Simulator.

    We also have a separate team working on a brand-new IP signed by publisher Thunderful. This unrevealed title is a stylish sci-fi adventure, high-intensity third-person combat game that’s a spiritual successor to the Velocity series. Though there’s no release dates or formal reveal just yet, it is something else we’re hard at work on behind-the-scenes. We can’t wait to share more in the future.

    With such a rapidly expanding studio we’ve also taken steps to make sure it’s a happy one and have recently hired a Head of People and appointed a Studio Welfare Manager to achieve that.

    Thanks to Dan Chequer (Lead Designer at FuturLab) and FuturLab for their time here and to fortyseven communications for facilitating this interview leading up to this week’s launch of the PowerWash Simulator Midgar Special Pack DLC on PC and consoles.

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    Mikhail Madnani

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  • Rihanna Explains Why She Did the Super Bowl, Offers Album Update in New Interview

    Rihanna Explains Why She Did the Super Bowl, Offers Album Update in New Interview

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    In a new interview with Giles Hattersley for British Vogue, Rihanna discussed motherhood, her Super Bowl LVII halftime show performance, and her long-teased new album. Regarding the Super Bowl, Rihanna described why she chose to perform after declining an offer to play the 2019 Super Bowl halftime show in solidarity with activist and former quarterback Colin Kaepernick.

    “There’s still a lot of mending to be done in my eyes,” Rihana said, “but it’s powerful to break those doors, and have representation at such a high, high level and a consistent level.” The interview continued:

    This last point is key for her. “Two Super Bowls back-to-back,” she says, referring to last year’s headliners, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Eminem, Mary J. Blige, and Kendrick Lamar, “you know, representing the urban community, globally. It is powerful. It sends a really strong message.” There’s another key difference this time as well. “Of course,” she says, becoming visibly moved by this thought, “raising a young Black man is one of the scariest responsibilities in life.” It’s made her reevaluate everything. “You’re like, ‘What am I leaving my kids to? This is the planet they’re gonna be living on?’” She shakes her head. “All of those things really start to hit differently.”

    The interview also provided some updates on Rihanna’s next album, the long-awaited follow-up to 2016’s, Anti. Apparently, according to Hattersley, “Rihanna never stopped recording. The past years are littered with songs she’s fallen in and out of love with.”

    Regarding the timeline for the project, Rihanna said, “I want it to be this year.” She continued, “Like, honestly, it’d be ridiculous if it’s not this year. But I just want to have fun. I just want to make music and make videos.”

    Rihanna periodically provides album updates during interviews with Vogue. A 2018 piece included the fateful line: “She plans to make a reggae album.” The next year, she said, “I have been trying to get back into the studio,” and clarified, “I like to look at it as a reggae-inspired or reggae-infused album.”

    And, in 2022, she told Vogue’s Chioma Nnadi, “I’m looking at my next project completely differently from the way I had wanted to put it out before. I think this way suits me better, a lot better,” adding, “It’s authentic, it’ll be fun for me, and it takes a lot of the pressure off.”

    Read the latest piece, titled “Rihanna Reborn: How a Megastar Became a Mother,” at British Vogue.

    The Sly Dominance of Rihanna’s Super Bowl Halftime Show

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    Matthew Strauss

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  • Superbrothers Interview Part 2 – Sword & Sworcery EP, Jim Guthrie’s Music, Sound Shapes, and More – TouchArcade

    Superbrothers Interview Part 2 – Sword & Sworcery EP, Jim Guthrie’s Music, Sound Shapes, and More – TouchArcade

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    Last week, Superbrothers and Pine Scented software launched JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time on Steam alongside updating the PlayStation and Epic Games Store versions of the game with the new free expansion. Having covered Superbrothers for a very long time all the way back to 2010 when Sword and Sworcery was shown at GDC, we obviously were also going to talk about how things evolved over time for Superbrothers from Sword and Sworcery to JETT: The Far Shore. In the lead up to JETT’s new expansion and it hitting Steam last week, I chatted with Craig D. Adams (founder Superbrothers A/V and co-creator of JETT with Patrick at Pine Scented) and Dan Berry (Given Time contributor and UK comics person and broadcaster) in a slightly different format.

    Since the team was still hard at work on JETT for Steam and the expansion, I sent over questions about a week before launch and got sent back a video of Dan discussing the questions with Craig. It almost felt like an interview in itself with Dan interviewing Craig. I’ve split that up into two parts and edited for clarity and brevity. The first part which you can read here covered JETT: Given Time, JETT: The Far Shore, and a bit about the future of Superbrothers. Part 2, below, covers Sword and Sworcery, working with Jim Guthrie, Twitter integration, PlayStation’s Sound Shapes that had Superbrothers’ involvement, and more.

    TouchArcade: We covered Sworcery over a decade ago right from its showing at GDC 2010. It is one of my favorite games of all time. Tell us a little bit about Superbrothers and how how Superbrothers has changed over time.

    Craig Adams: Thank you for asking about Superbrothers. It is extremely cool that Sworcery is one of your favorite games of all time. Something exciting on the Superbrothers side: It is 2023 and we are beginning our relentless 30 year celebration leading up to 50 years of Superbrothers if you can believe that. It has been a long time. What I mean to say is this is our 20th year of Superbrothers existing.

    When I got going in 2003, it was a nom de plume for my pixel illustration. I liked the idea of it being unnecessarily pluralized and a little bit confusing. I always had the idea that it would be cool if there were video games that had that kind of tone, style, and vibe. I would try to make those games myself with my limited skill set.

    That didn’t quite work. I joined the industry and learned some things. Then I connected with Capy (Games) and somewhere in there I also connected with Jim (Guthrie) and that’s how Sworcery happened. At that time, the snapshot was just me on the Superbrothers side. The concept is supposed to be bigger than just me. It is like a band that I want to be in. I have to do a whole bunch of work to create a structure that other people can plug into it. I should mention that around that time my actual real life brother Mack did step in on the business side. He has been around throughout.

    Superbrothers became appropriately pluralized at a certain point. For many years it was just me cooking along with JETT co-creator Patrick at Pine Scented Software and that’s all it was for a number of years until we needed to bring on part-time people as part of the JETT squad.

    So then, I guess Superbrothers changed a little bit. I was sort of managing different people and directing moreso. In order to get JETT done, we had to scale up and become a lot more serious. I had to try to learn the ropes as a director and a creative director and all that stuff. So for a few years, it was a different kind of thing. My brother Mack who was in orbit occasionally, he has another job, ended up needing to step in and really help as an executive producer and do a lot of number crunching and admin stuff.

    It was pretty white knuckle for a few years at Superbrothers there. It still is just me and some computers out in the woods of Quebec but as a sort of a broader operation, with my brother Mack, with the JETT squad. At some point we had over 30 people in different states, provinces and countries. It was a pretty interesting and wild time.

    Fun fact, to get the project done, we needed more producer capacity at a certain point. It just so happened that Mack and I knew a really good producer. We brought our older sister, Sarah, who had never worked in a video game context before, but knew her way around productivity software, and running meetings and stuff like that. For a moment there, three siblings were working to ship a PS5 game.

    It was an interesting shape for things to take. Then once JETT The Far Shore shipped, we were able to let that JETT squad go off in their various directions. Then for Given Time, we staffed up just a little bit. That’s where Dan Berry entered the picture along with Richard Flanagan. It was like a tighter squad moving through with Given Time. Now we are reaching the end of that journey so even that squad will dissipate shortly. Then Superbrothers will go back to being just me and some computers out in the woods of Quebec. But then I’ll be trying to figure out what’s the next thing, and how can I make another structure that people can plug into and anyway that’s I guess me trying to describe whatever Superbrothers is. At root, I always hoped it would be a bigger concept that could include a bunch of interesting things and some freshness. Some things come from different angles. I’ll try to keep that dream alive.

    TA: Sworcery wasn’t a one and done game for Superbrothers. We saw a special Japanese soundtrack edition for its release there, and more ports following the iOS launch. It was even updated in late 2021 for modern iOS devices. How was it revisiting Sworcery after all these years?

    CA: For me, I think Sworcery is pretty safely in the rearview. Maybe I knew about the 2021 update, I don’t remember. Maybe I even pitched in with some artwork to go out on social media. I should say for Sworcery, thank goodness Capy was the developer really, and have continued to be the developer. So any updates that have been happening are things that they have done on their side. I’ve been pretty distant from it. All I’ve been paying attention to is JETT and being in deep space.

    TA: The original Sworcery experience with Twitter integration is something lost to time now. I still remember how amazing that was back in the day. How did you come up with the idea to make it such an important part of the experience?

    CA: Going way back. Me thinking through what Superbrothers stuff should be on this device. That was back in the day when everybody was looking to gamify this, social gaming was a thing, Farmville was probably top of the pops back then. There was this feeling that we should think about that. We should think about things in that general space to see if there’s some idea.

    But what we were more interested in was, We had an experience, Chris (the creative director of Capy at the time and co creator on a bunch of these concepts) and I. We played Animal Crossing back in the day. It was really fun to discover something over here, and communicate it to someone over there, and to have just like weird little nuances that you’re picking up and communicating with other people about. Both Chris and I were on the early adopter train for Demon’s Souls (PS3) which is a little different from Animal Crossing, but similarly had mysterious things happening inside of it, that you just had to just go and talk to other people.

    This is where I reveal that I’ve forgotten everything about Demon’s Souls but when the World Tendency is a certain way you get these specific items over here. That level of mysteriousness was interesting. That was the thing that made us think, hey, what if we made a game where there were weird things like that in there, and it would be helpful for you, that when you learn something, you have a way to tell other people. Or if you’re playing it and seeing people talking, that stuff might reel you in. You might wonder what they are talking about. Anyway, the moon phase stuff in Sworcery seemed like a good kind of relatively simple concept, but a weird lunatic concept to kind of underpin some of the puzzles.

    We looked at the different social platforms at the time. Facebook seemed like a bad scene. Twitter seemed fun. Remember, back in like 2009 or 2010. People bouncing off each other, jokes, just a lot of handshakes and high fives. It seemed like If we got it right, that’s where we would want to be. If we could do something where someone goes “hey i solved a weird thing”, they could broadcast that and we would get some of the Animal Crossing and Demon’s Souls flavor of that kind of interaction.

    The actual integration wasn’t that hard. The API was an always moving target, but the thing we were asking it to do wasn’t all that difficult. Then there was a little miscalculation in there because we had that onboard, but late in development, I just got this worry. I was seeing playtesting that people wouldn’t notice that this cool feature existed. I think it was me that lobbied to make it a little bit more foregrounded, and make it seem a little bit more part of the intended experience, which is not a bad move, but then the blowback from that was that Sworcery had a really strong launch out of the gate. Great. People really wanted to use that Twitter feature. Great. But then they would fire off Tweets about everything, and so the first couple of days, it was like a slightly obnoxious takeover of Twitter, and some people were a little bit put out.

    That wasn’t the intent, and it worked out well for Sworcery, but it was also not the intent to step on people’s toes. The good thing is once we passed that first day or day and a half or something, it settled into a nice pattern. It was having the desired effect. People were sharing fun little goofy things. Some of them might include clues and some of them are just for fun. It was kind of part of the golden times of Twitter. Back in the day, I guess that was March 2011.

    Dan Berry (to Craig): Explain the Megatome.

    CA: Because we were going into this direction of integrating Twitter and because Sworcery had whatever the Superbrothers-y approach where it’s aware of the context that it’s in. It kind of brings some of the meta textual elements into the fiction. That’s where the Megatome came from, which I think was just a word that we needed because it sounded like something really cool that you would be intrigued by, and then Clive Holden who was the voice of the Archetype was like, “If you’re calling it the megatome, at some point it has to detonate.” He was right. At the end of the story, you detonate the Megatome, and the megatome is basically like a magical Twitter book where you can read everybody else’s thoughts. The twitter integration was brought into the fiction in that way. It’s funny that the task of the Scythian is to take the representation of Twitter that grants you this amazing ability to read thoughts and to destroy it. And then all the years since then, it seems like that’s probably the right move overall. We probably should not be able to read each other’s thoughts to quite this level. It might have adverse effects.

    TA: The Sworcery soundtrack is legendary. Not only is it one of my favorite albums of all time, but it was a huge part of what made the game special. How was it working with Jim Guthrie on Sworcery?

    CA: It is great to hear that you like it. I think it is also good. I agree. Working with Jim was a treat. Jim and I got back a bunch of years before Sworcery. I guess I crossed paths with him in 2005. I sent him some pixels when I was doing the freelance illustration thing, and he sent me this burned CD of all these goofy compositions he had been making using a PS1 game called MTV Music Generator (Editor’s Note: Jim uploaded a recent track on YouTube here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7cZjRWg3rlo) and I love Jim’s music. My wife and I listened to all his albums back in the day a lot, and so hearing this was wild. He had some of that in his second album, Morning Noon Night, and I loved it there. But this was like a whole world of those sounds. It was very inspiring to me and I took my pixels and made a music video around one of them. Jim and I were in Toronto and we crossed paths and I told him all about the cool things that were going on in video games at the time like Electroplankton and whatever else.

    There were actually songs on that album that suggested to me pixel paintings. There’s a song called ‘Under A Tree’. It was always going to be a pre-dawn walk in the woods, or there was a song called Little furnace that I had various visual ideas about, but nothing strong enough but I just knew that I wanted to do something that would hit the magic of that tune.

    I couldn’t make these games on my own, so it took connecting with Capy and getting the ball rolling there. It turned out they were big Jim fans as well. We all got on like a house on fire. Working with Jim on sworcery was such a treat, because I was kind of building the game around his music and saying yes to ideas from his direction. Because there wasn’t an ironclad design that we had to honor. He would come in with something and we would go, “that fits, but we haven’t figured out how we would wrap it up.” There was a little bit of us figuring out how to wrap our thing around what Jim would bring.

    Then there were some instances where we had a boss battle with these Trigons, and we really needed a piece that would meet these specifications, and Jim would always come in with some beautiful, soulful, kind of piece of music that hits the target. A lot of high fives and it was a treat. Jim’s still a good friend, and of course, a JETT contributor, because Andy (scntfc) had a cameo appearance in Sworcery. It only made sense to see if we could Jim a cameo in a score otherwise dominated by scntfc’s work. So Jim was the one that delivered the Out of Our Hands song that caps off JETT’s prologue.

    TA: Following Sworcery, the next project involving Superbrothers and Jim Guthrie was Sony’s Sound Shapes. Tell us a little bit about how that collaboration with Sony came into being.

    CA: It is a Sony published game, but the developer of sound shapes was Queasy Games, a Toronto developer. Jess Mak is the key person, and might still be a one pierson shop these days. Jess Mak was a hero of mine back in the days when I was trying to get Superbrothers going, and I was working in the console video game industry. This is like the early days of indie, and it was a treat that in Toronto we had Metanet software making N, and Jess Mak making Everyday Shooter. It turned out that they were in the same city, and we got into each other’s orbits, and there was a really tight community around that time with Metanet and Queasy and Capy and lots of others.

    The way I got pulled into Sound Shapes was just that the idea of the game was that they would be pulling this visual contributor and that music contributor, and pairing them together, or at least that was the concept for Sound Shapes at a certain point. It just made sense coming off of Sworcery, to see if Jim and I could show up, and I’ll say I didn’t totally understand what Sound Shapes was exactly going to be, because it’s a very unusual thing.

    So the way that it boiled down was Jessica and Mathew Kumar who were working there kind of gave me an asset list after I’d done some sketches, and I just turned in all those assets Superbrothers style characters and locations. They bric-a-brac-ed it together, and I got a chance to check it out at the end. It was a pretty cool experience overall, to just be a part of that machine.

    In that mix, I also did get to know some of the folks at Sony, here and there.

    TA: Sworcery saw a special Moon Grotto EP from composer scntfc. What led to this collaboration?

    CA: In Sworcery times a friend had connected Andy (scntfc) to me, and there was this idea of number stations ending up in Sworcery. It seemed like a mysterious game with that kind of thing would fit. At a certain point the Moon Grotto concept came into being, and it occurred to me that Andy scntfc whose music I was now familiar with, would be a good fit. So that happened. Andy composed the music you hear in the Moon Grotto and he created the number station transmission that we ended up playing at the end of Sworcery. Probably a short time later, the same friend, who had Venus Patrol which was a website blog around that time, motivated the idea of getting a physical release, a 7” together.. It was mostly a reason to put a whole bunch of puzzles and mysteries together in a physical package. That’s pretty much how that came about.

    Fun fact, that’s kind of its own story, is the number station transmission that you hear at the end of Sworcery, if you dial that number into your phone, I think it dead ends now, but that’s recent. For a number of years it would lead you to a mysterious answering machine. It was a little creepy. We recorded all the messages that people left on this answering machine. But then the weird thing is there was an internet ghost story that got started, that if you called that number, somebody would come to your house and kidnap you which is not true, we don’t have that kind of infrastructure (laughs). Yea, there were the top 10 weird internet phone numbers, and we made the top 10. But then we got uncomfortable with that, so we unplugged it.

    TA: What have you been playing recently across different platforms?

    CA: This is where it is revealed that as the father of two kids, and with a project running, I’m not getting like a lot of deep video gaming sessions regularly. But, with two kids, we have been playing a lot of Mario Strikers: Battle League the last little while. The kids are 5 and 8. The 5 year old especially, is way into it, and it is great. We can play two kids against each other or the three of us. We went through Super Mario Odyssey which I played on release. It was a treat to go through with each of the kids. Gotta get those moons man.

    On my side on the PS5, I loved God of War (2018), and I know that I have to allow that outsider indie credibility is going to suffer when I say that. It was just a big juicy cheeseburger. It had Metroid Prime vibes inside of it deep in there. I don’t think Ragnarok is reaching the heights of 2018, but it is very expansive so that’s fun. I guess it is pretty well made. Then Sable, I’ve dipped a toe into it, because just came to PlayStation and I tend to play on PlayStation. But yea, there’s a zillion games that I should be playing like Rollerdrome. I enjoyed the hell out of that for a little while, but I haven’t come back to it. Immortality, seems amazing. I gotta dig in. That’s pretty much where I’m at video game wise these days. I’m a pretty conventional video game player, I think. Im looking forward to Star Wars: Jedi Survivor, the sequel to Fallen Order. They have just the right amount of Dark Souls flavor with just the right amount of Sony Santa Monica-inspired accessibility.

    DB: You (Craig) spoke about what your kids are playing so I’ll talk about what my kids have been playing. They’re very much into Marvel Snap, obviously there’s the obligatory Roblox and Minecraft that they will just spend time on all day long. We’ve been playing Bugsnax. They really enjoy Bugsnax. They’ve been enjoying the Kirby game which is a delight. Personally, I’ve been playing The Curse of the Golden Idol which is great, a little bit of Luck Be a Landlord, I dipped back into Deathloop a little while ago which was fun, Elden Ring. There’s always a hundred hours of Elden Ring. Pentiment was a good thinker. For not thinking at all, I quite enjoyed playing Wreckfest. Just driving a car around and smashing it up. It was good.

    Thanks to Craig D. Adams and Dan Berry for their time here leading up to the launch of JETT: The Far Shore + Given Time and also to popagenda for facilitating this interview.

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    Mikhail Madnani

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  • Game Freak on Working With Apple, a Potential Switch Port, Gear Project’s Future, and More – TouchArcade

    Game Freak on Working With Apple, a Potential Switch Port, Gear Project’s Future, and More – TouchArcade

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    Earlier today, the legendary Pokémon developer Game Freak launched an enhanced version of its 3DS classic Pocket Card Jockey on Apple Arcade in the form of Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On!. Over the last week, I’ve been playing it on multiple devices for review including checking out the early parts of the 3DS game once again to compare with this new version. I had a chance to talk to Masao Taya (Director Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On!) and Masafumi Saito (General Manager Development Department 1) at Game Freak about today’s launch, working with Apple, a potential Nintendo Switch version, the future of Gear Project, and more.

    TouchArcade: Pocket Card Jockey was one of the more interesting 3DS eShop exclusives. It also has quite a cult following outside Japan. When a trademark for Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! was spotted last month, a lot of people expected a sequel to potentially launch on Nintendo Switch. What led to the decision to bring it to Apple Arcade over other platforms?

    Masao Taya: We released an F2P smartphone app version of Pocket Card Jockey in Japan, but we couldn’t adapt the game very well to the F2P style, it didn’t go well in business terms. After that I kept thinking about a way to make Pocket Card Jockey a success as a smartphone app or mobile game, but I had a lot of other (fun) work to do, so I didn’t do anything about it. While this was happening, Apple Arcade began to catch on in Japan. With Apple Arcade, which requires absolutely no in-app purchase beyond the subscription service fees, there was no need to forcefully remodel the game into an F2P style, so I decided to see if I could provide the real joy of playing Pocket Card Jockey with it.

    I know that there are a lot of people who’d love to see a Nintendo Switch version, and porting it is one possibility, but right now our main focus is on Apple Arcade users enjoying it.

    TA: The original Pocket Card Jockey was released on iOS in Japan, but it never saw an international release barring the 3DS version published by Nintendo. Were there plans to bring the original iOS release to the West at all years ago?

    MT: No, we had no plans to do that. Like I said before, the smartphone app version we released in Japan was F2P, a model that required ongoing sales to secure the running costs, including server side maintenance. Given that it didn’t go so well in Japan, it would have been difficult to decide to expand it to the US and to Europe.

    TA: Pocket Card Jockey was an interesting take on two different mechanics that worked perfectly. Has there been any change to the core mechanics for the Apple Arcade version barring bringing a dual screen game to single screen devices?

    MT: The gameplay in this remake is essentially the same, but one point that’s different from the previous version is stamina control during races. In this release, stamina recovery cards are mixed into the solitaire depending on the positioning of the horse. The more stamina recovery cards there are in one position, the less energy there is to gain. So, the trade-off between stamina and energy is clearer than in the original.

    You can play the game and win it without knowing this fact, but I think users will have more of a sense of wider strategies — like deciding in one race to focus on stamina recovery, or in another to go all out to gain energy at the risk of running out of stamina. Of course, if you make the right choice then your chance of winning increases. I hope users who are already familiar with the game keep this in mind when playing.

    TA: Was there anything you couldn’t do for Pocket Card Jockey on 3DS that has now been possible with more powerful hardware on Apple Arcade devices barring the 3D races?

    MT: The key point where we really made full use of the power of Apple products is the 3D screen. We’ve fine-tuned it so that it runs well even on slightly older devices, but also to enhance the rendering a bit more using the power of Apple devices with the new chips.

    TA: The highlight of Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! for existing fans of the game is the 3D racing segments. What else should longtime fans expect in Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On!?

    MT: A feature of all Apple Arcade titles is the ability to smoothly share save data among several devices. So, you can play games at home on your iPad, Mac, or on a big screen with Apple TV, then easily carry on playing it out of the house with your iPhone.

    The use of 3D for the race scenes goes beyond enhancing the rendering. The relative positions of the horses and the special cards shown with simple symbols on the previous version (on the lower screen in the Nintendo 3DS) can now be shown in the 3D space of the race scenes. So, while watching the fascination of the race, at the same time you can keep your eye on the cards to experience both hope and despair of collecting or missing said cards. That’s one point I quite like about this version.

    TA: Are there any plans to add controller support to iOS and iPadOS?

    MT: Nothing has been decided on that at this moment.

    TA: How has it been working with the team at Apple for Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On? Were they involved from the start to help bring this to Apple Arcade?

    MT: Apple regularly gave us advice during development. They gave us feedback on some English expressions that are difficult for us to notice, which was quite a big help. Regarding the gameplay, they constantly said how fascinating it is, which created a really good atmosphere for us as we carried on with the development.

    TA: I enjoyed Game Freak’s Little Town Hero quite a bit on Nintendo Switch for its combat, designs, and music. Is there any chance that can come to mobile in the future?

    MT: Thanks so much! Unfortunately, we don’t have any plans to do that at the moment, but as the director of Little Town Hero, I’m happy to hear how much you like it.

    TA: Game Freak has a lot going on with recent Pokémon games including Pokémon Legends: Arceus that is my favorite game in the series. I wanted to know how the Gear Project at Game Freak has changed in the last few years and whether we can expect more of these more-creative smaller titles?

    Masafumi Saito: The development scale of Pokémon Legends: Arceus and other Pokémon series games has grown, so having enough staff for Gear Projects has become an issue for Game Freak, but we have no intention of stopping work on making new games.

    In recent years we’ve adopted a style of working on development in cooperation with other companies. We’re aiming to be able to work on bigger titles, as well as the smaller-scale ones, than we’ve had so far. We’re still going to bring out more games with the Gear Project that you can all look forward to!

    TA: Can we expect more Gear Project titles to come to Apple Arcade on iOS in the future?

    MS: This is our first game release on Apple Arcade, so firstly we want to hear the reactions of users who play it and see what they think of it. If it looks good, then of course there’s a good chance we’ll be able to provide other titles to Apple Arcade. I’m certainly hoping so!

    Thanks to Masafumi Saito (General Manager Development Department 1) and Masao Taya (Director, Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On!) for their time here leading up to the launch of Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! and also to Jennifer Tam at Apple for facilitating this interview.

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    Mikhail Madnani

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