dissection - flick tennis - anuj tandon rolocule games: ngdc 2012

Flick Tennis college wars

Anuj TandonRolocule Games

www.rolocule.com

Dissection• Game Concept• Basic Game Mechanic evolution• Designing the gameplay and AI• Features evolution.• Key Milestones missed.• Release and post release.

Flick Tennis – Intro

• 3D Tennis game for iOS.• Took 8 months to ship from concept.• Team: 1 Designer, 1 Developer, 5

Artists.

• Motivation: To create something new.• Already created Touch Squash and

Super Badminton

Game Concept• Usual Sports game lack purpose• Career mode: Just move ahead in career…?• What about friendships, rivalries, fighting

the underdog status.• Inspirations: Sports Movies, Comics etc.

Basic Mechanic “Flick”

Tilt

D-Pad/Virtual Joystick

Line Drawing/Gestures

Touch (Single/Multi)

Combo or ?

Combo…?

• PocketGamer (Media, UK) – “Whilst tilting your handset sets the direction of a volley mid-swing, the player’s movements are governed by the D-pad. Alas, only patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time could be any more awkward.”

• Still 3/5 Stars not bad but can it be improved?

Evolution, did we get it?

Gameplay and AI

Removal of Buttons• Multiple touch controls for different

shots different color coded lines for user feedback.

Removal of D-Pad

• Tennis a complex game!• Player movement tricky.• Watched a lot of tennis and talked to local

players.• Eureka! Flick and Tap.

• Too many fights in the team. “NEED D-Pad”• Decided to Play Test.

• Still the fights continued. Console hangover…

AI and Difficulty

• Bring realistic tennis experience.• Studied different tennis styles. Chose

4.

• 3 difficulty levels.• Total 12 different playing options.

Defensive Baseliner Serve and Volleyer Aggressive Baseliner All Court Player

Features

Features• Single player mode story told via comic• Could have done 3D interaction but comic unique

and easier to get done.• Comic strip could have been much better, no

good in-house comic artist.

Features• Doubles Mode – Partner AI could have been

better.• Episode concept, unlocking new content.• Exhibition mode.• Head to Head turn based local multiplayer.

Feature FAIL• HELP page not helpful.• Tutorials were a little text heavy. (corrected later)

NO MULTIPLAYERWTF…

Milestones

What went wrong• 4 month game came out in 8 months.• Started with no money to buy machines.• Two months into production left in-house engine

to try out UDK. GDC and Infinity blade hangover.• Dumped UDK - back to own engine, 1 month

gone.• Shifted office, set up a new one between

production cycle.

Release

• Had missed the Wimbledon date for marketing the game no backup plan.

• Game first released on iPad, still figuring out was that the right thing to do.

• Crappy icon. (updated)• Corrected a lot of mistakes in the

iPhone launch, got good response.

Tide starts turning

• Both games within weeks featured by Apple, sales pick up.

• Game reviewers in awe, TouchArcade: 4/5, Cnet, Appolicious 4/5 and many others.

• MOST importantly customers loving the game 4.5/5 stars average rating some calling it ‘Infinity Blade of Sports genre’.

And the big one…

Q & A

BTW GAME IS FREE TODAY!

Programmers, Designers. Listen Up!

We are hiring!Buzz here –

talent@rolocule.com