作者：Spencer

《Okabu》可以说是最有趣的PSN游戏之一。玩家在游戏中要控制一朵云，并载着Yoribo部落的英雄努力拯救被Doza摧毁着的部落。它是伦敦手机游戏开发商HandCircus（游戏邦注：iPhone游戏《Roando》开发商）的第一款掌机游戏。在这篇访谈中，HandCircus创始人Simon Oliver讲述了他们如何获得《Okabu》创作灵感，以及如何创造优秀的PS3游戏等感想。

Okabu(from siliconera)

《Okabu》的主题很有趣，玩家需要在游戏中控制一对化身人型的云朵，以拯救Yorubo部落免受工业化威胁。为何你们想要创造这么一款环保题材的游戏？

不知道你是否看过一部名为《行星地球》（Planet Earth）的自然历史纪录片。其中有一个画面出现在了博茨瓦纳（游戏邦注：非洲中南部国家）的奥卡万戈三角洲（Okavango Delta）。刚开始整个画面充斥着各种干旱枯竭的景象，随后一股泉水涌来了，随着一波波的浪潮，这个地区也迎来了各种新的生命。植物开始发芽，种子开始扎根，鸟儿盈盈而来，各种哺乳类动物也相继出现在了这片土地上。正是自然的力量创造了各种生命，而因此为我们呈现出如此奇幻无穷的伟大世界。所以我们用奥卡万戈三角洲来命名这款游戏，但是听起来有点拗口，所以将其缩减为“Okabu”，这样更容易表述。

我们想要制做一些以保护自然，反对工业化污染为主题的游戏。而在这款游戏中，我们想要创造一个敌人，所以将世界上的人们分为两大部落——热爱自然的部落Yorubo，他们扮演着农民的角色，并与自然和谐相处着；而另一部落则是Doza，他们追求工业化发展并不断建造建筑物，砍伐森林，无止尽地开采挖掘稀有金属等等。Doza将自己领土上的资源消耗殆尽了，而这时候便开始对Yorubo的领土虎视眈眈。

为何你们想要创造出人型云朵角色？

我们想要创造出一种灵活可行，且可以变化成各种形状和样式的角色，而云朵正是一个不错的选择，它可以凝聚液体，下雨，发出蒸汽等等。同时它也可以吞食各种东西，如在圣经中提到的，云朵可以吞食青蛙，然后以下雨的形式将其释放出来。这么说来我们可以利用云朵发挥各种想象。除此之外，云朵还是一种很好的指示器，即它可以告诉你哪里受到污染而导致酸雨指数超标等等。所以我们认为它是用来表示自然的最佳选择。

第二个让我们想要利用云朵的灵感便是来自于British TV上的《Monkey Magic》（游戏邦注：这是根据《西游记》内容而制作的电视节目），剧中孙悟空正是骑着云朵畅游天下。我们便设想如果让玩家也跳上云朵做各种事情那将会是什么一种情形？我们在游戏中设置了英雄转换设置，让这款游戏控制起来更加简单。玩家无需通过按钮控制这些云朵，不论谁站在云朵上进行战斗，都不会因此脱离游戏背景。这就意味着那些想要与父母一起游戏的年轻玩家能更轻松地进行游戏。我们的目标便是保持游戏容易理解与操作。

我看到了在游戏中Kumulo吸收了水，但是你提到了它还会吸收其它东西？

是的。Kumulo还会吸收石油。你可能会疑惑不知道该在哪里开火。在“A”处有火源，而在“B”处则有高度易燃物。而这时你就需要吸收一些石油，并铺设一条道路，让火能够沿着这条路蔓延至爆炸点而引爆炸药。

这听起来并不像是自然的力量。

是的，要想攻击Doza，你也需要利用对方的一些因素才能取得成功。其中一个骑在云朵上的角色便是Doza的成员。他决定不再生活在阴暗的世界里，于是加入了英雄行列对Doza发起了进攻。他的能量是通过远程控制机器，如机器人，机械设备，车辆，蒸汽压路机，起重机等等。

Okabu (from siliconera)

《Rolando》和《Okabu》都有属于自己独特的角色风格，用我自己的看法来说就是“独有魅力”，它们看起来都很亲切，但是却又不同寻常。能否跟我说说，你们是如何创造出如此独特的游戏角色？

我们非常幸运能够与芬兰插画师Mikko Walamies合作，之所以在一开始就选择了他，便是因为他有能力创造出这种“独有魅力”的角色。当我们开始制作iPhone游戏时，我们不希望游戏角色拥有太多细节性的东西，因为iPhone并不是一个非常强大的设备。而Mikko Walamies正是按照我们这一设想创造出了细节性不强但是魅力依存的游戏角色。他拥有创造出各种可爱的生物和角色的天赋。

当HandCircus在iPhone平台上取得最初的成功后，为何你们决定转战PS3平台？

我们觉得是时候开发PS3游戏了。《Rolando》和《Rolando2》相继取得了成功，而且我是伴随着掌机游戏成长，对这类型游戏有着强烈的感情。除此之外，如果我们能够在更广大且更深层次的平台上进行挑战，我们将会获得更多有利的机遇。显然，PS3就是一个不错的选择。

作为一个从iPhone转变到掌机平台的开发商，你有何经验之谈？

我们将保留之前两款游戏中采用的基本理念，在不失游戏乐趣的前提下，让游戏更简单且容易操作。我们就是带着这些“法宝”转战掌机平台，而应对新的挑战。

我们的开发团队人数也有所增加。从《Rolando》时期的2个人再到《Rolando2》时的4个人，我们总是设法限制整个团队的人员。作为一个小型工作室，我们每个人都需要扮演各种角色，承担各种责任。这是我们所坚持的一大理念，但是因为技术和艺术的需求，我们不得不学习更多的东西。虽然我们还有很多需要学习的地方，但是在整个过程中却能体会到各种乐趣。

Okabu (from siliconera)

你们面临的最大挑战是什么？

我想最让我们头疼的便是需要面对更多更强大的设备。我们现有的技术明显不足以应对这些设备。所以，如何处理这些新功能，并将其更好地用于游戏开发中对我们来说便是最大的挑战。

作为iPhone平台早期的成功者之一，能否谈谈你对如今拥有好几百万应用程序的iPhone平台的看法。

如今的情况已经完全不一样了。从价格上来看，当我们发行《Rolando》时售价是9.99美元，但是正如你所看到的那样，现在所有游戏的平均价格仍在持续下滑，竞争压力日趋激烈。可以说现在的市场与2008年我们发行《Rolando》时已经完全不一样了。但是幸好，人们还能够在此创造出大热门的优秀游戏。如果你的游戏能够吸引玩家的注意力，具有独特之处，价格适中，且其设计符合iPhone平台的要求，那么你完全有可能在这里创造出大热游戏（虽然现在你需要耗费更多精力才能让你的游戏得到关注）。

同样是关于PS3的问题，你是如何从掌机市场中看到前景的？

我们现在所面临的是不同市场和不同玩家。当然了，这里也有一些曾经玩过《Rolando》的玩家。最重要的是，我们想在这个更广大的平台上让更多人体验到我们的游戏。

你曾经说过，在iPhone游戏开发要需要注意的几点是创造性，时机，价格以及市场饱和度。那么在PS3平台是否也存在这些影响因素呢？

显然，PSN市场准入门槛较高。虽然这里没有数以万计的应用程序与你竞争，但是你必须生产出更高质量的游戏产品才有可能让你在此立足。

虽然比起盒装掌机游戏，《Okabu》的开发成本较低，但是当面对那些投入了高额市场营销预算的游戏时，你们的游戏如何才能脱颖而出？

为了吸引玩家的注意，让他们愿意了解游戏，尝试游戏并购买游戏，我们还必须投入更多的精力。

游戏邦注：原文发表于2011年6月28日，所述事件以当时为背景。（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

How An iPhone Developer Moved To PS3, The Story Behind Okabu

By Spencer

Okabu might be the most adorable game for PlayStation Network. You play as a cloud who carries hero Yoribo who want to clean up the destruction from the Doza. Haven’t heard about Okabu before? Read our hands-on impressions.

Okabu is also the first console game from HandCircus, developer of the smash iPhone hit Rolando. In this interview, we discuss how they prepared for a PS3 game, but before that Simon Oliver, Founder, discussed where he got the idea for Okabu.

Okabu has an interesting theme where you play as a cloud cleaning up pollution. Maybe we can start talking about why you waned to create an eco-friendly game?

Simon Oliver, Founder: Yeah, sure! I don’t know if you’ve seen a show called Planet Earth, it’s a natural history program, and there was an episode of that where they went to the Okavango Delta in Botswana. They showed this footage of going into this area, which starts out at the beginning of the season as very dry. When the water arrives, the waves created a spread of a life. Plants sprout and when the seeds come in, birds arrive. You start getting mammals arriving. There is just this beautiful idea of the power of nature and how it creates this life force that makes the world grow. That’s where we took the name from, the Okavango Delta, which is obviously a bit of a mouthful. We wanted to do something a little simpler and cut it down to Okabu, a little easier to say.

We wanted to do something based on nature and the biggest opposition to nature is industrialization. In this case, we wanted to create an enemy, so we split the people in the world into two different tribes. We have the Yorubo, there this nature loving tribe. They’re farmers and live in harmony with nature. On the other side, we have the Doza. Many, many generations ago they split into two. The Doza pursue this industrialized existence where they build machines, they cut down forests, they dig into the land to extract metal. They’ve consumed all of their stuff and now they’ve come back to pursue the Yorubo’s land.

Why did you want to make a cloud the player character?

We were thinking of something that would really work and be quite flexible, something you can adapt into various shapes and forms. The cloud seemed like a natural choice because it can pick up various liquids, it can rain, steam, there are all kinds of other bits and pieces. It can suck up stuff, like in the biblical plagues where they sucked up frogs and it rained frogs. There’s a lot you can do with a cloud. Also, they are an indicator of when there is pollution where you get acid rain. We thought it was kind of a nice way to star off as a symbol of nature.

The second inspiration, I don’t know if you’ve seen this show called Monkey Magic, which is this imported show that was on British TV. It was about the Monkey King, it was based on Journey to the West. You know the Monkey King rides on clouds, yeah so we were like we got to do something with this. What happens if we had some guys that jumped on their backs and did various things? By swapping between heroes we could keep the controls very simple. We didn’t have a button that does this, a button that does this, and this. Whoever’s on their back, it becomes contextual. That means for younger players that might want to play with their parents the controls are designed to be simple and our goal was to keep the game quite accessible.

We saw Kumulo pick up water, but you also alluded to picking up or absorbing other things.

Yeah. One of the other elements you pick up is oil. You have a section where you have a puzzle where you have to spread fire to something. There’s fire at “A” and there is something that explodes that’s highly flammable at “B.” What you can do is suck up some oil and paint a path for the fire to spread to blow up the exploding block or dynamite.

That doesn’t sound like the power of nature at work.

Well, there are some elements where you have to use the Doza’s elements back against them. One of the other characters who flies on the cloud’s back is a member of the Doza themselves. He decides he doesn’t like the direction they’re going in. He joins the heroes to push the Doza back. His power is to control machinery with a little remote control. He can use that to take control of robots, machines, and vehicles. We’ve got steamrollers, cranes, that kind of thing and he can use his remote control to take control of them.

Rolando and Okabu both have unique art styles with characters, I’m not sure if I’m expressing myself well, but perhaps they are “inviting.” They feel friendly yet whimsical. What’s the magic ingredient, in your opinion, of creating a character like that.

We are very lucky to work with a Finnish illustrator Mikko Walamies and the reason why I wanted to start working with him initially is because he can create these character with, as you say, innate charm. When we stared working with the iPhone we wanted to keep the characters didn’t have a lot of detail, because it’s not the most powerful device. He’s able to create something with minimal detail that just has charm in the characters. It’s all down to him really. He has a natural gift for creating adorable creatures and characters.

Why did you decide to make this game for PlayStation 3 since HandCircus had their initial success with the iPhone?

We felt now was the time to do a console game. We’ve come off Rolando and Rolando 2 and it’s personally something I’ve always had a passion for since I grew up playing console games. And the opportunity to do something bigger in scale, more in depth, the opportunity to create a more fleshed out world. Doing something on PS3 seems like a good way to do that.

What have you learned as a developer moving from an iPhone developer to consoles?

I think we tried to keep a lot of the principle ideas behind the two previous games with this. Make it simple and accessible to play. Making it fun and engaging, very easy to pick up and play. That’s what we carried over. As you say, moving to consoles presents unique challenges.

We grown the team a little bit. There are five of us now, compared to two with Rolando and we went up to four with Rolando 2. We’ve managed to keep the team quite small. Being a small studio, everyone does a lot of roles, there is a lot of different hat wearing. That’s something we maintained, but we had to learn a lot in terms of the technology and art pipeline. There’s been a lot of learning, but that’s been part of the fun.

What was the biggest challenge?

I think getting our heads around this is a lot more powerful machine. Technically, there is a lot more we can do with. I think, that’s been the biggest challenge for us, how to harness all of this extra capacity and how we can use it that works well with the game.

Being one of the early success stories, what’s your vision of the iPhone landscape now with its millions of apps?

It’s very, very different. If you look at the price point, how much its changed. When we launched Rolando it was $9.99 and you know the average prices continue to slip down. And competition, as you say, is absolutely huge now. We launched in December in 2008 and the market is very different now. But, the great thing is there is still a lot of opportunity for people to have breakout hits. If you do have a product that captures people’s imaginations, is different, is priced right, and designed really well for the iPhone I still think it’s possible for developers to have that hit, but they have to work that much harder to get noticed now.

As a similar question, with respect to PlayStation 3, where do you see your success story in the console market?

We are appealing to a different market, a different base of players. Of course, there will be some crossover with people who played Rolando for the iPhone. The main thing is we want to make something that’s broad that a lot of people that can enjoy.

With the iPhone you mentioned other factors, creativity, timing, price, and market saturation. How do you factor those in when looking at the PlayStation 3 landscape compared to the iPhone?

Obviously, there is a much higher barrier to entry for developing for PSN. You do not have hundreds of millions of apps to compete with, in that respect, it is very different. The competition is less, but the quality is especially high with downloadable titles. We need to do something that matches the level of quality and stands out in that space.

While Okabu may cost less than boxed console games, even if you create a great product how do you get noticed when other games have blockbuster marketing budgets?

In terms of speaking to press like you, it’s going to be a lot of work to get noticed so people get a chance to learn about the game, try the game, and hopefully buy the game.

It seems like the PlayStation Blog is helping Oliver with his goal by posting a few articles about the game. Okabu comes out this summer.(source:siliconera)