作者：Paul Taylor

对于广大独立开发者来说PC平台应该是他们的最佳出发点吧。不管是开放式属性还是巨大的知识库都使它成为创造并出售创造性游戏的完美平台。

但是当一款游戏在PC和Mac上取得成功后，便会有越来越多人希望它也能够进驻其它平台。这便是我们在《Frozen Synapse》所经历到的：而呼声最大的便是iPad版本。

Frozen Synapse(from gamesradar.com)

距离游戏公测还有2个多月，所以我刚好可以利用这一机会在此阐述我们截至今日所遇到的一些考验与磨难，以及我们对于游戏发行的规划。

做决定

做出游戏移植的选择总是非常困难，特别是对于小团队来说。已经出现了许多独立游戏移植失败的案例；并且我们也总是会低估游戏移植所需要付出的努力。

我认为独立游戏更应该谨慎地对待移植过程：独立游戏总是很大程度地依赖于名声，而牺牲游戏完整性去换取“不义之财”并不是一种明智的选择！同时像Faustian之类的活动也不再会起作用：快速且马虎的游戏移植时代已经结束了。我不认为《Frozen Synapse》的iPad版本“只是一款移植游戏”，它同时也必须是一款优秀的作品。

《Frozen Synapse》的回合制属性以及市场上对于iPad游戏的迫切需求都让我们意识到了机会的存在。如果我们能够将这款游戏移植到iPad平台上，这便能够同时鼓励现有的社区和新玩家去购买游戏，所以这是一种有价值的尝试。

分配工作

游戏需要一个全新的界面，并且我们需要对此进行多次测试与迭代，而Torque引擎所具有的跨平台性质便能够帮助我们解决许多较低层次的问题。为一款移植游戏创造一个全新的技术具有巨大的风险性，所以这一点足够我们伤脑筋了。

当我们意识到能够在iPad平台上创造出更高质量的产品时，我们便可以开始落实这一项目了。我们决定将所有的工作分配给内部程序员以及可信任的自由职业者。也就意味着大量的编程工作将在公司外部进行，如此便能够留给我们更多时间去创造下一款新游戏。

一触即发

一开始我们并不确定游戏的复杂UI是否适合平板电脑。我想提醒开发者注意的一点是：iPad是一个非常灵活的平台，能够有效地呈现出具有创造性的用户界面。对于任何开发者来说在做出这样的决定前一定要先熟悉目标设备。

一开始我便做出了“始终”开启地图控制和单位选择功能的决定。选择从界面上过滤何种内容并将其置于编辑器之后是一件非常具有挑战的工作，但是这却能让玩家更轻松地缩放并移动地图，并通过轻敲单位去选择对象。

总之，我很高兴能够看到这些进步：我自己现在便能够较轻松地在iPad上玩各种多人游戏。但是游戏测试才是真正严峻的考验，那时候我们将收到更多有关我们选择的反馈意见。

《Frozen Synapse》是一款非常重视精度的游戏，所以我们并不会让玩家直接选择在任何特定时间去使用触屏，而是会同时为他们提供所有选择。这是避免冲突的最佳方法，但同时也会引起一些不必要的问题，如玩家不得不去寻找正确的按钮或编辑器——我希望尽早平衡这一问题。

进一步挑战

游戏还需要进行更深层次的优化，特别是关于AI计算以及不同关卡的背景渲染。幸运的是我们在开发过程中便已经具备了调整AI的能力：添加一些能够有效控制游戏性能的选择能够帮助我们在移植过程中取得更大的成效。

老实说，我们低估了游戏完全运转于iPad上所具有的复杂性——深入探析UI代码也将会引起同样的麻烦，即导致我们不得不投入更长的开发时间，不过不管怎么说这些都是我们能够解决的问题，我们也仍然致力于该项目的工作中。

钱的问题

显然，面对一个新平台发行游戏便需要我们重新制定盈利策略。我们同样也考虑了之前游戏所使用的免费模式和微交易。但是当我们着眼于许多成功应用于多款iOS游戏的免费模式后，我们再次陷入了迷茫，即我们想不出哪种免费结构才是真正适合我们的《Frozen Synapse》。

我们认为现在的游戏总是被束缚在一个框架中，即在确保核心机制的前提下为玩家提供各种选择。但是通常情况下添加更多单位类型或任何基于属性的升级模式将会破坏整体的游戏。而我们的《Frozen Synapse》便不适合这种付费模式。我们总是很难（但是我却认为不无可能）创造出一款不再纠缠玩家的免费游戏，并且我们也还有许多需要认证的想法。

我们现在所坚持的价格策略是，利用iOS市场上的新颖且廉价元素，但同时确保最终价格仍高于许多应用和游戏所采用的极低价格。

停止盲目地透露信息

当一个项目还处于开发阶段时，我们便很难对其结果做出任何预测，特别是当我们还剩下一大堆编程工作。

我的意思是说在开发过程中（游戏邦注：有可能还会改变现有的工作）我们很难找到一个合适的PR点。而在此创造性思维便具有很大的帮助。显然游戏社区总是会好奇游戏的发行日期，这也是为什么有如此多开发者总是会公开一些不确切的日期去吸引人们的关注！而我们则决定在最终明确能够提交一款成功游戏时才公布这些信息。

当我们开始公开地谈论开发过程时，我们希望通过告诉玩家我们即将进入测试阶段，并且我们也始终在尽自己所能去创造这款游戏等信息让他们感到安心。

结论

iPad版本的《Frozen Synapse》是我们将游戏推向第二个平台的首次尝试。我们深刻感受到了iPad的巨大潜能，因为对于策略型游戏来说这一设备中还存在着许多可开拓的空间，并且回合制游戏也能够在此占据一块有利的利基领地。通过考虑用户的需求并创造出符合我们桌面版本的内容，我们便能够获得所有iOS所必须的最初牵引力。

桌面游戏玩家已经真正接受了我们的游戏，所以我们希望平板电脑玩家也会如此。

同样地，如果这款游戏的iPad版本能够取得好成绩，我们也会考虑继续将其推向其它平台，包括iPhone。而我们对于Android平台的政策也从未发生改变：如果存在一种可行的方法能够帮我们实现创想，我们便会果断地去实践。

（本文为游戏邦/gamerboom.com编译，拒绝任何不保留版权的转载，如需转载请联系：游戏邦）

The challenges of porting a PC game to iPad

By Paul Taylor

The PC is undeniably a great place to start out as an indie dev. Its open nature, coupled with a vast pre-existing knowledge base, make it an ideal platform to create and market innovative titles.

However, once a game is successful on PC and Mac, the demand for versions on other platforms can suddenly go through the roof. This is something we experienced with Frozen Synapse: our most frequent community request was for an iPad version.

We’re currently a couple of months away from beta, so I thought I would take this opportunity to discuss the trials and tribulations we’ve encountered so far, as well as our plans for release.

The Decision

Making the choice to port a game is always difficult, especially in a small team. There have been quite a few cases of indie game ports performing badly; also, it’s easy to underestimate the amount of effort which a solid port requires.

I feel it’s never worth it for an indie game to be ported poorly: indies rely on their reputation and sacrificing your integrity in exchange for a quick buck is never wise! Also, such Faustian activities probably won’t work: the age of quick and dirty porting in general is mostly over. I don’t think of Frozen Synapse iPad as “just a port” – it has to be a good product in its own right.

Frozen Synapse’s turn-based nature, coupled with an increasing demand for deeper iPad games made us believe that there could be an opportunity here. If we can bring the game to the iPad in a way that will encourage both the existing community and new players to purchase, then it can well be worthwhile.

Setting the Waypoints

The game would need an entirely new interface with some significant testing and iteration, but the cross-platform nature of the Torque engine would mean that a lot of the lower level issues were taken care of. Developing completely new technology for a port can be extremely risky, so this was a weight off our minds.

When we realised that we could do something high quality on the iPad, it was time to figure out how to structure the project. We decided to divide the work between an in-house coder and a trusted freelancer. This would mean that we could work on the interface in detail while the bulk of the coding work took place outside the company, leaving us free to move on with a new title.

Touch and Go

Initially, we were uncertain that the game’s complex UI would be a good fit for a tablet. One thing I would caution developers against is this kind of presupposition: the iPad is actually an extremely flexible platform which lends itself to creative user interfaces. It’s important to truly familiarise yourself with a device before making this type of decision.

I was clear from the outset that I wanted map control and unit selection to be “always on”. Choosing what to filter from the interface and place behind modifiers was extremely challenging, but allowing the player to pinch-zoom and scroll around the map easily, as well as tapping on units to select them, was a big priority.

Here’s a video which shows off most of our significant interface decisions:

Overall, I am happy with progress on this aspect: I’ve personally played multiplayer matches on the iPad now without too much difficulty. The real acid test will be during beta when we get a much wider range of feedback on our choices.

Frozen Synapse is a game where precision matters a lot, so my emphasis was on allowing the player to choose exactly what they are using the touchscreen for at any given time, rather than making every option available simultaneously. This is the best way of avoiding conflicts, but it can also lead to some problems with hunting for the correct button or modifier – I’m hoping to balance this out soon.

Further Challenges

The game needed some significant optimisations, particularly on the AI calculations and also on how backgrounds were rendered in levels. Luckily, the ability to tweak the AI had already been put in place during development: adding options which allow your game to scale performance-wise can pay massive dividends during a porting process.

It’s fair to say that, as ever, we underestimated the complexity of getting the game to work fully on the iPad – delving so deeply into the UI code brought its fair share of issues, leading to a much longer development time than anticipated – however, these are all things that we will be able to work through – we are still committed to completing the project.

The Money Question

Obviously releasing on a new platform caused us to revisit our strategy for how to monetise the game. As ever, free-to-play and microtransactions were discussed. However, after looking at many successful free-to-play based iOS titles we were once again unable to come up with any kind of satisfactory F2P structure for Frozen Synapse.

For us, the game is too reliant on giving the user unfettered access to a large number of options, as well as keeping tight core mechanics. Adding large numbers of unit types or any kind of stats-based upgrades would simply break the game. I definitely think that a similar game could work with that kind of payment model, but it wouldn’t be Frozen Synapse. It is still difficult (though I believe not impossible) to make a fully free-to-play game work without nagging the player at annoying times, and there is still a lot to be proven here.

Our current strategy is to aim for a price point which reflects both the somewhat novelty-based aspect of the iOS market, but is also above the bargain basement pricing that many apps and games adopt.

Stop the Press

It can difficult to talk about something while it’s in development in a meaningful way, especially when the bulk of the work left to do on it is somewhat un-sexy programming. No, I’m not implying that sexy programming exists…at least I hope not. I can tell I’m digging myself a hole here…

What I’m trying to express here is that it can be a challenge to find PR points throughout a development cycle which consists mostly of adapting existing work. However, a bit of creative thinking here can be helpful. The video which I posted above proved to be a good asset and serve to remind people that work is still going on. The community obviously want to know a release date, which is probably why many developers constantly mention dates they know are unattainable just to keep people’s interest! We’re holding off on that until we can commit to something that will actually be hit.

By starting to be more open about the development process at this point, I hope we can reassure people that we are getting towards a beta and still trying to do the best we can for the game.

Final Thoughts

Frozen Synapse on iPad will mark the first time we’ve brought a game to a second platform. We feel very strongly that the iPad is an incredible device which still has a vast unexplored potential for strategic gaming, and that a turn-based title will be filling a valid niche. By respecting customers and making something which lives up to our desktop version, we hope that we’ll get the initial traction that every iOS title needs.

The desktop gaming audience has really embraced the game; we’re hoping that tablet gamers will also get behind it!

Also, if the iPad version goes well, we are keen to explore getting the game onto other devices, including iPhone. Our policy on Android is still the same as it has ever been: if there is a viable way of getting it done, then we will take it.(source:gamesbrief)