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《割绳子》开发者谈打造iPhone神话的要点

发布时间:2012-02-17 14:20:24 Tags:,,,

作者:Dean Takahashi

众游戏开发者肯定都不会对所谓的iPhone“神话”感到陌生:一家小型独立游戏开发商创造出一款热门游戏,深受广大玩家的欢迎,并在整个App Store上迅速传播开来。获得了上千万甚至是上亿次的下载量,为开发者赢得了巨大收益,促使他们打造了一个属于自己的手机游戏王国。甚至有些开发者还会根据游戏中的角色推出可爱的毛绒玩具等周边产品。

这些“神话”公司包括《愤怒的小鸟》开发商Rovio;《Talking Tomw》开发商Outfit7;《涂鸦跳跃》开发商Lima Sky;《水果忍者》开发商Halfbrick;《口袋上帝》开发商Bolt Creative以及《翼飞冲天》开发者Andreas Illiger。在此我们要讨论的是为何俄罗斯兄弟的iPhone游戏《割绳子》能够在1年时间里获得6000多万次下载量,并大获成功。

ZeptoLab(from venturebeat)

ZeptoLab(from venturebeat)

Semyon(上图左)以及Efim Voinov(上图右)是一对来自莫斯科的双胞胎兄弟。他们从10岁便开始制作游戏,在游戏开发中投入了大把时间,创造了许多款针对传统功能性手机的游戏,也创造了一些iPhone游戏。

Efim在2008年创造了第一款iPhone游戏,并决定开始专门针对该设备制作游戏。他创办了游戏公司ZeptoLab,并担任技术总监一职,而他的兄弟Semyon则担任创意总监。Misha Lyalin(上图中)是这家公司的董事长。随后,他们以只有4个人的团队创造出了iPhone游戏《降落伞忍者》,该游戏发布于2010年2月。

《降落伞忍者》原先打算采用的绳子机制后来运用到了《割绳子》之中。Efim花了很多时间创造出能够模仿绳子行为的自定义引擎。尽管也有其它开放源物理引擎可供选择,但是Efim最终还是决定创造自己的引擎。他希望创造出一款也能够在处理功能较薄弱的设备上正常运转的绳子引擎。所以,他必须重拾以前的一些物理教科书进行研究。

最后,开发者决定用降落伞替换绳子。尽管《降落伞忍者》已经获得了300万次的下载,但是与iPhone上其它获取上千万甚至是上亿次下载量的热门游戏相比,这种成绩并不算突出。

Efim Voinov说道:“我们发现小型开发者所面临的门槛更小。没有大规模的开发团队也能够在iOS平台上获取成功。”

开发该游戏让这个小团队积攒了一些核心开发工具的经验。在发布了第一款iPhone游戏后,这两兄弟便决定利用他们的绳子引擎创造另外一款游戏。他们进一步研究了自己的第一款游戏,并发现触屏以及倾斜振动控制系统让《降落伞忍者》变得更加难以理解。而其它游戏采用了绳子物理机制。

Semyon Voinov表示:“我们针对于不同理念进行了各种试验。而其中一个理念便是《割绳子》。”

他们在2010年春天敲定了游戏理念,并在夏天创建了游戏原型。同时他们还明确了玩家可以在屏幕上拖拉绳子并解决各种谜题的机制。人们玩绳子游戏的现象非常普遍,玩家需要在游戏中预测不同物体在绳子环境中的行为。

事实证明绳子的外观并非关键,游戏玩法更加重要。这款游戏给玩家带来了像街机游戏那样容易上手的体验,但也很考验玩家快速思考与行动的能力。

除此之外,开发团队还决定创造一个有趣的游戏角色,因为休闲游戏玩家总是喜欢与动画角色进行互动,不愿意面对一些死板的砖块或几何图形。最终他们决定使用绳子将食物传送给Om Nom这只大胃口的绿色小怪物。Semyon认为这只怪物应该像宝宝或者宠物那样可爱,如此才能调动玩家给它喂食的积极性。

最终在2010年10月5日,由Chillingo(现被EA所收购)在iPhone平台上正式发行了这款游戏,售价0.99美元(游戏邦注:Chillingo负责该游戏的发行,推广与营销)。在发行的第一天,游戏便迅速进入App Store排行榜单前十名;并且在第二天占据了排行榜首位。仅10天便获取了100多万次的下载量。在2011年6月,该游戏首次登陆Android平台。Efim表示这款游戏之所以能够获得广大玩家的欢迎是因为它能够让玩家开心。

Efim说道:“这个小怪物就像是一个缓解压力的工具。玩家看到这个动画形象心情就会变好。”

在取得巨大成功之后,他们仍将继续谱写这个神话。该团队又陆陆续续更新了六七次游戏,ZeptoLab现在也已经发展成为拥有20多个员工的公司。ZeptoLab现在并没有融资的打算,因为通过销售该款游戏他们已经获得了非常可观的收入。而这对双胞胎兄弟也已经在游戏开发界小有名气了。

Efim开玩笑地说道:“……我们的确在游戏产业中获得了一定的知名度。这很大程度要归功于Om Nom的名气……”

与《愤怒的小鸟》一样,他们也推出了Om Nom毛绒玩具,自从9月份正式问世以来便大受欢迎。在11月18日,他们在iOS上推出了具有新内容的免费假期版游戏。

Efim和Semyon为小型游戏开发商提出了一些建议。Semyon说道:“如果你是在做自己喜欢的事,你就不会浪费时间去做那些自己不喜欢的事。”

他们建议开发者去学习那些已经获取成功的游戏,并且理解它们取得成功的原因。同时,他们也应该学习那些失败的游戏,并研究人们为何不喜欢这些游戏。开发者应该创造出能够吸引更多玩家的游戏,并保持游戏的这种吸引力。毕竟,这对兄弟在创造出真正热门的游戏之前已经开发了30多款手机游戏。

Efim表示:“我们已经做好准备打算开发许多游戏,并希望其中一款能够真正成为热门游戏。”Semyon也补充道:“你还必须学会向别人展示自己的游戏,听取他们的意见,理解他们喜欢游戏中的哪些内容。并且向非游戏玩家展示自己的游戏。”

除了推出毛绒玩具,他们还致力于创造《割绳子》的续集游戏,预计于2012年推出。他们希望游戏的忠实玩家会喜欢这些更新内容,并且他们也在创造一款全新的(原创)游戏,这是20名员工共同参与的作品,也将发行于2012年。该公司现在已经能够同时致力于多个项目的开发了,其中还包括一个新的数字漫画项目。

Efim说道:“我们希望涉及各种领域,不断拓展我们的《割绳子》品牌。我们也计划推出一些类似的新游戏。同时,我们也将继续保持创造性,添加更多不一样的新内容。”

该团队也打算将《割绳子》推向更多新平台,但是他们深知资源限制导致很多想法无法落实。该公司还在继续扩招,但只青睐那些能够做好自己本职工作的人才。

Efim表示:“我们在很早以前便开始创造手机游戏,那时候手机功能不够强大,屏幕也还很小。虽然那时我们也进行了各种推广,并且期待能够创造出真正受欢迎的游戏,但却未能如愿。不过这一神话最终却在iPhone平台实现了。”

游戏邦注:原文发表于2011年12月9日,所涉事件和数据均以当时为准。

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

DeanBeat: The iPhone fairy tale comes true for Russia’s Cut the Rope developers

Dean Takahashi

The iPhone fairy tale is becoming a familiar one for game developers: A small indie developer creates a hit, people love it, and it spreads like wildfire through the App Store. Tens of millions or hundreds of millions of downloads later, and the developers are rich and on their way to building a mobile gaming empire. Sometimes they even sell adorable plush toys based on their game characters.

It has happened with Rovio, maker of Angry Birds; Outfit7, maker of Talking Tom Cat; Lima Sky, maker of Doodle Jump; Halfbrick, maker of Fruit Ninja; Bolt Creative, maker of Pocket God; and Andreas Illiger, creator of Tiny Wings. So the question isn’t why were two Russian brothers so successful with their iPhone game, Cut the Rope, which has been downloaded more than 60 million times in just a year. It’s more, ‘Why not?’

Semyon (pictured above left) and Efim Voinov (above right), two twin brothers in Moscow in their 20s, have been making games since they were ten. They have put in their time, making dozens of games for the old feature phones and a handful for iPhones too. So it’s only right that, finally, one of their games has paid off with blockbuster results.

Efim got his first iPhone in 2008 and decided to work on games for the device. He created  ZeptoLab, a game development company where he serves as technical director and his brother Semyon works as creative director. Misha Lyalin (pictured middle) is the chairman of the company. With a team of just four people, they created a zany game called Parachute Ninja. The game, which stars a ninja with a ball-like body that bounces and floats, debuted in February 2010.

Parachute Ninja was almost based on the rope mechanic that’s in Cut the Rope. Efim spent a lot of time getting the physics right by creating a custom engine that could simulate the behavior of the rope. There were other open-source physics engines available, but Efim liked the challenge of creating his own. He wanted to create a rope engine that worked well even on a device with a weak processing brain. To do so, he had to dust off his old physics books.

At the last minute, the developers decided to substitute a parachute for the rope. Parachute Ninja was downloaded 3 million times — a solid hit, but not as spectacular as some of the other mega-hit games on the iPhone.

“We found that there were no barriers for small developers,” said Efim Voinov, in an interview. “It is possible to be successful without a huge team on the iOS platform.”

The game gave the small team some good experience with its core development tools. After the first iPhone game shipped, the brothers decided to make use of their rope engine with another creation. They studied their first game and felt like the combination of touch and tilt controls made Parachute Ninja tricky to understand for players. Other games used rope physics.

“We experimented with different ideas,” Semyon Voinov said. “One of them was Cut the Rope.”

The concept phase was in the spring of 2010 and the prototyping took place in the summer. The team settled upon a mechanic where the player can draw a rope on the screen to solve various puzzles. Playing with a rope was pretty universal. The game play involved predicting the behavior of different objects in the rope environment.

It turned out that the visual element of how the rope looked wasn’t the key. The game play was the secret. It was an arcade-like experience that was simple to learn but players had to think and act fast.

The team also decided to create a funny character since casual gamers enjoy interacting with animated characters more than blocks or geometric shapes. They decided to use the rope to deliver food to Om Nom, the little green monster with a big appetite. Semyon thought that the monster should be cute, like a baby or a pet. That would tap into the feeding instincts of the players.

The 99-cent game came out on the iPhone on Oct. 5, published by Chillingo, which is now a part of Electronic Arts. Chillingo helped to get it off the ground and noticed with promotions and marketing. On its first day, the game shot into the top ten on the App Store. On its second day, it hit No. 1 on the App Store charts. Within 10 days, it crossed a million downloads. In June 2011, the game made its debut on Android. The game took off, Efim said, because it makes people smile.

“The monster is like a stress reliever,” Efim said. “They look at the animations and feel better.”

After the runaway success, the fairy tale has continued to play itself out. The team has done six or seven updates of the game, and Zeptolab has now grown to 20 employees in Moscow thanks to profits from Cut the Rope. Zeptolab has no plans to raise fuding, since it already has a lot of money coming in from game sales. The brothers are now mini-celebrities in the mobile game development world.

“I don’t have a lot of girls standing by my house yet,” Efim said. “But we are known in the industry. What we see as a great sign is that Om Nom is liked by people. We see a hunger for something more.”

And, of course, like Angry Birds before them, there are Om Nom plush toys. The toys hit the market in September and they’re selling well. On Nov. 18, they released a free holiday edition with new game content on iOS.

Efim and Semyon have some advice for small developers. “[If you] do what you like,” Semyon said. “You will not waste time doing things you don’t like.”

They suggest developers study games that have been successful and understand the features that made them successful. They also say developers should study games that were duds and understand what people didn’t like. Developers should create games that appeal to as many people as possible and to keep at it. Altogether, the brothers had worked on 30 mobile games before they had a major hit.

“We were mentally prepared to work on many titles, hoping one would be a hit,” Efim said. Semyon added, “It’s very important when you develop games to show it to others. Listen to them. Understand what they like. Show it to non-gamers.”

And what’s next, beyond the plush toys? They are working on a sequel to Cut the Robe that should be released in 2012. They want to keep fans happy with updates and they are working on a new intellectual property (an original title) that should come out next year as well. That’s where the 20 employees come in. The company now has the ability to work on multiple projects at once, including a new digital comic book.

“We want it all, basically” Efim said. “We want to expand the Cut the Rope brand. We plan to offer new titles that are similar. At the same time, as creative people, we have an urge to work on something different.”

The team will expand Cut the Rope to new platforms, but is aware that it can’t pursue all opportunities due to resource constraints. The company continues to hire, but only people who are perceived as the best at what they do. Facebook is intriguing, as is HTML5 for multi-platform games. The growth of the mobile game industry, which is now in the billions of downloads, is surprising them most of all.

“We started working on mobile games a long time ago, when the phones were not powerful and had tiny screens,” Efim said. “There was hype back then, and we expected it to become huge. I had some illusions. It didn’t happen then, but it surprisingly happened with the iPhone.”(source:venturebeat)


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