AppTalk: Interview with Anders Mårtensson from Illusion Labs
by Staff Writer
December 2, 2009
We are all old friends from college or colleagues, so we don't really have a need for processes. That's one of the huge advantages of being small -- everything is light weight.
We are self funded so no-one who tells us what we should do, we are true indies. If one of us get an idea, we take time off the project we are currently working on to test the idea out. If it turns out good, it's added to our never ending "things that should be cool" list, and if not, at least we gave it a go. We think this freedom is key to come up with new innovative games, and is why we can compete with the big boys.
All of us do everything around here, so we switch roles for each project and help out here and there. For Labyrinth 2, I spent most time on the graphics engine, but for Touchgrind I spent most time on the menus and to tie everything together.
Q: Why did you choose to make a sequel to Labyrinth? How long and how difficult was it to develop?
Labyrinth 1 was getting quite old (it was actually released long before the App Store even existed), and the competition were getting stiffer (some clones had more features, but we still had the best and most realistic physics). We talked about what we could do to improve it. We realized that there were so much we could do with the original idea, for instance to add obstacles (like doors, fans, etc), and we started discussing the features we wanted, which turned out to be a long long list, and right now actually most of it is in the game.
Marcus started working on it back in March, I joined him shortly after and then everyone else joined later on, so I guess it has taken 1-5 people to make it in nine to ten months. It's easily our biggest project yet. The editor and the server side took a long time to do as it is quite extensive to let the user create and share levels, browse and download from different top lists, the possibility to rate levels, see previews before downloading etc. In fact, it's pretty much like the App Store itself (just that everything is free).
Graphics and physics are the two areas that we love and are good at, but one of the big challenges was actually to make all the features easy and intuitive to use. We spent a LOT of time on the menus. It may not look like it, but they're quite extensive, and even Apple's UI designers at WWDC were impressed. Also, to make absolutely everything polished close to perfection took a long long time.
Q: What do you think of the current state of the App Store economy as a whole, and in regards to Illusion Labs success?
It's an ever changing market and we are still learning. Without the App Store, Illusion Labs wouldn't be the same today, and we are very grateful that Apple managed to bring back the whole a-one-man-team-can-make-a-game-in-his-basement mentality just like in the 70's and 80's. Many (great!) games on the C64 and Atari computers were done by one man or at least incredibly small teams.
The App Store is evolving everyday, and in my point of view, also improving. The normal top #100 list obviously is flawed as it encourages companies price their games $0.99 (good for customers in the short run), no matter how good the game is or its production value, which in the end will force companies to stop making good and polished games and focus on quick four week projects (bad for customers in the long run). The top grossing list helps a bit though, despite its unsexy name. I'd like to see apps on the front page of the iTunes Store, not just music and TV shows. And Santa, if you're reading this, for Christmas I want shorter approval times :)
Everyone who complains about the App Store really should try other markets just to see how good the App Store really is. Try to sell Java games for other phones. Try the Android market. Try to sell games via your own website. And one key of advice for other devs, don't rely on the App Store to market your app. Be extremely grateful if you get featured, but don't rely on it -- do your own marketing.
Q: Can you let us know any details about your next project?
I wish I could, but we haven't started on anything new. Our next game will probably be something new though, not a sequel.
Even though Labyrinth 2 is a complete game, we still would like to add more content to it. We are already working on the first two updates (which will include some final polish, integration with social networks, perhaps a new theme and also new obstacles).
