Interviews

Interview: Unmasking ambitious iPhone online brawler Watchmen: Justice is Coming

Developer encourages a new paradigm for iPhone gaming

Interview: Unmasking ambitious iPhone online brawler Watchmen: Justice is Coming

iPhone games are like the vigilante Rorschach: they are whatever you view them to be. They can be throwaway mobile apps or inventive, groundbreaking experiences. For Seth Gerson and the team at Last Legion, the latter perspective has driven development of Watchmen: Justice is Coming.

On the eve of the film's release, Gerson shared his insight on the challenges in creating this ambitious title and new details on the game itself.

Watchmen: Justice is Coming embarks on a unique blend of online features and narrative rarely seen in games, let alone on iPhone. As a newly-minted masked vigilante in 1970s New York City, you explore the city uncovering the events leading up to the film.

You start out, of course, by designing your avatar, complete with customisable costume and skills. As you acquire experience, you can augment your attributes, tweak your costume, and even change your set of abilities.

Experience is awarded two ways, Gerson explains: story points and combat. As you explore New York City, you can activate story-related sequences marked with exclamation points.

"The game gives you little pieces of the story through exploration," Gerson says. "It's up to you to put them together."

With the game set well before the events of the film, the challenge of staying within the context of the Watchmen universe has been a particular challenge. That the game blurs the line between narrative play and online interaction adds another layer of complexity.

Thousands of other players will be there right alongside you exploring the same cemetery, red light district, downtown, and subway system as you. You're free to engage fellow vigilantes in combat, chat them up, or ignore them.

"We don't say it's necessarily an MMO; it's really a different genre of game."

A game currently waiting to receive many of the features popular in online games, Gerson admits, "The plan is to add more content, implement more features such as a buddy list and so on."

Either computer-controlled avatars or other players can be battled in what Gerson calls a 'triangular combat system.'

"The game possesses a strategic fighting system so that if you're really good at Street Fighter you can enjoy it, yet the newcomer can have the outside chance of being David to Goliath."

Experience earned through combat allows you to customise your skills to face tougher foes. Since you can only equip three skills in battle, strategy plays a role in selecting the right skills.

If you don't pick the best skills and end up losing a battle, it's not the end of the world. "Losing a battle won't hurt your experience," says Gerson. "You definitely want to win for that experience boost, though."

Although Last Legion initially considered making a traditional third-person action game, the idea was dropped for a more ambitious design. Blending elements of a massively multiplayer game and narrative prequel, it establishes a new paradigm for online games and what's possible on iPhone.

"It doesn't make sense to put World of Warcraft on iPhone," Gerson contends. "Equally, cramming a third-person action game with a D-pad wouldn't work either."

The touchscreen has been a plus for interface design, he says, enabling the construction of a more intuitive control scheme. "Developers have to take this notion of the D-pad and throw it out the window."

Bringing the game to iPhone was a concerted move. "We really wanted to work on something else," says Gerson. "The desire to try a different platform was there."

The development team's extensive experience drove the desire to create something fresh. "We have nobody with less than six years of experience and most have a decade or more in designing games."

Having created console and handheld games in a range of genres, the will to try "a new way of gaming" was strong Gerson asserts.

Last Legion's desire to develop for iPhone represents a legitimisation of the platform, a recognition by experienced game developers that it has the potential to carry not just decent titles, but groundbreaking experiences.

With the game now on the App Store, you can determine for yourself if Watchmen: Justice is Coming delivers on that lofty goal.

Our thanks to Seth Gerston for his time.
Tracy Erickson
Tracy Erickson
Manning our editorial outpost in America, Tracy comes with years of expertise at mashing a keyboard. When he's not out painting the town red, he jets across the home of the brave, covering press events under the Pocket Gamer banner.