Interviews

Sponsored interview: Myth People talks Azkend, the Far East and an overwhelming sense of tranquility

Match three meditiation

Sponsored interview: Myth People talks Azkend, the Far East and an overwhelming sense of tranquility
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| Azkend

Yup, there sure are a lot of puzzle games on our mobile platforms, but that doesn't stop game designers tweaking the match-three concept into something new.

And the truth is, we love 'em. Pocket gamers can never tire of the icon-swapping antics that make up a good, tactile puzzle game, as Tracy proved when he gave Azkend a Silver Award.

So we thought we'd quiz developer Myth People's Timo Palonen on the challenges and benefits of putting together an iPhone puzzler.

Pocket Gamer: The iPhone’s seen a lot of puzzle games lately. How does Azkend differ from the rest?

Timo Palonen: The advantage to most puzzle games on iPhone is definitely that we already had a big budget polished casual game to start with. Doing something like this from scratch just for iPhone is probably not something most developers can afford.

In a way, we were also lucky that Azkend's gameplay translates perfectly to the iPhone. It’s actually easier to play and simply more fun on iPhone than on the platform it was originally designed for. I think were really able to push the par a bit higher with the game on many levels.

Where did the idea for the game originally come from?

The roots of Azkend run back for about three years to a drafting table we used back then. Our lead artist had a crush on Far Asia and its mysticism - and got us all to agree on his theme suggestion with a few sketches.

In terms of the actual gameplay we chose to take something familiar from games like Bejeweled and give it a big twist. And, as they say, the rest is history.

What sort of challenges does a puzzle designer face when coming up with an original concept for a platform like the iPhone?

iPhone is a great device and it offers a lot of new-age features that can be used extensively in the core game design. Camera, accelerometers, and multi-touch give the designers whole new toys to play with when comparing to PC and Mac.

Using these 'unique' features to your benefit - better than the competition - is by far the greatest challenges a traditional puzzle game designer faces when bringing his goods to iPhone.

Concept art for Azkend's visual style.

Are there any particular benefits in designing a puzzle game for the iPhone?

There are plenty of benefits. I think puzzle games are universal - they’re easy to play and everybody can enjoy them. Puzzle games love to get touched. Most mouse driven interfaces translate easily to multi-touch environment.

Graphically Azkend is very impressive, but in many respects that’s not a requirement of a good puzzle game. Do you think the presentation is an important aspect of Azkend’s appeal?

Much of Azkend’s appeal comes from its polished looks, but the smoothness of gameplay and controls are the biggest merry-makers in this case. Good gameplay is definitely more important than the graphics, but luckily it’s not choose-one-or-the-other kind of situation.

Which aspects of Azkend are you particularly proud of? Azkend delivers in many aspects, but if I was to pick one it must be the feeling of tranquillity and calm that comes from the great scenery.

What was the most difficult part about developing Azkend?

For iPhone it must have been the memory usage optimisation. The full desktop PC/Mac version we started to work with uses about six times more memory than the iPhone version, so we definitely had to use lots of coding tricks to get everything fit in.

Are there any updates or sequels planned for Azkend? Is it likely to be converted to any other platforms?

We’ll see. We do have some ideas for a sequel, but we are not developing Azkend 2 at the moment. As far as other platforms are concerned, obviously we already have the PC, Mac, and web Flash version from which the iPhone version originates, and we’ll keep our eyes open for all possibilities.

What we don’t want to do, however, is to rush Azkend onto any platform it doesn’t fit in.

What’s you next project going to be after Azkend?

There’s a lot of exciting stuff going on here at 10tons/MythPeople. We’re just about to release a new casual game called Dragon Portal which will be available on PC, Mac, and iPhone. We’re also considering porting more of our existing casual games onto iPhone.

And speaking of titles developed exclusively for iPhone, we are currently working on a couple of survival shooter games. These two will be massive! Hopefully both of these are coming out in the near future.

Thanks to Timo for taking the time to chat with us.
Spanner Spencer
Spanner Spencer
Yes. Spanner's his real name, and he's already heard that joke you just thought of. Although Spanner's not very good, he's quite fast, and that seems to be enough to keep him in a regular supply of free games and away from the depressing world of real work.