Interviews

Interview: Denki's Gary Penn's on GBA to Sky TV to iPhone

Coming full circle

Interview: Denki's Gary Penn's on GBA to Sky TV to iPhone
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| Denki Blocks!

The story of Denki, the self titled ‘digital toy factory’ from Scotland, is definitely an interesting and unconventional one.

Founded in 2000, and manned by ex-Rockstar designers and former gaming journalist Gary Penn, the team broke onto the scene with charming, addictive and irresistibly cute Game Boy Advance games like Denki Blocks! and the amazingly titled Go! Go! Beckham! Adventure on Soccer Island.

But the developer’s foray into commercially released video games was a short one, as television service provider Sky courted the young developer chappys, and the team spent the next seven years creating TV games based on famous brands and characters.

Now, back in the 'real' world with the exclamation mark-filled Denki Blocks! and Juggle! released on iPhone, we spoke with designer Gary Penn on why Denki ditched the portable systems, and what eventually brought them back for more.

Pocket Gamer: What made you guys choose TV gaming, after releasing some truly great GBA games?"

Gary Penn: Fascination and circumstance.

We did this version of Denki Blocks! for Sky and that worked out well for everyone, but we weren't necessarily committed to the medium at that point. Sure, its curious inappropriateness as a gaming platform did tickle our collective pickle – and it was ideal for our preferred focus on smaller concepts for smaller platforms.

But, more importantly, we still had a firm belief in the future of digital download – which is one of the reasons we targeted GBA early on, because it looked like it might move in that direction. Sky games were unique in the way they were distributed through direct download to your living room.

Also at the time we could see the GBC and GBA market contracting to suit a select few, like Nintendo and key brand holders. Original works by small teams – forget it. No one was investing in that.

So those particular planets aligned and we did Super Breakout and the rest, as they cliché, is history...

Why are you now back in the world of commercial games?

The Sky work was great – we built up some great repertoire and relationships – but we still had our original itch to scratch. What helped us make the transition back into the world of so-called 'real' games was the way the market changed – now it's much more like what we wanted when we started – and there are more ways to express than ever before on so many different levels.

I have to say, I've been in this business for over a quarter of a century and I've never seen such an exciting – and scary – time. It's like the early to mid-'80s all over again only more awesome.

Since you were last in this space, we've gone from GBA to an explosion of handhelds and mobiles. What made you choose iPhone over the DS or other systems?

After our disheartening experience with trying to get our rather spiffy word war game Quarrel to market we decided we'd rather go direct to our audience. So our focus now is any platform that allows us to do that and fast: iDevices, Xbox Live Indie Games... That sort of thing. It's the future for sure. Well, it deserves to be.

Games on the iPhone have to try really hard to keep above the water, and there's no guarantee of success. What plans do you have to ensure Denki Blocks catches on?

Really that's true of any market. There always seem to be stats to show that almost all games on all platforms fail to make a profit.

It's more convenient than ever to be able to make, distribute and buy any form of digital entertainment. But still the single hardest thing of all to do is to make people aware of your games (which, historically, is what publishers have done for developers). We have to re-educate ourselves and forge new alliances.

We know that people have to play the games we make before we capture their imaginations. The descriptions, pictures and even videos alone don't always float boats. But we also know that our conversion rates are healthy – that a good percentage of people who play Denki Blocks! enjoy it enough to buy it.

So now we just have to make sure that as many people as possible get the chance to play Denki Blocks! – that's the challenge and one we are in the process of tackling.

In 2008, you were quoted as saying 'Mobile phone gaming still sucks ass,' and 'Denki Blocks! was ... released for Java phones back in 2002, but never, ever again until someone sorts out the mess of formats, devices and platforms.' How do you feel about this space now?

Haha. How true that was then. Clearly that "someone" was Apple...

I wouldn't call myself an Apple acolyte (or 'Appolyte') but at the moment I have no interest in any else's phones because I have no need for them. I do own many other like-minded devices but they don't command my attention in the same way as the iPhone.

It's not that the iPhone does any one thing particularly well (well, apart from being lovely to fondle) but it does everything it does well enough in one place that I seldom need to look elsewhere for satisfaction.

Thanks to Gary Penn for his time.
Mark Brown
Mark Brown
Mark Brown is editor at large of Pocket Gamer