Interview: Simogo takes us for a drive down Bumpy Road
Talking updates, future plans, love, and loss
Simogo is Simon Flesser and Magnus 'Gordon' Gardebäck, a two-man development team based in Malmo, Sweden.
The pair were previously involved in the making of R-Type Dimensions and the critically-acclaimed Xbox Live Arcade / Windows Phone 7 puzzler ilomilo before striking out on the App Store late last year with the breezy Kosmo Spin.
Recently, the duo captured many hearts with the excellent Bumpy Road, and so we spoke to lead artist / sound man Simon Flesser to discuss the company's latest title and its plans for the future.
Pocket Gamer: How did the original concept for Bumpy Road come about?Simogo: We spent a day just sitting down and discussing what we wanted to do next. Gordon came up with this cool concept of doing sort of waves in the water and pushing characters around that way.
I don't know why but I envisioned this as two characters sitting in a vehicle, and I had this idea of doing something that would be pretty light-hearted in gameplay but a bit more...not heavy, but "bigger", when it came to story and subject. Love and loss are two things very untapped in the world of videogames.
For both Kosmo Spin and Bumpy Road we wanted to do something that felt very tactile - we've started both concepts by asking ourselves the question, "okay, what kind of motion or sensation in real life is just a nice feeling?"
We talked a bit about dragging your finger on a piano, and we married this with the "create bumps" concept - and that's how Bumpy Road came about!
The game has a charming and whimsical feel that’s not a million miles away from ilomilo, which you worked on. Did that game inspire Bumpy Road in any way?I probably wouldn't say that it inspired [Bumpy Road], but I guess it's natural since I did the art and stories for that game as well. Stylistically, ilomilo is more dreamy, way more surrealistic, and obviously it's in 3D.
One thing I was very satisfied with in ilomilo was how the story element was handled, as it's not very intrusive and can be enjoyed as much or as little as you wanted to. I wanted to explore this even more in Bumpy Road.
What made you start developing for the App Store?Our goal with Simogo is to make self-funded, tight games with character, that are maybe a bit smaller in scope.
As we're publishing these games ourselves the App Store is perfect, as there are not a lot of licences, and you can make games that are not enormous. Also, the iOS devices are just pretty cool little gaming machines.
Do you think Bumpy Road could translate to other mobile formats? Do you plan to port it or are you happiest working on iOS?
It would probably translate well to most devices with touchscreen, pointer, or mouse - We are actually doing a Mac version of Bumpy Road.
We are by no means an iOS-only studio. But for now, we're pretty happy working on that platform, and there are no planned versions of Bumpy Road for other mobile devices. We'll see what the future holds. We love doing touchscreen games, but maybe it would be fun to mix things up with something more traditionally controlled.
Bumpy Road works on two levels – as a simple pick-up-and-play game and a metaphor for the old couple’s journey through life together. Are you always looking to emotionally engage with the player like that as well as entertain with gameplay ideas?Not necessarily for every game, but for this one absolutely, yes. Sometimes you just want to make something very silly, as with Kosmo Spin. It probably would be fun to do something with a bit more of a punky attitude, too.
Every game is different, but I can say that we're very satisfied with how Bumpy Road turned out, and exploring feelings while doing pick-up-and-play style gameplay is something that we would like to try again.
The game’s touching story, told through collectible black-and-white photographs, seems to have struck a chord: did you expect that you’d get such a positive response to that?Honestly - no. We love the formula ourselves and put a lot of work and thought into it, but we weren't sure if people would just write it off as a cute bonus or just wouldn't care about it. But it seems that people really "got" it and dig it, so we're really happy about that, as it encourages us to explore that field further.
Can you give our readers any exclusive info on the Bumpy Road update?We're calling this update the Sunday Trip Deluxe update, and it actually triples the content of Sunday Trip. We've added two new tracks to race on, called Sprint and Marathon, and the "old" Sunday Trip has been renamed Classic.
The old classic track had a selection of about 60 level segments and the new ones have the same amount, so we have close to 200 level segments in the Sunday Trip mode now.
In these tracks we've also added a new gameplay element called the Brake Gizmo. It's pretty much what it sounds like - a gizmo that instead of giving you a turbo slows you down temporarily. It adds a bit of suspense to the new tracks. These new tracks have leaderboards, and we've added five new achievements, too.
Did you plan the update from the start, or is it a response to player feedback?
We had the ideas pretty ready for the update, but we hadn't actually decided if we were going to do it or not. As the reception has been pretty crazy, we felt very encouraged to go ahead and add more to the game.
I wouldn't say that it's a direct response to player feedback, as we want to have the element of surprise in most things we do, but those who wanted a bit more content should be happy with this, and especially with the next update.
Finally, can you tell us anything about your future plans, both for Bumpy Road and any forthcoming Simogo games?We are working on another update for Bumpy Road, and it's going to be expand the content further - it's pretty massive with lots of new stuff.
We're hoping to have the Mac version done this summer, too. We're still planning our third game, but it's a bit too early to talk about since we're at the point of just toying around with concepts.
Many thanks to Simon Flesser for his time.