Uppercut's Ed Orman on bringing BioShock and Unreal quality to iOS shooter Epoch

A large portion of the PC and console developers that have set up smartphone-focused studios have spoken of their desire to develop something simple.

Given many have backgrounds in some of the biggest IPs, the opportunity to take a back-to-basics approach on iOS appeals.

Not so for Uppercut Games. According to Ed Orman, the studio - which recently unveiled debut iOS release EPOCH - has every intention on drawing on the experience both he and fellow founder Andrew James garnered from working on big franchises like BioShock and XCOM at Irrational Games.

We caught up with Ed to ask why he thinks mobile can have its blockbuster moments.

Pocket Gamer: What persuaded you to make a move on mobile?

Ed Orman: Andrew and I were taking a well-earned break at the coast with our families, and we got to talking about what we'd like to do next.

We'd both been watching the mobile space, as the power of the processors increased and the interfaces got better and better.

Then, I got an iPad for my birthday, and once you realise the capabilities of the latest mobile devices - and you extrapolate that out - it gets very interesting because you can imagine the console and mobile markets converging in the not-too-distant future.

So we were talking about that, and throwing around ideas and sketching things out, and getting pretty excited about it all. That's how Uppercut was born.

We started all this on the principle of taking our triple-A experience and applying it to mobile gaming.

For us, that meant taking what we've learned from the PC and console markets, taking what we think are the strengths of the mobile platform, and smooshing them together.

More specifically, we were lucky enough to have worked on BioShock, and we learned a lot about polish, quality and story-telling from that and other projects, things we intend to apply to all of our titles.

And, it has to be said, the opportunity to create totally new IP was also attractive.

We have a long history with Unreal - probably been using it for 8 years now. There are definitely differences between using it for console versus mobile, but that's to be expected.

The transition for us was crazy-smooth: we were able to get prototyping on the same day we installed the UDK, which meant a lot given the tight production schedule we've put ourselves under.

We also knew that Unreal could deliver on the quality level that we'd set. We reckon the trailer we released is already looking fantastic, and we'll be pushing even harder on the visuals in the weeks to come, so keep an eye out for updates.

Thanks to Ed for his time.

You can find out more about Uppercut on the firm's website, or check out the gameplay video below.

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