Joy of friendly fire: The making of Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet

"Paradox is all about making good games, and we want to do that regardless of what platform you are using."

That's the philosophy Paradox Interactive - the typically PC-focused studio behind franchises such as Europa Universalis and Crusader Kings - adopted to compliment the development of Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet, its latest foray into mobile gaming.

But this wasn't the outfit's first crack at breaking out from its core base on PC.

In our latest making of, we speak to Paradox's senior line producer Andreas Renstrom about what the studio learned while making the leap from PC to tablet, and why the outfit handed development over to a third-party for the good of the game.

Back in 2011, Paradox Interactive had initially attempted to find a mobile audience with Defenders of Ardania.

"It was a not a huge hit, but we learned a lot that we could take with us and use when working with Magicka and Leviathan Warships," says senior line producer Andreas Renstrom.

Indeed, Paradox was undeterred, and quickly moved to bring Magicka - its successful, if quirky, PC spellslinging multiplayer game to tablets in the wake of Defenders of Ardania's launch.

Despite the strong desire to "make games more platform agnostic", Renstrom knew that Paradox would "have to make compromises" when bringing Magicka to tablets.

Nevertheless, he says the studio was dedicated to preserving "what made Magicka on PC fun".

"We knew from the get-go that since tablet in general is a more limited platform, compared to PCs, that we needed to simplify the graphics and to make it 2D became the obvious choice," adds Renstrom.

This simplification of visuals ultimately worked to Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet's benefit, evidenced by sister site Pocket Gamer's praise for Magicka's "impressive cartoon graphics" in its review.

But not all of the changes to Magicka's tablet release were so easy to make.

"Changes needed to be done with the graphical user interface and rethinking how to control your wizard with only your finger," notes Renstrom.

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While this created a few obstacles for design, it also provided opportunities for new features as well.
"On tablets it's hard for players to do two inputs at the same time - for example, moving and aiming spell at the same time - and that of course had an impact on the design," adds Renstrom.

"But the touch interface also made it possible to introduce new features in the Magicka concept, like the ability to 'lift' enemies and throw them away." Switching horses

Another interesting change between the PC version of Magicka and its tablet release came when Paradox decided to go with a different developer for its run on slates.

Whereas Arrowhead developed the PC version of Magicka, the tablet version was handled by Swedish outfit Ludosity, notable for its work across PC, 3DS and Xbox Live Indie Games.

Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet on iPad

Thankfully, this was a mostly painless process in practice, says Renstrom.

"Arrowhead was involved in the early stages of the games design to help out with concepts. We actually had a very good cooperation between all parties involved."

With the development and design sorted, the next decision facing Paradox was monetisation.

"We wanted the game to sell on the merit of being a good game," says Renstrom.

"We looked at both monetisation options, paid with IAP and free-to-play, in the early stages of the development and finally decided to go for the paid app option since it made more sense from a game play perspective."

Given the amount of moving pieces in Magicka, it makes sense that the 'mobile' version of the game is currently tablet only - but that could change, says Renstrom.

"The decision to only release the game on tablets was because we think the game works best on larger touchscreen devices. But that's not to say that the game can't be played on phones."

Spellbound

As things stand, however, Renstrom claims the reaction from the firm's fans has been overwhelmingly positive, but notes that tablets gamers play the game in a different manner to their PC counterparts.

For starters, their playing sessions are much shorter.

"The style of playing is of course different on PC and tablet, but also they complement each other in a good way," notes Renstrom.

"The tablet version and usually the sessions are shorter compared to those playing the PC game."

Snappier sessions are less of a problem, then, and more of a key difference developers making the transition from PC to tablets should be aware of.

But, with Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet's launch now behind it, what's next for Paradox and the Magicka series?
"I can't reveal what we have in store for the game yet, but the developers are still working on improving the game and adding more content," concludes Renstrom.

"We are also looking into making the game available on more platforms but if, how and when that will happen is still uncertain." You can learn more about Magicka: Wizards of the Square Tablet by visiting its official website.