Daniel Zandelin, who is apparently a big fan of Mario Kart DS
Donut Games is the developer/publisher of well over a dozen iPhone games including fan-favorites like Rat On A Scooter XL, Comet Racer, and Cows in Space. Officially titled "Swedish Game Development Group AB," Donut Games has all of their games available in flash form on their website, where they can be played for free. With a arcade-like menu and three-star rating system for the levels in all their games, Donut Games has earned a large fanbase by consistently providing simple, quick experiences that draw players in for more, usually with a focus on increasing high scores.
I got the chance to find out a little bit more about one of the important faces behind the company, Daniel Zandelin, one of the founders of Donut Games.
Touch Arcade: What is the history of Donut Games as a company?
Daniel Zandelin: We're a small team of game enthusiasts, with roots going back to the good old days when the 8 and 16-bit gaming systems evolved. As a kid in the '80s I was quickly sucked into the intriguing gaming world of the Commodore 64, and together with my older brother, Ola, I grew an early interest of developing our own games, which lead to a bunch of quirky, buggy BASIC-games. Many years (and programming languages for that matter) later, in 2003, Ola started his own indie company to develop shareware games, and a couple of months later I quit my current job to join him.
The shareware market, which had just started to transform into the casual games market, was a blast! You could be a small team of 2-5 people and release quick, innovative downloadable games on the internet without the need for large budgets, and our titles (which we released under the Arcade Lab brand) were very well receieved.
As the casual games space and its portals grew more mature, productions grew bigger and a few certain genres got established and didn't leave much room for creativity or variety. So in 2006 we launched DonutGames.com, which started off as site for our Flash games. This project would give us our much needed room to play with new concepts and try out new ideas or whatever fun or crazy thing that popped into mind. When Apple announced the AppStore in 2008 and we started to dig deeper into the specs and SDK, we realizied this was the perfect platform for us: a device that you can carry with you anywhere you go, a store that is open for all and an excellent hardware to build your apps upon.
Comet Racer, one of our favorite creations from Donut Games
Touch Arcade: What exactly is your role within Donut Games? Could you tell us about some examples of your contributions to some of the company's games?
Daniel Zandelin: My role differs from one game to another, but my main areas of involvement are programming, sounds and last minute tweaking. The creation of a Donut game typically follows this flow: Ola, the concept master mind, brings up a new idea for a game, decides a theme to go with, and creates a mock-up of the basic artwork needed to get started. A programmer picks up the game and makes it playable, and we evaluate the result to see which elements are in place and what can be improved.
Once the basics are in, the level designers start working on the levels, and may eventually request more features from the programmer. In the last phase, I start working on the music and sounds. Once they're in, it's time for the final tweaking, which may or may not include additional visual effects, an extra mini game, and other last minute adjustments to make the game feel more solid. Simply put, Ola starts off the games, I finish them, and the whole Donut team is involved in the in-between.
Touch Arcade: What's the weirdest thing that has ever happened to you during your time with Donut Games?
Daniel Zandelin: This happens occasionally: When I'm sitting in a public place and a stranger next to me picks up an iPhone and after a few seconds I realize they just launched a Donut game. It's a weird feeling!
Rat On A Scooter XL, one of Donut Game's biggest sellers
Touch Arcade: If you had an unlimited budget to create an iPhone game, what sort of game would you make?
Daniel Zandelin: Back in the '90s, me and my brother started working on a really whacky point-and-click game for the Amiga in which players controlled a crazy kid with long greasy hair called Matthew. I don't remember all of the details of the story that we came up with for the game, but Matthew owned a tiny, aggressive poodle and had a secret band in his cellar together with his best friend who owned a shabby old Hammond organ. It would play like a “Get item A to unlock item B, use item B to find item C” sort of game, but instead of logical puzzles it would involve things like flushing yourself down the toilet to find certain items. I'm not sure everyone would appreciate a game like that for the iPhone, but if money was no issue it sure would be fun to bring this old concept to reality.
Touch Arcade: What is something that you'd personally like to do in a future game release?
Daniel Zandelin: I know that this may sound dull, but I'd like to continue with what we're currently doing. We have great fun creating these games, our model works really well for us and our fans seem to enjoy what we're doing.
We broke the news a few weeks back that Namco Networks had created a dedicated Apple Games group, separate from the rest of its mobile division, to allow a particularly strong focus on the iPhone as a games platform. We recently had the chance to interview Jonathan Kromrey, head of the new Apple Games group, regarding the formation of the division and what it means to iPhone gaming.
Kromrey, who spent time as a producer at I-Play Mobile Gaming, has most recently been part of Apple's own, internal iPhone apps division and was involved with the phenomenally successful Apple iPhone game release of Texas Hold'em [App Store]. He came to Namco Networks, bringing with him a team of developers from both Apple and EA, with the goal of "bringing freshness and newness to iPhone gaming." He indicates that his group has plans to not only bring a number of popular Japanese Namco titles to the iPhone, but also to generate wholly new titles written specifically for the platform. And when asked if the division intends to act as a publishing arm for independent developers, his response was a definitive "hell yes!" In fact, the group has signed two such deals, one of which will bear App Store fruit within the month.
Kromrey calls the iPhone "a wide open platform," ripe for both hardcore as well as casual game titles that everyone can enjoy. And games along these lines should appear scattered across the price-point scale. His group feels that a sound strategy for iPhone game releases involves basic, quick-play games at a low ($.99) price point, more involved and full-featured titles at a moderate ($4.99) price point, as well as long-play, large-scale games complete with microtransactions at a premium ($9.99) price point. And, in our reckoning, this seems the right strategy to maximize a studio's market penetration.
iPhone 3GS owners have particular reason to be excited about Namco Network's newly formed division. Kromrey calls the difference in capabilities between the iPhone 3G and 3GS "huge," and points to Namco's popularI Love Katamari [App Store] as an example of a title that illustrates the increased power of the 3GS. And, more than just delivering games with higher framerates on Apples' new unit, Kromrey's team fully intends to exploit the features of the new device (such as the OpenGL ES 2.0 pipeline) in full.
In other, recent interviews, Namco Networks' Apple Games chief has been asked about the possible arrival of Tekken, Soulcalibur, and the like on the iPhone platform. And while he would not confirm any specifics, Kromrey indicated that, with such titles, getting the controls exactly right is key, and that depending in particular on success in this area, the iPhone may indeed see such titles lighting up its four-inch touchscreen.
This certainly has been an interesting last couple of days, between Sega's challenge to gamers to come up with what game to make next and then Christian Whitehead's surprise response unveiling a remarkable Sonic CD proof of concept port created with his own Retro Engine Development Kit.
Eager to know more about both Sonic CD and the iPhone Retro Engine and Retro Engine Development Kit (or RDSK), we fired off a series of questions. The interview is totally worth a read, but beware, it will only make you want Sonic CD and other games produced by the RDSK even more.
Eli Hodapp: How flexible is the RSDK? Is it tied to a game like Sonic or would something like Castlevania with RPG elements be possible?
Christian Whitehead: All of the actual Sonic CD logic is script driven, so the Retro Engine is more than capable of different styles of gameplay. A game like Castlevania would definitely be possible, since the engine excels at handling 2D side scrollers. Stuff like top down RPG's would be fine too, I wouldn't count it on doing something like a full on 3D racing game though!
EH: What is involved in building a game in the RDSK? Does the it somehow interpret the ROM file to generate levels and sprites automatically? Can you tell us how closely your RSDK relates to the original ROM code?
CW: Using clean reverse engineering, I've been able to extract the level layouts and sprites in a pretty automated fashion. The formats in Sonic CD (especially the PC version) were pretty easy to deduce. I haven't touched the original ROM code though... I don't have that level of understanding of Motorola 68k assembly.
EH: How much research did you do on the Sonic CD game? The physics in your demo look spot on, what was the trick behind that?
CW: Quite a lot to be honest, it owes much to my many years as a Sonic fan. If you go to http://www.sonicretro.org/ you'll see a community that's very interested in dissecting the original games. That's why the demo was made in a short time, I know Sonic inside out, and so have a very clear understanding as to how it can be recreated. It involved a lot of frame by frame analysis of the game running in an emulator to observe how the game (and all its objects) behaves in detail. I could go on and on, but y'know... trade secrets?
EH: On your site you mention putting together the Sonic CD proof of concept in a month. Does that count development of the Retro Engine and RSDK, if not, how long did those take you to do?
CW: Officially, the Retro Engine and RSDK have been in development since March 2008. However, the iPhone version of the engine actually only took a week to set up!
EH: During your month long process of porting what you have so far of Sonic CD, what was your average work day like?
CW: I'm a freelancer and a musician too, so it was sort of in between a lot of this stuff. Lot's of late nights, and giving up partying! But yeah, it certainly wasn't some insane crunch period you hear about at some of the big name studios.
EH: What is the work flow of starting a new game in the RSDK? Say you wanted to remake Gunstar Heroes, what would be involved?
CW: To create a game like Gunstar Heroes, or to literally port it? Obviously a literal port requires a degree of reverse engineering to find out how stuff like level layouts and sprites can be extracted first. But creating a new game in the style of Gunstar Heroes would just be a normal game development process. One thing I want to make very clear: The Retro Engine and RSDK are not magic, it will NOT instantly port a game for you (or toast your bread either). All it does is provide a fast and efficient 2D framework, which has features very similar to what were present in many 2D games of the 'golden' 16 and early 32 bit era along with a nice editors and powerful scripting system. It takes the hassle out of having to set up API's, you can just get down to business.
EH: What are your plans for the future with the RSDK? Has Sega been receptive to your Sonic CD demo? Ideally would you want to sell them the RSDK technology or just a perfectly ported copy of the game?
CW: Personally, I'm only marketing end product Sonic CD to SEGA, not the actual engine. I'm proud of my work and it'd be a shame to let it go and not be able to develop it further for my own future endeavors. The pitch was made to Sega about 2 weeks ago, and after an initial response, I hadn't heard back until they made that blog post. That's what made me decide to show it publicly, they asked what to port and I wanted them to see a clear answer.
EH: In 1990, John Carmack and Tom Hall built a similar demonstration based on their own game engine running the first level of Super Mario 3 titled "Dangerous Dave in Copyright Infringement." Nintendo politely refused their offers to make a Super Mario port for the PC and they went on to use that same engine for Commander Keen. Do you have any similar contingency plans if Sega gives you the cold shoulder and/or sends you a cease and desist?
CW: Gary the Porcupine anyone?... Seriously though, I do have my own game ideas that I'll be pursuing if this all folds up. I really like the iPhone as a gaming platform, so it wouldn't be the last you'd hear from me.
And there you have it! Sounds like amazing technology, and I can't wait to play a game built with it whether it's Sonic CD or some other game. Since we first posted about it, their comments have been flooded by people demanding Sonic CD. If you want to see Sega explore the Retro Engine instead of their current barely-playable emulator, let them know.
At WWDC Touch Arcade had the opportunity to interview Gameloft President and CEO Michel Guillemot concerning his views on iPhone gaming and what the announcement of the new iPhone 3G S means to his studio.
Guillemot's involvement in the game industry began with the formation of Ubisoft Entertainment by him and his brothers in 1986. Ubisoft quickly became a very successful publisher as gaming evolved into a major industry. But as Guillemot tells it, he longed to get back to the days of home computer gaming, when people owned a computer primarily for reasons other than gaming, but would engage in casual gaming as a matter of course. Seeing the rise of the mobile handset, which he (correctly) believed most everyone would soon be carrying, Guillemot saw an opportunity to provide games in a model analogous to the home computer days of old. And so was born Gameloft in 1999.
The highly successful Gameloft of 2009, with 4,000 employees worldwide, develops games for around 1,200 different mobile handsets as well as most major home and mobile consoles. But Guillemot makes no effort to hide his particular excitement for Apple's iPhone platform.
When Steve Jobs announced the App Store and the business model, I said they are going to do as well on the App Store and on the business model as what they did on the iPhone itself, which is creating something which is quite mature, quite balanced, quite sustainable in the long run. And that's why, as a company, we decided to really invest and support it, because it was, to me, really a kind of very advanced thinking to have these three elements [iPhone, iTunes and the business model] connected and together, reaching consumers with a very comprehensive approach. So, I think it was very much 21st century in the making and a clear cut from anything we had seen so far.
In his view, Apple set the tone for the mobile gaming device of the 21st century.
What I think is that two years ago, handset makers and carriers were a little bit lost. We were telling them that they should bet on the game side — to make sure that the handset would be game friendly. But, for some reason, they were not. And then Apple came and convinced many people — the right way: see, it works! And now what we see is that everyone is trying to emulate them. Apple came from outside and took the lead…. And so I expect that, in the race where the leader is still running and still accelerating [ laughs ], it's challenging. Because, if they already overtook you and they're still accelerating, you really have to consider that seriously if you want to remain in the race.
And while he is dedicated to supporting the newly emerging units that seek to surpass the iPhone, he points out that for gaming those companies are at a disadvantage. The just-launched Palm Pre, for example, Guillemot considers to be a nice device, but feels its webOS HTML5 development model puts it just about where the iPhone was for gaming before the SDK was announced. The Android devices, he feels, also hold less promise for gamers as compared to Apple's device.
Android is Java … Java takes two-thirds of the power. So, when you drive a car - if you take the same car with 1/3 of the horse power, you will not have the same experience.
Guillemot was pleased by Apple's announcement of the iPhone 3G S on Monday and is eager too see what advancements the new hardware will enable for his studio's games. And while he feels the more capable device will raise gamers' expectations and make the coming year more challenging than the last for iPhone gamemakers, he appears to be rather undaunted.
Perhaps no surprise from a man whose studio creates games for most every mobile platform on the planet.
This past Saturday was an open "Game Day" at Peter Hirschberg's Luna City Arcade. Peter is a devout retro gaming fan and is author of the iPhone port of Atari's Adventure [App Store] as well as Battlezone-like Vector Tanks [App Store].
The Luna City Arcade is a two-story, 60' x 40' building housing, presently, about 80 retro video games and pinball machines primarily from the late '70s and early '80s. Peter has a Game Day every few months at the arcade, which is located about 70 miles west of Washington D.C.
This past weekend, I was lucky enough to attend the Game Day and gather some photos and video footage of the retro gaming goodness taking place as well as corner Peter for a few minutes to get his thoughts on retro gaming and a few details that went into the making of Adventure and Vector Tanks for the iPhone.
See the fun that was had in the only existing arcade of its kind, the Luna City Arcade.
William 'Trip' Hawkins III was the Director of Strategy and Marketing at Apple when he left in 1982 to form software house Electronic Arts which, during his tenure, became the world's largest video game publisher (and today, remains one of the world's leading publishers). He left EA in the early '90s to form 3DO which, thanks to Sony and the Playstation, was a venture of rather less sucess.
As mobile devices began seeing widespread use, Hawkins formed mobile game development company Digital Chocolate in 2003. The now 350 person, San Mateo, CA-based company has developed games for a wide variety of mobile handsets and has received a number of accolades, including the Best Developer of the Year awards from both IGN and Mobile Entertainment.
And while four of the five iPhone games Digital Chocolate has released for the iPhone since December have hit No. 1 in the App Store — no small feat — Hawkins admits to VentureBeat that the company was late to the game with the iPhone.
The iPhone for us was a spectacularly pleasant surprise. We had no idea it was going to be as good for us as it turned out to be.
Hawkins indicates that the iPhone presents a rare opportunity for Digital Chocolate and that it is really incomparable as a game platform to the myriad of mobile handsets on the market.
It’s by far our most effective platform. We make as much money with these games on one device as we do putting a game on 100 different cell phone platforms. Between the iPod Touch and the iPhone, I think the platform is freaking out Sony and Nintendo. Apple has sold 30 million units so far and it has created tremendous awareness. It has taken ground all over the world. But it has only penetrated one half of one percent of its total market.
…
The platform can finally keep up with the things that you want to do. It reminds me of the Sega Genesis, when EA finally had a platform that could keep up with the games we wanted to make.
We 
At WWDC Touch Arcade had the opportunity to interview 
And while he is dedicated to supporting the newly emerging units that seek to surpass the iPhone, he points out that for gaming those companies are at a disadvantage. The just-launched Palm Pre, for example, Guillemot considers to be a nice device, but feels its webOS HTML5 development model puts it just about where the iPhone was for gaming before the SDK was announced. The Android devices, he feels, also hold less promise for gamers as compared to Apple's device.
William 'Trip' Hawkins III was the Director of Strategy and Marketing at Apple when he left in 1982 to form software house Electronic Arts which, during his tenure, became the world's largest video game publisher (and today, remains one of the world's leading publishers). He left EA in the early '90s to form 3DO which, thanks to Sony and the Playstation, was a venture of rather less sucess.
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