Games on Deck got a chance to sit down with Trip Hawkins, CEO of Digital Chocolate on the first day of this year's Game Developer Conference. In this second part of a two part interview, we talk to him about his company, their current line-up of software, and the unique aspects of the mobile games industry. The first part of this article, including Hawkin's thoughts on digital distribution, can be found here.
[Trip pulls out a package of information on Digital Chocolate's games.]
Trip Hawkins: Just to give you an idea of how we think differently about gaming...
Games On Deck: I have this game [Tower Bloxx] on my phone, and it's pretty much the only game I play on my phone anymore.
TH: OK, so you already know Tower Bloxx. Of course we came up with a strategy game to keep the game more interesting.
Tower Bloxx
GOD: That is what actually keeps me playing, trying to get my town to maximum capacity.
TH: Yeah, this a case where we had to listen to the market place, we didn't just stick it out there. We did research with consumers, we went and showed prototypes to the operators. Things like the themeing with the people coming in on their umbrellas and the whole strategy game, all of that came in later because of feedback that there wasn't enough to the game.
GOD: I feel that the strongest point of the game is that the controls work well as a mobile game. Far too frequently a mobile phone game's controls are overly complicated.
TH: Yes, exactly, exactly. And frankly I feel that way about console games also.
You know, back when I was at Apple, gosh almost thirty years ago, I was a very strong advocate of using the mouse and a very strong advocate of there only being only one button on it. And so I feel like there was something lost in the industry when Microsoft beat Apple and started putting more buttons on the mouse.
GOD: I think I have seven buttons on my mouse.
TH: Yeah, it's just too much.
Here we take in that sort of same model of one button gameplay and put it into the Tycoon genre. [Trip turns to a page on Nightclub Empire] Clearly this is a theme where you're running a nightclub which will appeal to the younger audiences that have mobile phones. It has a tie into music, and here's a chance to cross from mobile to music industry.
Nightclub Empire, Mafia Wars: Yakuza
[The game] Rollercoaster Rush is a little bit of a sim because you're running the roller coaster but it has the same kind of simple one button mechanic as Tower Bloxx. You're driving the physics and the satisfaction of the riders.
And of course we have some more traditional genres like Mafia Wars. This is the latest version called Mafia Wars: Yakuza. Again, pretty simple controls with auto targeting so even though its an isometric view and you don't have diagonals on the D pad, we take that into account to make the play simple. So even though it's an action game and you are depending on your dexterity to a degree, you're not frustrated by what the handset can't do. Then for those hardcore gamers we have these levels like the tower of doom where there's one hundred and five floors that you can go through. People really get into playing it for a much longer period of time.
And then Tornado Mania. This game got a perfect score from IGN.
