It’s amazing how a game like Sonoro TV can be so devilishly fun. Sonoro TV is the latest creation of Spanish studio Devilish Games, and we took time to speak to David Ferriz, director and founder of the studio, to find out what makes his games tick, hop and bounce. Pictured below, from left to right: Fran Ferriz, David Ferriz and Enrique David Calatayud.

CR: Can you tell us about the background of your team: Who are you, and why are you making casual games?

DF: My name is David Ferriz and I am the director and founder of Devilish. Devilish Games is an independent studio placed in Alicante (Spain), founded in 1998 by Fran Ferriz and me with the objective of creating original games, artistic and with personality, to make them arrive to everybody.

Devilish has young professionals with big experience able to adapt themelves to the new technologies, platforms and business models of multimedia entertainment. The group combines the production of games made to order with independent projects.

We made money with games for other clients (educative, mobile phones, advergaming). The independent-casual developments offer more creative freedom than games by order. For this reason we made independent videogames.

CR: Sonoro TV was a lot of fun to play. Can you share your creative experience in making that game with our readers? Where did you get the idea, what were your challenges, and what would you change now, if you could?

DF: The purpose of “Sonoro TV” was to create an original game in all areas (gameplay, graphics, control, sound).

We created the first demo version in 2004 for a festival organized by ArtFutura and PlayStation in Barcelona (Spain). We received the prizes for “Best game concept” and the “Special mention by the jury.”

The project was then paused for 2 years because we needed financing and so we started creating a few games for mobile phones and advergames for the internet to cover the development costs of Sonoro TV and other indie projects.

What would we change now? The controls. Using both keyboard and mouse is a problem for most casual players, but we have done everything possible to keep the controls as pleasant as possible. I would like to make a version for Wii. I think that to move the character with the Nunchuk and to draw with the Wiimote could be the perfect controls.

CR: The background photos in Sonoro TV were really eye-catching, and very different for a casual game. How did those photos come about?

DF: At the beginning of the development, Sonoro was an artistic-gameplay experiment. We wanted to mix styles. Retro pixel art for the characters, vectorial design for the interface… and we decided that the artistic photography in black and white made good contrast with the drawn lines of colors by the player.

CR: What’s the game development industry like in Spain? How does the local talent compare to the rest of the world, in your opinion?

DF: The local talent is very great. We have good artists, programmers and much creativity. We have a nice community of developers called “Stratos.”

In Spain we have some “big” companies of games for console and PC (Pyro Studios, Mercury Steam, Digital Legends, Novarama, Pendulo Studios) and several studios of casual games (Nerlaska, Nurium, Katgames, FunmanGames, Tapazapa). But a good culture of the videogame doesn´t exist. Help for the industry of videogames doesn´t exist. Big investors don’t exist. We must improve much to be at the industrial level of other European countries.

CR: Tell us a little bit about your users. Who is playing your games, and why? How do you target your games to these users? How do you know when you have it right?

DF: Our public still is little. We want to arrive at players tired from the hardcore games and players who look for something innovative.

We don´t make classic casual games. We looked for originality.

CR: Since you started making casual games, what have you learned about the casual market? What are you changing about your games, and what do you think you still need to change?

DF: The games must be simple. The user does not want to waste the time learning to play. It is very important to take care of the difficulty of the game.

In my next games I hope to simplify the control. I don´t use the keyboard; the casual user prefers the mouse.

CR: What does Devilish Games have coming up in the future? What’s your next hit going to be, and what should we know about it?

DF: We are working on 2 new casual games. One is called “Popochi” and will soon be released. The other one doesn’t have a name yet but it will be a puzzle game with casual aspects but with innovative controls.

We are also working on games made to order and artwork for other indie developers.

CR: Finally, is there any one thing that our readers don’t know about you, that you think they really ought to?

DF: Nothing special… I just hope that the readers enjoy playing our games just as we enjoyed developing them.