We know Twilight Games for their lovely titles like Aargon Deluxe, Space Taxi 2 and Jump Jump Jelly Reactor. The studio began in Montreal, Canada back in 1999. Today, the comapany is truly international, with its members working and collaborating from different countries through the Internet. Yet, despite all those developments, it still retains its genuine indie spirit. Casual Review is fortunate to have Steve Verreault tell us more:

NK: Can you tell us a little about yourself, how you started Twilight Games, and what you did before then?

SV: I’m originally from Montreal, Canada. I worked as a programmer for a number of companies in the Montreal area in various industries and started coding games on my own, in my spare time. Before that though, I actually used to make games for all kinds of machines (TI-99, Amiga, etc…) when I was younger, and mostly for fun. So I always had an interest in making games. I had a cousin who was older than me and who was a pretty good game developer. I think that inspired me a little.

When the first version of Aargon was released I was working on it part time with a friend to make some extra money outside of regular work. I only started full time on Aargon Deluxe about a year later and that’s when Twilight really started in earnest. I now work with one full time partner and a number of regular contractors and minor partners who help out with everything from code to artwork to business. After Aargon Deluxe we developed A Snake’s Life, Mahjongg Variations, Space Taxi 2, and a number of other titles. Our most recent game is Jump Jump Jelly Reactor.

NK: Twilight Games was one of the first game companies to really move into the casual space with games like Aargon. How has the industry changed since then, and have the changes been good?

SV: At the time I just thought I was making a game. I wasn’t really thinking about casual vs. not. Those terms became commonplace later. The definition of a casual game is a little up in the air, but I actually don’t consider Aargon to be very casual, in the sense that it’s quite a difficult puzzle game and tends to appeal more to a niche of players that like very tricky puzzles. That’s a different audience from people who like games like Beetle Bomp and Jump Jump Jelly Reactor which are perhaps more typical casual titles. There is some overlap between the audiences though.

Actually, despite there being a glut of clones in the most popular casual sub-genres, the casual game portals are releasing a variety of titles, which appeal to all sorts of different players. What people think of as the casual market, in my mind is really in part the maturing of the general online game market with a lot of casual game design principles being re-applied to a wide variety of genres. So you’re seeing casualized adventure games, and casualized strategy games and so on… One of the problems though is that everyone is chasing after the same shiny penny, and so you end up with a bit of a cycle. Hidden object games are selling well so people make hidden object games, and that in-turn attracts new players who like hidden object games and so on… So the guy who’s looking for a good strategy game is not going to be watching the portals every day because there’s not a lot of quality content for him. That discourages investment in genres that don’t seem popular. It’s a risk for a developer on many levels. But you’re also seeing more sites focused on traditional mainstream games, and sales avenues such as consoles which now have things like the Wii Shop Channel, or Xbox Live Arcade.

With regards to the business itself, almost everything has changed. Initially it was just a few individuals and small companies really targeting the online game market. But now there are a lot of larger companies that have moved in and who are spending millions on development and marketing. That’s changed everything. The way you distribute, the level of competition, the cost to develop a game, and the amount of money you can make if you’re successful. So in some ways it’s made indie game development a lot harder, but in other ways it’s provided opportunities that didn’t exist before. It’s a very tough and competitive market though. Much more so than when I started. There’s a barrier to entry there that’s much higher than it use to be. Certain things are easier though, like setting up a website, getting a payment provider, finding a stable game engine to use etc. These things weren’t common when I started and required a little investment of time and money and perhaps even more technical ability.

NK: Where do you see the indie game development movement going in the next few years? Does the movement of companies like Ubisoft, EA and Activision into casual games represent a good thing for indie developers, or a a threat for indie development?

SV: I think it would be difficult to say that more competition is good for indie developers, but indies tend to be more flexible than big studios and will move to try and serve niches that the big studios miss. Bigger companies moving in is a sign that they think the market is strong and will continue to grow, so perhaps on some level it bodes well. Certainly there are many new markets Indies can target such as iPhone applications.

Casual games are kind of unique in the sense that, by their very nature, a smaller team can produce them and so a lot of the advantages a AAA studio would traditionally have are negated. It depends a little on the sort of game though. For instance a hidden object game is so art-heavy that having a team of professional artists is obviously a big help there.

I suspect the biggest challenge will be to the middle sized companies who have full staff, rents, and other expenses. Smaller Indies don’t need to produce the kind of mega-hits that a full-blown studio needs to break even. But it’s tough because games are a little hit driven. That’s not because the games produced by Indies wouldn’t interest people or they can’t sell, but mostly because every game is fighting to get a bit of attention from the pool of customers, and only the top sellers are heavily promoted. If nobody sees your game they can’t buy it. It’s like being on page seven of the search engine listings. You might have exactly what the consumer wants but no chance for a sale.

I think one avenue that Indies are targeting more and more is browser based Flash games. That technology is now at a point where you can produce some pretty nice stuff that’s comparable to a program you install and run, and the fact that it doesn’t require a download and install makes distribution a snap. Its fairly common to see Flash versions of popular casual games launched in conjunction with their downloadable counterparts as a way to promote the game, but you’re going to see a more cases where the browser based game IS the main game. As well, some of the new tech coming out, like Adobe Air, is blurring the distinction between browser based games and downloadable games.

NK: Many of our readers are interested in the process of game development. Can you tell us some of the main challenges you face as an indie casual game developer?

SV: Right now the biggest challenge is keeping up with the expected high-end production values while balancing the risk of long the development cycles that go hand in hand with slicker production. Some things you can’t rush and can’t be sped up by throwing money at them. You just need to spend more time. So what seems like a simple mechanic based game, can now take several years to produce and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. This raises the risk quite a bit. If you spend a year or two, then you really need your game to sell when you’re done. And if it doesn’t then you’re two years out of income and quite possibly in debt. That’s a big loss for a small studio. There’s not a whole lot of room to experiment and fail. On the other hand if you spend 4-6 months producing a smaller game you have other risks, like the game not looking very good next to the competition, and difficulty finding distribution and so on. So for smaller teams like us it’s a delicate balancing act of how far do we take it vs. how much risk do we want to ride on a single game? If you don’t produce it enough it won’t measure up and you’ll have a hard time finding distribution, but if you over-produce the game and it doesn’t catch on you can find yourself in trouble there too. It’s not easy to answer those questions.

NK: RatMaster is one of our favorite puzzle games, and kept us amused for hours. But we’re curious where the theme came from - why a game about rats?

SV: Well that game was actually one that was developed by a friend of mine. He used our game engine, and I helped with some of the level design and production. He’s now a minor partner in Twilight. He had this to say…

“I started experimenting with the gameplay before I settled on a theme. Originally I was considering a car driving around but when I built some test levels I realized that sliding the pieces around was like assembling a maze. The maze made me think of mice, but I believe it was the Smashing Pumpkins song ‘Rat in a Cage’ that made me go with rats.”

NK: Where do good casual games come from? What makes a casual game successful and “sticky” like Aargon, and how does a developer find that sweet spot?

SV: I think at the end of the day most of us make what we think is fun and kind of hope that other people like it too. We all have different sorts of ideas about what makes a good game. There is a level of analysis that goes on, but nobody really knows for sure. I can’t think of a single game company that has hit the mark every single time. Even the most successful companies occasionally slip. It’s a bit like producing a movie. All the elements have to come together just right to have it really hit home. The music, the art, the technology etc… If you have a good script but bad actors a movie might still not be any good. Likewise with games you can have good game play but poor execution, or great execution but a so-so mechanic. The best games are those where all the individual pieces came together to make a greater whole.

One of the real difficulties is that as you develop a game you’re constantly testing and playing it. Eventually you sort of lose sight of your own game. You can’t really tell if it’s fun anymore because even the very best games are a little boring if you’ve been playing them for a long time. You also lose site of what’s hard to play and what’s easy. You become a very good player. So we end up really struggling with every little decision. Those are the biggest arguments we have internally. Whether some seemingly minor detail ruins or improves the game. They can get quite passionate those discussions. Maybe thats part of it…  having some passion for the work.

This is where cloning a game makes life a lot easier, and why you see so many companies producing the same thing over and over. It removes a lot of the risk. If you take something like Jellies, there are a lot of questions hanging out there. Should you have to merge 4 or 5 jellies before dropping? How many colors is fun? Is it better to allow or prohibit diagonal matches? There’s no other game we can go look at for the answers. If you’re cloning a hit, you can just do it the same way they did. If you don’t, you can easily break it. Twists sometimes aren’t fun.

It’s also difficult to rely on testing feedback because it’s not always guiding you in the right direction. How do you interpret the feedback you receive? For gameplay it’s very difficult and if you try to adjust to every comment the outcome can be bland and uninteresting.

I think in terms of casual games, one thing you should probably aim for is a game that can be played at different levels. Let the players challenge themselves. Take mah-jong solitaire for instance. Almost anyone can play. You just look for matches. But a good player will make certain matches first, improving their chances of winning. Whether you’re good or not though it’s always fun and anyone can play. That I think is a hallmark of casual design. I’d like to think Jump Jump Jelly Reactor works a bit that way. You can just make matches or you can challenge yourself to get great big combinations or awards. It works on different levels.

NK: Jump Jump Jelly Reactor is a real departure for Twilight Games, with sharper and more active graphics, a simpler core game mechanic, and a more time-based twitch-like gameplay. Why the new direction?

SV: The visual style actually came from John Raptis (of Raptisoft Games), and Popcap Games who both had an active role in the game’s development. So we had a different set of artists and did a lot more of the art internally than we normally do. It was my goal from the outset to make something that was a little more like Chuzzle or Bejeweled, relying heavily on a simple addictive core mechanic, and so the very nature of the gameplay affected the direction the game took.

In terms of it being a departure for us, I think we’ve actually always been quite eclectic. If you look at our past games, we’ve rarely stayed with one style of game. We’ve done pure arcade games like Space Taxi 2, and Fragmentor, difficult puzzle games like RatMaster and Aargon, and more casual games like Mahjongg Variations and Beetle Bomp. So we’re all over the map really. In some ways that’s bad for us because it doesn’t really build a core audience the way developing very similar games year after year might, but from a creative point of view it’s a little more interesting.

NK: What would you like our readers to know about independent game development that they probably don’t know?

SV: I think one thing they probably don’t realize is that a lot of the games they play and enjoy are not produced by big companies, but rather they’re developed by very small teams and even individuals, working from home offices. Often the developers are jacks-of-all-trades who work on graphics, software, and even music. They’re little pieces of personal art on many levels.

NK: What is coming up next for Twilight games? What is the team working on now?

SV: We’re not committed to a new “big” project just yet. We’re taking a little time after finishing Jelly Reactor. We’ve started working a little with Flash to make some online games. I worked with the creator of RatMaster to produce a flash political game based on the coming 2008 US election, which we’ll release soon. I plan to add more flash games in the near future.

For the next project, we’re seriously considering Aargon 3, a Jellies Sequel, or a strategy game. I expect it will be one of those. We also have a new level pack in the works for Aargon Deluxe, which we’ll be releasing shortly.

Thanks for taking the time to ask about us and letting people know a little more about Twilight.

Tagged under: aargon aargon deluxe addictive arcade Casual Game Design flash hidden object indie indie monday jump jump jelly reactor mahjong PopCap puzzle Raptisoft solitaire space taxi steve verrault twilight games

Article by Nick Kojima