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Road To IGF Mobile: Glow Artisan s Jason Schreiber

2010-03-07 15:00
In the first in a series of interviews with 2010 Independent Games Festival Mobile finalists, sister site FingerGaming s Jon Glover talks to Powerhead Games CEO Jason Schreiber, whose DSiWare game Glow Artisan is a finalist in the Best Mobile Game category after having won the award for Best Mobile Game Design. Described as another secretly rad DSiWare game by GameSetWatchв s Eric Caoili, Glow Artisan could have remained just that, a footnote on Nintendoв s weekly downloadables PR sheet, seeing only a single, admittedly fantastic review in its first week of release. However, a few months on and developer Powerhead Gamesв debut original title has won the IGFв s Best Mobile Game Design award, being the only game on a traditional gaming handheld up for the grand prize in the catergory of Best Mobile Game. FingerGaming had the chance talk with Powerhead Games boss Jason Schreiber about his companyв s first non-licensed game, the development of such a unique and feature-rich puzzle game and the indie scene in general. What is Powerhead Gamesв background in game development We recently celebrated Powerhead Gamesв tenth anniversary as an independent game developer. Our first game was for the original Nintendo Game Boy. Weв ve pretty much been a Nintendo handheld developer ever since, working on many different types of for hire (other companyв s IP) games. Glow Artisan is Powerheadв s first original IP and our first self-published game.Can you tell us what development tools your team used to create Glow Artisan We use 3D Studio, Photoshop MediaWiki, SVN, Lua, Bugzilla and Notepad. We also use a bunch of internal tools and technology which we take great pride in. For example, our Font Text Writer tool is not just a means to get text into the Nintendo DS, but itв s also an indication of our love of silly acronyms. The most important tool though, is the Glow Puzzle Maker, which is included in the game! How long was the game in development The first prototype of Glow Artisan was built about two years ago. Several of the core features in the finished game were in place at week one: using one screen as a blueprint and the other as a canvas, drawing from the edges ( emitters ), and erasing/cutting lines. That first prototype showed potential, but it was a far cry from where we wound up. Glow Artisan became a labor of love at Powerhead - nearly everyone here had a hand, at least some part, to move development forward. When the Nintendo DSi was announced, everything fell into place. We knew two of the DSiв s features, the camera and the shop, would be perfect for Glow Artisan. How did the initial concept come about Two designers, Matt LoPresti and Ramiro Corbetta , were discussing ideas as designers are wont to do. In a classic case of the game Telephone , one misinterpreted the otherв s design and came up with the idea of emitters (drawing from the edges). They enlisted Randy (programmer) and Mike (artist) to work on a prototype. (It was up and running in abo...
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