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An unexpected storm has left you shipwrecked on a mysterious and remote private island. Seek & find cleverly hidden objects and solve puzzles to find a way off the island.

Escape Rosecliff Island, by Spin-top games (now owned by Popcap) is a fine addition to the casual gaming library and definitely something to checkout. We had some questions for the team about the title and they were kind enough to answer them for us!

Can you please give us a little back story on the game if you don’t mind?

When we set out to create the first game in our new “Escape” series we wanted the setting to be intriguing and mysterious but not scary so we remained family friendly.  We felt a rugged private island estate created the right environment with the right natural obstacles.  The back story in our games is very important but we like to keep them simple and to the point so our protagonist can unfold the story in their mind.  “An unexpected storm has left you shipwrecked on a mysterious and remote private island.”  From here the adventure immediately begins and you must find your way off the island!

What type of puzzles can we expect to see in the game?  Also how many different variations of puzzles are there?

We included five unique types of mini-games: Match 3, Word Search, Puzzle Rotation, Memory Match, Jigsaw plus a very unique final puzzle game.

Which type of audience are you looking to capture with this type of game?

Our games are targeted towards 35 – 65 year olds, male and females.  In addition to this core market our games are played with parents and children all the time – hidden object games are a great social game.

Every game has music.  What makes your in game music stand out to make the player feel as though they are there?

As you would expect music and sfx are critical to creating an immersive environment.  The music and ambient tracks are filled with supportive sfx that reinforce the scenes and settings you are exploring.

During development, what was one of you’re biggest concerns and was one of the best things that happened?

Our biggest concern during development was creating an environment that was too dark and dreary for our customer.  As always it is a fine line between just right and really wrong…but based on the early reviews and customer feedback, we hit it just right.

We wanted to offer a special thanks to Duncan Magee and Craig Hamilton, co-directors of the SpinTop Games for taking a few moments to answer some of our questions. We also want to thank Toby (ATC 1982) for running the interview for us, you can checkout his site and all his past interviews at Shotgunglass.

We had a chance to sit down and talk with the developer of 2 Minute Mysteries, interactive mystery games for the iPhone/iPod Touch. Below is the information that came out of that chat:

How big is your company?

My company, SR Entertainment Inc., consists only of me.  I outsource any work that I cannot handle myself.

The Iphone/iPod touch have become popular gaming devices and the App Store has taken off as well, did that influence your decision to develop for the iPhone/iPod Touch?

Back in 2006, I launched an online interactive murder mystery game titled ‘Mystery At Mansfield Manor’ (www.mysteryatmansfieldmanor.com).  It has been compared to a combination of Clue and a choose your own adventure movie (both of which influenced me during my youth).  As the audience grew through the media reviews, I received a lot of feedback; from both journalists and customers.

When the App store became a very popular gaming device, I decided to continue to offer more interactive mysteries.  However, implementing the feedback, I decided to make several episodes and keep each of them very short so that people can play them while they are commuting to work/school, or are waiting for a friend while inside a Starbucks etc., hence I came up with the idea for 2 Minute Mysteries.

I am sure you have played your fair share of games, which game made you want to become a developer?

I would have to say it is a combo of both a passion for movies and a passion for games.  I enjoy mysteries, and as a kid I enjoyed playing Clue.

Where did the idea for 2 minute mysteries come from?

As mentioned earlier, I adapted 2 Minute Mysteries from my first online game Mystery At Mansfield Manor into shorter games to appeal to people who don’t have time to sit for two to three hours, but instead two to three minutes.

The interactive mysteries are an interesting game concept, why did you go with interactive mysteries over other types of games?

I have always enjoyed mysteries…plus it gives the player a goal to achieve as they watch the videos.  This way, the audience is active rather than passive.

The format for the mysteries is really short, is there a reason you went with a short format over a longer format?

It appeals to those people who are always on the go.  If they find themselves with a few free minutes while waiting for something, 2 Minute Mysteries is perfect as it entertains them…similar to writing short stories rather than novels.

I like the concept of the video. Did you shoot the video yourself?

I did.  I wrote all 10 episodes (with more to come), then placed ads for non-union actors and auditioned them. Each episode has a different location (for example a hotel room, a garage, an office, an alley etc.) so it took 3 days to film all 10 episodes. I am a 1-man crew so I also directed all of them, filmed them with my HD camera, purchased all props & wardrobe etc. I edited all of the videos on my laptop using Adobe Premiere. Then once all of the videos were done, I outsourced to an Apple developer to create the apps. Now I am my own PR rep so I am contacting the media in attempt to get some exposure for 2 Minute Mysteries.

Are the actors hired actors or are they friends?

They were hired…however I gave myself two cameo roles.  One is in the episode called ‘Ransom’ (which is also in the opening credits for each episode) and the other is in the episode ‘Witness or Murderer’.  However, you can’t see my face in either of them.  When you watch those episodes, you can figure out which character I am.

How long does it take to develop one of the interactive mysteries?

The longest part is coming up with the story.  I would write excessively, then have to keep editing the story down so that it would not go beyond the ‘2 Minute’ limit, however ensuring that all relevant clues are revealed plus some false leads to try to throw some people off.  I started writing all ten episodes in the beginning of January.  Once all were ready to be filmed, I scheduled the film shoots in February.  The apps were finally launched in the last week of March.  However, the future episodes will be a much quicker turnaround now that I have created a ‘formula’ for them.  I am definitely influenced by Law & Order as that has been a popular TV show for over 15 years with their own successful formula for their episodes…if only I could replicate a tiny fraction of their success, I would be an extremely happy man.

The mysteries are short and don’t take long to play. Do you have intentions of releasing a compilation of mysteries?

Right now it is a compilation of mysteries.  There are ten episodes with more planned for the future.  The first episode, 2 Minute Mysteries – The Bank Robber, is free and all others cost $0.99. All of the loglines and descriptions for each episode are revealed in their description listed in the App store.  I believe what makes them fun is that it offers both visual and  audio clues so that the player has to watch and listen carefully to the opening video in order to solve them correctly on their first attempt. If solved correctly, the solution video plays.

Are there any plans to adapt 2 Minute Mysteries to other devices?

I am in the process of creating them for Blackberry’s App store (which officially announced last week that they opened an App store to compete with Apple’s App store).  Additionally, I am also in the process of building the website so that anyone, anywhere, at any time can play them online or on their mobile device.

We thank Rory from SR Entertainment Inc. for taking the time to answer our questions.

We got an opportunity to talk with Kane Minkus, Managing Partner at SomaTone Interactive Audio, about their specialized team of individuals whom put the sound into many of the games we play. Casual games from Peggle, Azada, Chocolatier, Diner Dash and literally dozens more to console titles like Assault Heroes 2, Luxor and American Idol. SomaTone has their beautiful music in the MMO game market as well with World of Warcraft, Pirates of the Burning Sea and many more.

They construct the wonderful music that sets the stage for many game genres and add dynamics to an otherwise plain world of beeps and bleeps. Kane Minkus had plenty to say about the game industry, casual games and where we’ll see audio going in the future. His answers will make you stop and listen to the music…

Since the invention of the 16-bit console game, we’ve had huge leaps in graphic capabilities. Today, Sony and Microsoft over-hype their graphic intensive systems, how important is the audio component to video games?

Audio is an incredibly important aspect to any multimedia or interactive experience. Let’s take an extreme example – next time you are playing a game, turn the volume off completely and notice the difference of your experience of this game – is it better or worse? Are you more engaged or less?

Now, usually it is not a question really of whether audio should be there or not be there in games, but the real dividing line comes when a judgment call has to be made about whether or not to invest in a great team to produce great audio. The difference between top notch audio and just ok audio will have the same net affect on the users experience.

To test that theory, next time you are playing a game, put on high school marching band music while you are playing and notice the difference in experience you have. In fact, changing the audio track to a picture changes the experience to something so dramatically different that this technique is used in therapy. If you want to change the experience of some event that has happened to you in the past, in your minds eye, replay the whole event and run a different soundtrack behind it (in your head) and instantly the experience will change. This is how powerful audio is in determining the experience of something.

Are there any genre’s of games that benefit more from high quality audio? RPG’s for instance?

Well, every game benefits from an appropriate and high quality soundtrack, and the genre and quality of writing will determine the value of the audio. For example, a fun casual game, for example a time management game, should in no way be given a dramatic RPG soundtrack.

Unless of course, that was the intended experience the producer wants. And that’s the great part about audio – you can tell so much story with the music in the instrument choices, dynamics and melodic/harmonic choices. Each game should have a well crafted soundtrack. Even the sound effects (SFX) can give you a much better experience based upon the way they create the realism of an animated object – choices in material, dynamics and progression through a SFX can tell so much about what the animation is on the screen.

What genre of game has your team really loved to work on?

Genre is not so important to us as much as games that are willing to take risks with the audio and really tell a story. So much can be done with audio to differentiate one game from the next that we love working on games where we have more creative freedom to go a little out of the expected ordinary approach. More and more games are doing this.

Do gamers actually buy sound tracks for video games as a secondary purchase?

LOL – it is funny that you ask that! We have sold a couple soundtracks separately and in online games recently. I would have to say at the moment, they seam to not be buying the soundtracks that much. Occasionally, a really definitive soundtrack connects with an audience and sells like hotcakes, but on average, I can not say it is something users buy. This is a shame from our perspective, as some of the music for games is absolutely extraordinary works of art on their own.

For example we released three soundtracks this year that were recorded with the Berlin Film Orchestra, an incredible orchestra that records all the film music coming out of Berlin.

Read the rest of this entry »

Casual Gamer Chick had a chance to sit down with Daniel Bernstein, the CEO of Sandlot Games. The interview went well and even contains a small scoop that hasn’t been revealed yet. Below is the interview.

How big is Sandlot games?

About 50 people in the states and in Russia. Three teams, dedicated developers and contract teams.

How many different franchises do your teams work on? It seemed like you had a lot of projects going on.

We always do. We have the Westward franchise, the TradeWinds franchise, the Cake Mania franchise, the SuperGranny franchise and Glyph. Five major franchises and every once in a while we also do a new project like Eye for Design. We have dedicated teams on all of our franchise games.

Are the people that work on Cake Mania very familiar with every new release of the game?

Yes, Yes we have people that have worked on Cake Mania since the very FIRST Cake Mania.

How long has Sandlot games been in existence?

We have been in business since 2002. Since the beginning of the casual games revolution so to speak. We have been around for a while and we have seen a lot of companies come and go and we have focused on games that we like to play and I believe our audience likes to play as well.

Speaking of which, in 2006 you guys had the best casual games award from Yahoo for Cake Mania did that bring on a new wave of Cake Mania fans or were they already dedicated by then? Did that bring you a lot of different exposure or did you already have that momentum?

The momentum was there, I think, just on the success of Cake Mania alone. You’ve got a game that is pretty much a phenomenon everywhere that it launched. As a DS title, we sold about 300,000 units of the first version of Cake Mania one DS. Cake Mania 2 DS is out, Cake Mania Skills is out. We have a Wii version planned by the end of the year. We’ve got two mobile games for Cake Mania, Cake Mania 1 and Cake Mania 2. Cake Mania PSP and PS2 just launched. It’s definitely a phenomenon and we are excited by the success of Cake Mania. By the time that article came out, it was pretty clear what direction Cake Mania was headed.

Would you call Cake Mania your flagship game? Was that THE game that got you guys going or was it a combination of everything?

It’s a combination. There are people here that love Cake Mania and there are people here that aren’t really crazy about it at Sandlot. We have a wide diversity of developers that like the games they develop, that is what makes a successful developer. Making sure whatever your guys are working on they like to build it themselves. In the case of the Westward team they are really crazy about Westward Read the rest of this entry »

EA’s casual gaming chick, Kathy Vrabeck is leading a new casual gaming initiative. She’s the lady in charge of EA’s casual gaming division and has some new methods of bringing casual games to the hardcore platforms.

She was interviewed by GameDaily about the effort, saying “the great thing about casual gaming is that it means different things to different people.” That, to me, is the key element that everyone in the industry (including analysts) need to understand: casual gaming is not a genre it’s a way of thinking.

“A middle aged woman is not playing on an Xbox 360 and doesn’t own a lot of these consoles that you’re talking about. But there absolutely is an opportunity to look at gaming models like Xbox Live Arcade or Xbox Live where we sell a game and continue to add on but it will be targeted towards people who own Xbox 360s and it will be casual kinds of things.”

Assuming EA and other casual game companies are already targetting the women casual gamers, it’s time for EA to turn its attention to the console gamers. Popcap Games says they’ve got something like 70% woman gamers and their titles are mainly PC and Macintosh based titles with a few showing themselves, lately, on Xbox Live Arcade.

EA has a large task ahead of itself, you can’t just pop a game on Xbox Live Arcade, call it casual and get a ton of buyers. You need a team that understands how to make a casual title not an FPS or RPG; casual game designs are not like other genres. Imagine making a ‘simple game’ that’s both addictive and contains hours of replay value for a shorter sized game. Cheap games don’t sell like good cheap games do.

Kathy Vrabeck has spent her five months building such a team of outside talent and getting them on board with the initiative. Xbox Live is a great place to start farming out their initial ideas and get some traction with the hardcore crowd. If you can create a big audience on Xbox Live you’ll not only make some money but you’ll turn an otherwise “hardcore console” into something broader and take a little market share away from that of Nintendo and its Wii power player.

Now, can EA do it?

(Thanks, Xboxer.tv)