Riptide GP Postmortem on Gamasutra

Vector Unit's Creative Director Matt Small shares his thoughts on what it takes to make the switch from console to mobile development, in this Riptide GP Postmortem on Gamasutra.

Riptide GP was developed in less than 5 months with a team of 2 people.  In addition to the challenging schedule, it was the first mobile game developed by Vector Unit.  As you can imagine, the process had its challenges:

The problem as always with a very small team -- in our case, a very, very small team -- is that there is virtually no wiggle room for unforeseen variables. We went from three week Scrum sprints at the start of the project, to two week sprints, to one week, and towards the very end we tossed Scrum completely and just went with prioritized task lists, squeezing as much as we could into the time we had. As hard as it was, it was creative, rewarding work, and somehow we managed to get it all done on time. But the process wasn't always pretty.

Check out the full article on Gamasutra for insights on pipeline efficiency, alternative business models, piracy, and more!

Riptide GP - Now with Gamepads!

The #1 console-quality racing experience on Android just got a little more console-y.

The latest update to Riptide GP (version 1.1) adds support for Bluetooth and USB gamepads.  Now you can kick back on the couch, crack open an ice-cold beverage of choice, shove your hand into a bowl of buttery popcorn and play Riptide GP without getting crumbs all over your shiny new Thrive or Photon 4G.

Bluetooth controllers can be paired with your device, and are supported on all Tegra phones and tablets.  USB controllers require that you have Android 3.1 or higher (currently this means it's only supported on tablets.)

For the best possible experience, hook up your device to your TV with HDMI too.  Now you really can have console-quality gaming on your mobile device -- only better, because when you need to hit the road, you can just unplug it and take it on the road with you.

For more information about configuring your device, check out the Riptide GP Gamepad FAQ.

Riptide GP in print

The September 2011 issue of GamePro magazine features Riptide GP on page 85, under the heading "What's a Blast on Public Transit".

Reviewer Will Herring writes:

I'm generally pretty faithful to my iPhone, but playing this impressively rendered racer on an office-owned Android made me, admittedly, just a little bit jealous that it hasn't hit the iTunes App Store yet.

We're glad to hear you liked it, Will.  And don't worry -- your iPhone may not have long to wait.  Stay tuned!

Click for a scanned version of the article. 

How Free is Freemium?

Playing Gun Bros this weekend I think I finally "get" the dual-income Freemium business model.  

I was always puzzled about why you need to design two different kinds of money in a Freemium game (at least, this type of Freemium game.)  Why not just one?  But now I get it -- Money A is is for the cheapos out there (like me) who just want to earn money by grinding, Money B is for people who give a little back to the developers -- who are willing to click on ads, invite Friends, or pay out real money -- in exchange for extra special buffs or upgrades.  (Of course you can buy extra Money A too if you want.)

I have to say, to my surprise I'm even finding Gun Bros fun.  It's a silly game, the art is cute, the game is entertaining, and the plentiful upgrades are pretty satisfying.  Even the economy -- while it seemed complicated at first -- is not overly annoying.  Haven't actually paid any money yet, although I've definitely felt the temptation.  

We've been talking a lot at Vector Unit about whether it makes sense for us to try and design a game around this type of economy, rather than our usual "old fashioned" way of just making games that people pay for once and then just...play.

Freemium is tempting.  You get craptons of downloads, and from everything we've seen if you design the game right, you can make a lot more money than you can with a regular pay-to-play game.  Also it helps combat piracy (why pirate a free game?)

But man, I don't know.  I still have some problems with this whole model.

For one thing, it seems odd to call these games "casual" when in fact the currency management is as complicated as any mid-level console RPG.  It seriously took me a while to figure out Gun Bros, and it's not even complicated compared to Farmville or something.

But also, I think there's something kind of messed up about a game that allows -- even encourages -- players to spend this much money.  In Gun Bros, the cheapest coin package you can buy is $2.99 -- which is probably about how much the game would cost if it were a P2P game.  The biggest package of in-game booster currency you can buy costs $199.  TWO HUNDRED DOLLARS.  For a simple dual stick shooter! 

I wonder if there will ever be some kind of backlash against games like this and Farmville. From a social-good standpoint, it seems like there's a very fine line between online gambling addiction and Freemium gaming compulsion. 

And what about the gamers who support these "free" games, who complain about mobile games that you have to pay for?  Do they realize what they're giving up?  That the game mechanics are designed around increasing your frustration and impatience, rather than your entertainment and enjoyment? 

I'm not saying we're not going to try this out at some point.  Man, the numbers don't lie.  But I still feel like there's something to be said for paying $2, or $5, or -- gasp -- even $20 or more for a clean, well designed game experience that doesn't ask anything from me other than my pleasure.

The tech behind Riptide GP

You would think that converting a current-gen console game engine to a phone would be a daunting task.  I’m happy to report that this is not the case!  This year’s crop of smartphones with their multiple CPU cores and competent GPUs are definitely up to the task.

When we started developing Riptide GP for Tegra 2, we had certain expectations of the performance we could squeeze out of these devices.  The GPU (graphics) more or less met our expectations, so we were able to hit our graphics quality and rendering performance targets by optimizing the fragment shaders and doing more work per vertex.  However, we were completely blown away by the CPU (computation).  The dual-core ARM Coretex A9 is an amazing piece of silicon.  What’s running in Riptide GP is the same underlying water simulation that powered our previous game on the Xbox 360!

Besides our internal tech there are three key components that made Riptide GP possible:  The Android NDK, Bullet Physics, and FMOD Sound System.  The NDK allows us to write native C++ code which is then optimized for the ARM architecture.  Bullet Physics, which we use for collision detection and rigid body simulation, just worked out of the box.  FMOD Sound System released an Android version of their SDK just in time, which has been working flawlessly since the first release.

Ralf Knoesel on developing games for Android

You may recall the Vector Unit team exhibited our new game Riptide GP at Google I/O back in May.  During the conference, the Google I/O team interviewed Technical Director and Lead Programmer Ralf Knoesel about developing high-performance games for Android.  

The short video gives you a little insight into what it's like these days making games for mobile platforms, and shows off some gameplay footage of Riptide GP.

Kotaku Like

The good folks at Kotaku (Mike Fahey specificially) just reviewed Riptide GP, and gave the game an emphatic thumbs-up, naming it their Gaming App of the Day:

I had no idea the sort of juice these Tegra 2-powered devices could pump out. The age of console-quality Android gaming is upon us, and Riptide GP is one hell of a good start.

Check out the full article here:  Riptide GP Rips Android Gamers a Console Quality Racer

T-Mobile to show Riptide GP at E3 2011

T-Mobile will be showcasing Riptide GP (along with some other games you don't have to pay any attention to) in their booth at E3 2011.

From what we hear, their booth is going to be set up like a 50's diner, and you can take a load off and relax in a comfy booth while they ply you with smoothies to drink and games to play.  The booth is number 1447, and is near the center aisle, towards the back of South Hall.

If you're in town for E3, be sure to come by!  Ralf and I will be stopping in from time to time, particularly on Wednesday afternoon.

An embarrassment of riches

One of the great things about being a game developer, is people send you free hardware -- game consoles, dev kits, phones, tablets -- to work with, so you get to try out all the latest cool devices.

The most recent addition to our small but growing collection of Tegra2 stuff is 4 brand new, shiny LG G2X phones, courtesy of the good people at T-Mobile.  We're not actually holding on to these:  We're pre-installing copies of Riptide GP, and loaning them out to game review sites that don't have Tegra2 devices to play the game on.

Even though these are just passing through, I couldn't resist taking a picture of these four awesome phones, all charged up and running Riptide GP in parallel.  As I said, we've had the opportunity to try a lot of Tegra2 hardware, and although they each have their relative strengths, the G2X is one of our favorites.  It's a good size, it's nice and light, and like all Tegra2 phones it's awesome for games.

If only I could keep one for myself ... :-)