WIND-UP KNIGHT (by Robot Invader)

Hi folks!

About two weeks ago we announced our first iOS title, Wind-up Knight. Here's some screenshots to give you an idea.











You can read the entire announcement at our development blog.

Wind-up Knight is a punishing platformer. It's fast-paced, action-heavy, and designed to put your gaming skills to the test. We're tired of games that hold your hand and pat you on the head every time you collect a gold star. Wind-up Knight is a game that anybody can play, but it's playing for keeps.

Here are some factual facts:
- Wind-up Knight runs on iPhone 4, iPad (1 & 2), and (probably) 3GS.
- 4 worlds, twelve devilish levels apiece, as well as ultra-punishing NIGHTMARE levels.
- Releasing sometime this fall.
- There is no tilting, swiping, or shaking involved.

Since our announcement we've received an incredible amount of positive feedback, particularly on our art and graphics. When we show the game to people we often have to wrestle our phone from their hands to get it back. We'd like to hear what you think, too.

About ROBOT INVADER:
We are a new game development studio comprised exclusively of veteran developers. We cut our teeth shipping traditional console games--close to 30 titles between us--and we think that the future of game development is mobile. Wind-up Knight is our first iOS game, and though we've designed it specifically for an iPhone form factor and touch screen control interface, it is firmly entrenched in our console roots.

For more info about us, check out the developer blog. I'll also try to answer your questions here in this thread, though for now we're being a bit secretive.

Cheers!
Chris

 

We've omitted the control UI for these shots because we like being ultra-secretive (also they are not quite ready to show). There will be some buttons, but maybe not the ones you expect.

Thanks! Our company mantra is simply to never compromise on quality.

Virtual controls, yes, but maybe not the "standard" that you are expecting. We're not fans of virtual d-pads.

Wind-up Knight levels focus on dexterity and puzzles. Completing a given level is a challenge--you'll need to be focused and fast, and it helps if you down a Red Bull or something like that to crank up your heart rate. But to really beat a level, to really call it completed, you'll have to find the secret areas, you'll have to figure out how to collect the coins at the bottom of that seemingly-impossible jump. To 100% Wind-up Knight you'll need to explore, experiment, and learn the knight's move set so well you can play with the screen off.

We've made a number of platformers for various platforms. Wind-up Knight is personally my ninth or tenth platformer (the others were mostly for GameBoy Advance, PSP, and one for Android), and it's the most challenging by far. However, as you alluded to, we want to present a legitimate challenge. Grappling with bad controls or second-guessing unreliable moves makes the game hard, but not in a good way. For legitimate challenge, the kind that makes you feel awesome when you complete it, we must be absolutely fair. And that means controls wound so tight they could strangle a mid-sized baboon.

Though our background is console development, this is a game designed from the ground up to be mobile. We expect you to pick up the game whenever you have a few free minutes (though putting it back down might be harder). Our levels are not so long that complicated save states are required. Rather, they are intricate and repayable.

No.

Yes.

No comment (yet).

Absolutely not! We're here to share our game with you, get your feedback, and hopefully convince you to give it a shot when it ships. We're a bit secretive, and there are bits of the game that are not ready to be seen by the light of day just yet, but we're excited to be here.

 

Not quite. You'll see.

Just to be clear, this isn't Metroid or Castlevania. We're not talking about leisurely exploring a large interconnected space like those games. Wind-up Knight is about moving forward at a breakneck pace, dealing with everything in your path, and using the knight's moves to avoid getting killed. But along the way you'll notice side passages, secret areas, and coins that look impossible to collect. To really beat the game you'll have to thoroughly explore these areas. Thinking on your feet is the name of the game.

I love d-pads on consoles, but it does not seem like the most ideal form of input for a touchscreen. There have certainly been some good games made that way, but it seems like a holdover from an earlier era. As Graeme Devine put it at GDC this year, "When you show the player a virtual d-pad, the message is that your game would be more fun on some other device."

Our control choices may surprise you, but I don't think they are as radical as you might have imagined. Our goal is simplicity and expressiveness. We'll be ready to talk more about that part of the game soon.

 

The control system we have is not the one we started out with. We spent several months iterating on the core control design--it was by far the hardest part of the game to nail down. It might not be what you expect, but it's tons of fun and I think you'll enjoy it.

We'll talk more about controls soon.

 

We share some DNA with runners, but this isn't Canabalt or BIT.TRIP Runner. I think that "platformer" is a more accurate categorization, though it's not a traditional platformer either.

Sorry to be so mysterious. When we're ready to share more about the interface you would be able to get us to shut up about it. In the mean time, what else can I tell you about this game?

 

Bad controls are bad controls are bad controls. If you make a game with crappy swipe controls because you think that's what the player wants, I think you need to play test your game more. Swipe is great for certain things, but it's problematic for a platformer like ours because it causes action at the end of the motion (once the swipe has been detected, meaning the finger has moved a bit) rather than the beginning of a motion.

That said, it's not like the only alternative to swipe or tilt is an on-screen d-pad. A pad is probably much superior to a swipe for a platformer because button actions can be instantaneous, as soon as the finger is placed on the screen. But there are also many other ways to make a fun game.

Graeme's point (and, as an aside, he's pretty much the world expert on these things; look him up if you don't know who he is) is that using a d-pad can also be sort of a cop-out. It's, as you said, an attempt to shoe-horn a legacy interface into a game design. Not to say that it isn't viable, just that it's a restrictive way to think about interfaces.

We did not throw out a virtual d-pad because of some religious philosophy. We tried it and it was not fun enough. We experimented with swiping, but it's not fun enough (as I mentioned above, too slow). We played with a number of control schemes and ultimately selected the one that was the most fun. It took a long time, several months. I'm very confident in our selection, however--the game wouldn't be nearly as good if we'd just thrown a d-pad in there because "that's what other devs have done."

I think Cordy's 2-button misaligned pad is pretty good, but what's better is that game (from the levels to the character) is designed to work only with horizontal inputs--no need for 4-way controls. That developer went through several rounds of iteration too before they hit on that particular scheme, and it works well. The last game I made, Replica Island for Android, supports all kinds of different control schemes. If you wish to pay with an on-screen pad, I provide an analog slider rather than binary left-and-right movement. This maps to the way the main character is controlled much better than a simple pad (though you can also play with a pad if you have a device with buttons).

My point is, the control scheme is the single most important thing to get right for any kind of game, mobile or otherwise. Selecting an interface for control is a process that requires a lot of iteration and revision. Just using a d-pad or not without actually testing it is an amateurish approach to development. When I say we are not fans of virtual d-pads, it's not some religious argument; we did a bunch of experimentation and found something else that worked better.

The end goal is always to make a fun, responsive, easy-to-control game. Those points are much more important than, say, alignment (or abandonment) of some arbitrary precedent.

Like I said, our control scheme is nothing revolutionary. It's just not a virtual d-pad. I think you'll enjoy it a lot.

 

I didn't say our control scheme makes "virtual controls look like a joke." I just said that it was more fun for our particular game. It's not some big revolution, but it is one of the key reasons Wind-up Knight is so fun.

Sure. We have quite a lot of variety, with both horizontal and vertical levels. Levels that spiral back in on themselves. Each world has a different feel, too, so some might be more linear than others. Later levels are dynamic, and you'll need to rethink your course as you play.

That's a good question. I guess the single biggest influence for us has been Super Meat Boy, though Wind-up Knight is not actually very similar to that game. We enjoy runners (particularly BIT.TRIP) and have learned from them. We've learned more from failed games (I won't mention names) than from successes, to be honest: it's easier to suss what a developer did wrong than divine why a good game works so well. Though its an entirely different type of game, I applied things I learned from Catherine to this game.

I should note that while I run Robot Invader and am responsible for all of the engineering on Wind-up Knight, I am not the primary designer. We select "Game Directors" to be the key vision holder for each of our games, and for this game that person is my co-founder, Casey. Maybe I can get him to come and talk more about his influences. The goal with this system is to make games that exude the personality of the creator.

Great game. Actually, our early designs were very much influenced by that game. We've since moved in a different direction, however, and now there's very little resemblance.

I'm pretty blown away by everything in Sword and Sworcery. Not a platformer, but damn, that's how you make a good mobile game. Music, art, presentation, interface. I hope those guys made a boat load.

Platformer-wise, I'm impressed with the high level of quality, in terms of art, controls, and level design, that is present in Cordy. Silvertree knows their stuff.

We're still in the middle of development so I can't comment on this quite yet.

Yes, it runs on iPad. Looks gorgeous too, as we've done all of our art at very high resolution.

Out this fall. No plans for a public beta at this time, but we might change our minds. Marketing: yes, stay tuned. We're publishing ourselves.