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N-Philes managed to sit down with Ian Dunlop to learn more about the game and its development.N-Philes: I just want to thank you for taking time to sit down with me today!
Dunlop: You're welcome. I appreciate the chance to talk about Konductra.
N-Philes: So, jumping right in... What is Konductra all about?
Dunlop: Konductra is at heart a puzzle game, but it is attempting to break out of the normal confines of that genre. I think it does that by leveraging the touch screen and other features of the DS like Wi-Fi, etc.
N-Philes: From where did the idea for this game come?
Dunlop: The basic idea came from my love of puzzle games. It was only during the development process and hands-on with the DS that it started to take shape and became Konductra. So it was really a fusion of my ideas and the inspiration that came from the DS itself. Konductra exists because of the touch screen on the DS.
N-Philes: This game was announced late last year, if I remember correctly... How has the game changed since it was shown, or even since the idea was conceived?
Dunlop: Yeah Craig Harris over at IGN did a piece on it, kind of an "upcoming game indie" piece. Technically it wasn't a proper announcement, as we did not have a publisher at that time.
The two most significant developments since that time and before O~3 Entertainment's involvement were the addition of supporting the Nintendo Wi-Fi Connection feature and an overhaul on some of the art. We originally had gone with a monochromatic look to the front end, thinking we wanted to separate the colorful look of the game from the front end/menus. While interesting an idea that was on paper, it just didn't work in practice so we ended up adding a bunch more color to the menu system. The end result is more balanced look between game and menus. I think the final result that Marshal Hernandez (artist) achieved looks great.
More than anything though is that the game has had some serious play testing put into it. Many, many hours of polishing and tweaking it to get it playing "just right". It's very important to me that every oeFun game is fun and feels solid. I still have a lot of fun playing it... especially the VS. modes. Marshal and myself have been known to have matches that last over an hour! But that is with two very experienced players who are closely ranked.
N-Philes: Has the DS itself affected the game? How would it have been different (or would it exist at all) had Nintendo just released a more powerful Game Boy instead of a system with two screens, a touch screen, and all that?
Dunlop: Yeah, as I said earlier the touch screen is probably the single most important feature on the DS that made Konductra possible. Local wireless and Wi-Fi play are two powerful features that shape your game too. You could as a designer ignore them, but why would you want to?
I've been asked in the past stuff like "Can you put this game on platform X?" My response has always been no. If you removed the touch screen I'd need to add gravity back in and at that point you have a very different game dynamic.
N-Philes: Does online play differ at all from the local multiplayer mode? If so, in what way?
Dunlop: The actual game mechanics are identical. The biggest difference is the ranking system which only applies to Worldwide match-ups over Wi-Fi. The game tracks your rank and before every match, based on your opponent, your rank will change depending on the outcome from the match. Obviously, if you play someone who has a higher rank and lose it won't change your rank much.
Every new player is given an arbitrary rank to begin with. There will be an initial settling period before the rank reflects your "real" rank. This is also why the game does not allow you play in a ranked match and choose an opponent. That is open to abuse. ranked matches are always against randomly selected opponents.
Additionally, we are launching a web site to go with the game. Here, you can check out the leader boards, and our plan is to host competitions at some point after launch of the game.
N-Philes: So Konductra's ranking system is similar the one used at Yahoo Games...
Dunlop: I'm not familiar with that system. [Writer's note: they are similar systems]
N-Philes: So you can't play ranked games with people on a friends list? Is it to prevent cheating?
Dunlop: No, you can only play unranked matches with friends. I wanted to keep the system simple and easy to understand. If we allowed ranked matches via friends, there would be nothing stopping you from cheating and trivially increasing your rank.
Once you're in a game if you quit out it is an automatic loss. However, in terms of "other" types of disconnection it does not do anything. I did not want to create a system that would penalize people for issues outside of their control. How do you distinguish between someone who turns their DS off because they don't want to play VS. and legitimate issue with the internet or maybe even a DS that is low on battery power? It's a difficult problem to solve.
N-Philes: Does the game have single-cart multiplayer support?
Dunlop: The game does not support single-cart multiplayer. I felt adding Wi-Fi support was more important than adding download play. I think that component will go along way to helping creating a community of Konductra players. It makes it easier for people from all over the world to play together without knowing each other.
Konductra VS mode
N-Philes: Was it hard to develop the online component to the game? Is it hard to developer for the DS in general?
Dunlop: No it wasn't hard at all. It was very easy to add Wi-Fi to the game. Without going into too much technical detail, clearly your game code has to be structured in such a way to facilitate play over the internet. Given that I had designed the game and written the code this way from the beginning it was really just a matter of adding all the required features that every Nintendo WFC game needs to have.
Nintendo offers great support for its developers. I can't complain. :-)
N-Philes: That's really good to hear (and makes me wonder why other developers are taking their time at jumping onto WFC). As a developer, is there any benefit for you to create an online game for the DS?
Dunlop: By adding support for Nintendo WFC, I'm hoping that we'll tap into that group of people who like to be competitive but usually don't have the time to actually physically go somewhere to play. Either way, we have both play styles covered. Ultimately, I think the benefit is a larger audience.
N-Philes: Over a million people have used Wi-Fi so far, with only a handful of compatible games, so for sure there's an audience!
Konductra strikes immediate comparison to Nintendo's Polarium, maybe even Meteos. How do you think Konductra stacks up to some of the other puzzle games on the DS?
Dunlop: Yes, that's a lot of people!
I think Konductra goes against those titles really well and holds it's own. Obviously the proof will be in the pudding (as they say). From a designer perspective it was important to analyze the competition and make sure that we were competing. I will leave the analysis to the critics, but suffice it to say I'm very confident Konductra will be a win with gamers.
