New Western interview with Cave staff

Started by EOJ, June 09, 2010, 10:30:38 PM

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EOJ

http://www.develop-online.net/digital-edition/download/72

Interview starts on page 32. Most of it is pretty worthless, such as all the questions & answers involving iphone games (who cares!!). However, I found this part most interesting:

"Q:The inclusion of ?slow-down? in your games
is now something almost unique to
shmups. Is that something you simulate,
and if so, why do you include it?

A:Cave?s games certainly have their difficult
side, wherein there are situations where there
are a lot of bullets on-screen. In these
situations, we will see slow-down occur
where the game speed drops and it is easier
to find a route through the bullet patterns.
However, it?s not just these situations, nor
conveying the sense of dilemma when you
have been pushed into the corner while the
game speed has dropped, and although this is
a simulated feeling, the player experiences a
certain sense of ?awakening? and this situation
can transform into something satisfying. The
meaning of slow-down in bullet heaven
shooters is accentuating the difficulty of the
game, and containing this potential for
difficult situations to become enjoyable.
Most of the Cave titles experience slowdown
from hardware, but some of our games
do emulate this via software. With the iPhone
version of the game, we?ve not ?replicated? the
slow-down of the arcade version.
The reason that we did not replicate slowdown
with Espgaluda II is that the controls
(interface) were originally designed for
another type of hardware, so instead of a
?complete port? we aimed for something that
would draw out a fun control method to
complement the iPhone interface."
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adverse

Also notice that one of the guys being interviewed is the programmer for Ibara Black Label.

EOJ

Yeah, Mamoru Furukawa. Looks like he's doing their Iphone ports now.
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moozooh

Quote from: EOJ on June 09, 2010, 10:30:38 PM
http://www.develop-online.net/digital-edition/download/72

Interview starts on page 32. Most of it is pretty worthless, such as all the questions & answers involving iphone games (who cares!!).
It's a magazine for developers, EOJ. spadgy, the guy who conducted the interview, has asked shmups.com users for possible questions to ask, but he made it clear from the start that it's an interview specifically aimed towards the industry, not end-users. That's why most of the topics covered are related to using iPhone as a game platform.
<dan76> As it is I'll have to endure high res - life's hard.

EOJ

It's not a magazine for Iphone developers, it's a magazine for developers in general. Ask about arcade development, challenges or pros/cons developing for the X360, possibilities for the PS3 or other platforms, etc. Seems like a wasted opportunity to me.
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gsl

#5
I think the guy's done a few other developer interviews for the same mag, which were also pretty iPhone heavy if memory serves.  It feels like someone in the editorial department is convinced the iPhone is a viable gaming platform of the future.  The interviews are generally well-thought out and I think he's done the shmups polling for material before, which is a good idea for questions a bit off the typical interview path.  It would just be nice to get a little more information about less-gimmicky platforms.

brentsg

Quote from: gsl on June 10, 2010, 03:53:39 PMIt would just be nice to get a little more information about less-gimmicky platforms.

Like native iPad resolution!   :righton:

moozooh

Native iPad resolution is 1024x768, unless you meant something else.
<dan76> As it is I'll have to endure high res - life's hard.

brentsg

Quote from: moozooh on June 10, 2010, 04:44:01 PM
Native iPad resolution is 1024x768, unless you meant something else.

Yeah it was a semi-serious joke.  I'd like Cave to support native iPad resolution on the games they port to the Apple ecosystem.

The iPad is really a nice size for the EspGII port, even if it gets a touch less sharp when you double the resolution.

gsl

I have a hard time taking a device seriously as a gaming platform when the input options are either touchscreen or gyroscopic motion-sensing.  It's serviceable for a few genres (RTS and rolling-marble maze games), but trying to shoehorn other gaming genres on it is like every piece of crap shoveled out for the DS or Wii where someone thought adding touchscreen or motion controls at the last moment would make something unique.  I'm sure there's an input method superior to d-pad/joystick and buttons out there, but the iPad/Phone ain't it.  I think the best you're going to get are lucky accidents like ESPGaluda II--games that aren't too bad for what else is available on the platform, but pale in comparison to less complicated interfaces.

brentsg

I agree, but hey I'll be happy to leave my DS at home when I travel if I can play Cave ports on my iPhone/iPad.  In fact the only other game I bought was Galaga and I was just a sucker on that.

I'm as surprised as anyone that they EspGaluda II is great, but it really is.  It's not going to replace a PCB or Xbox port but that's not the intent.

brokenhalo

Quote from: EOJ on June 10, 2010, 03:47:54 PM
It's not a magazine for Iphone developers, it's a magazine for developers in general. Ask about arcade development, challenges or pros/cons developing for the X360, possibilities for the PS3 or other platforms, etc. Seems like a wasted opportunity to me.

originally when spadgy was told he'd gotten an interview with Cave, he was told it was only going to be with the guy who developed the iphone port of espgaluda 2. then after he submitted the questions, he was told that Ikeda was going to answer the questions. In reality a few people wound up answering the questions.

so yes, the interview could of been better if he knew he was going to get more than the iphone guy, but we still got a few interesting nuggets so i cant complain.

EOJ

Ah, that explains things. Thanks for the info.
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spadgy

Hey everyone - thanks for your feedback. I'm glad you got something out of this at least!

Firstly, there's no need to download the issue now - you can just read the interview online here.

Secondly, I feel compelled to defend our editorial position, and the angle of this interview:

Honestly, I was gutted not to ask loads of arcade development questions, but  Cave didn't want to talk about tech, tools, hardware and middleware usage. They wanted to talk iPhone. Additionally, sadly we don't really cover arcade development at our magazine. I've argued the case that we should before, but our readership is almost entirely American and European developers, and they just don't seem interested in arcade development features.

Onto the iPhone bias some of you have alluded to. Fair enough points, but we don't have a bias at all. We are open minded to iPhone, and its impact on the ecosystem and infrastructure of game development is hard to refute, so we give it some attention. Personally I'm still suspicious about it's credentials as a gaming platform, but I've had some fun playing iPhone games in a few cases.

In so far as past interviews are concerned, it just happens that my only other shmup-centric interview was with Taito about Space Invaders: Infinity Gene, which was iPhone-only at the time. So yes, the two main interviews posted by me on the Shmups forum are very iPhone focused, but that's just because iPhone happens to be giving mainstream exposure to shmups at the moment outside of Japan.

I've kept in touch with Cave in a quite chatty email chain (they are lovely guys). Perhaps if I feel the relationship develops enough, I can ask them to do an interview just for the shmups and Cave STG forum, and we can nerd away like loons asking arcade-specific questions. Perhaps - Cave would have the final say on that.

gsl

I don't think you really need to defend anything about the interview at all--in my case at least, my expectations came from misunderstandings and assumptions on my part about the nature of the interview.  I didn't know at first that the mag didn't cover arcade development or that the interview was supposed to be focusing on the iPhone.  I just assumed that since it was with Cave it would be a general interview, not one restricted to the one conversion they made for a rather nonstandard gaming platform.  So the interview was not a bad one at all (and I hope I didn't give that impression in my earlier posts); I was just grousing about it not being something it wasn't intended to be in the first place.

Your Taito interview on Infinity Gene was the one I was thinking of.  My thought process went something like: interview by spadgy -> other interviews for the same mag in the past, posted at shmups -> that was about an iPhone game too -> WTF is with all the iPhone love?  I used to subscribe to Game Developer, which aside from an occasional feature on this or that PDA developer (obviously well before the iPhone's time) focused entirely on PC and console development and mobile platforms were just an occasional curiousity.  That was several years ago, though, and I guess I just didn't realize that mobile phone development had moved on to a legitimate part of the industry, and wasn't just a sort of ghetto of programmers looking to con people out of a few bucks with shoddy conversions of console titles and useless flashy apps.

spadgy

No worries gsl. I didn't mean to imply I felt 'attacked' by my use of the word 'defend'. It's always great to hear about impressions and perceptions of the mag.

And honestly - I'd just loved to have asked Cave some of the more arcade-relevant questions. Maybe next time!