Mobile phone games have been around … well … ever since mobile phones i guess, but Apple’s iPhone might have just given phone games an interesting technology boost. Knitware’s Doc Rogers talks with Steve Demeter, creator of Trism for the iPhone.

Doc: Hi steve, the knitware team were all very impressed with your iPhone game idea, have you received much interest in the project?

Thanks guys! Always a pleasure to get support from across the pond.

Initially the reaction to Trism was lukewarm. I showed it off for the first time at GDC here in San Francisco last month, and although I got a few publishers interested, most of them said to me “well, we like it’s but it’s so new, we don’t know how to justify the ROI yet.”

So I decided to take an alternative method and go grass-roots style. I recorded a video of myself playing it and put it on Youtube. I sent the link to 50 friends and contacts, thinking it’d have maybe 1,000 views or so. What happened though blew away my expectations. Within four days, it was up to 100,000 views!

After this, publishers turned a complete 180. I had an offer last week and another one come in today. People want to take this thing everywhere… WiiWare, XBLA, Web, DS, PSP… I’m honored!

Doc: The iPhone is a great piece of kit (i still want one), i noticed the one you used was hacked, are there any unique problems involved when creating applications for the iphone (be as technical as you like)?

Sure, I mean, when you’re working with unofficial, unsupported stuff it’s always a bit of a kludge. I wrote Trism using GCC, Cygwin, and Notepad. No debugging, very little trace support, no IDE. I really had to go back to my roots as a low level hacker in order to be patient enough with a system like this.

Nowdays you have the official iPhone SDK which makes things loads easier, but is mac-only. So I went out and bought my first mac last week. Got it for a steal! We’ll see how it works out.

Doc: How long does something like that demo take to put together … and a finished version?

Oh, I don’t know… it’s all relative really, depending on time, size, money… this took me 10 days to get a working demo up and running. I started on Feb. 8 and wanted to have a demo ready by the 18th for the GDC, which I managed to pull of by the skin of my teeth.

The finished version obviously takes quite a bit longer to playtest and add all the necessary bells and whistles. I just celebrated the 1-month birthday of Trism a couple weeks back, and plan to have it fully complete within the next month.

I’d say if you are an experienced developer/designer who has done games before, the iPhone shouldn’t pose a significant challenge, and you should be able to get something up and running in a comparable time frame. It really depends on the kind of game you want to do, though. An MMO would definitely take a lot longer.

Doc: It was nice to see you using features of the phone to complement the game, do you have any other ideas or projects up your sleeve involving the iphone?

Yeah of course! I brainstormed for months before solidifying the idea for Trism, and came up with many other ideas along the way. All of these ideas use tilting and/or multitouch in inventive and non-obtrusive ways. I definitely want to get a chance to revisit and flesh them out, if I can get a break from all this work that’s coming in.

Just met with a development company today to talk about some of these ideas. Might do a joint venture them them. I really wish I could give you some dirt, but for now it’s really hush-hush.

Doc: What are the problems in general when creating games and applications for phones?

Well, starting off, I really wanted to do a multitouch game for the iPhone. I came up with an idea or two, but found that even though they were good ideas, having two or more fingers on the screen at the same time hides pretty much the majority of the screen from view.

On a related note, originally I wanted a fully tilt-sensitive game; one which used the tilt sensor to its fullest extent. I tried working with it, and found that it’s a bit difficult to maintain a stable tilt environment when you’re on the subway, or in a car, or walking around.

Consider a game like Super Monkey Ball, which responds to all three tilt axes, requiring utmost stillness and precision at all times. A game like this pretty much forces you to play it sitting down, and hold it level with steady hands. This is fine for the Wii, but in my opinion essentially defeats the concept of mobile gaming.

I settled on game ideas where these input methods are auxialliary, and not the core focus of the game. Trism uses the tilt sensor in moderation, reacting only to 6 “hotspots”. Although tilting adds to the strategy of the game, it’s not going to cause you to lose unless you really make a bad move. I like the notion of new input methods like multitouch and tilt, but I feel they really have to serve the game in order to make the game work well.

Eventually I think this is going to cause iPhone game developers to focus less on ports and more on unique ideas, which is good for the consumer and great for Demiforce!

Doc: We’ve put together a few mobile apps at knitware too, but always run into the same problems of compatibility and cost, any thought on that?

I don’t know what to tell you without looking at your organization. I try to be a guy who can at least try to do it all, from coding, to art, to design, to marketing. I try to hire the same kinds of people. It is good to have a focused skillset, but one of your guys is always saying “sorry, asking me to do xx or yy is just a little outside my comfort area”, then what value is he really adding to your organization?

Doc: So what’s next?

I’m so swamped with just trying to tie up all these loose ends with all the businesses that have contacted Demiforce lately, whether they want to invest in us, or publish us, or consult with us. It’s really daunting. So I suppose what’s next is to hire more people. Then throw lots of fancy startup parties.

Doc: If you could get a message to mobile manufactures advising them on what they could do to help people like you, what would it be?

I think the direction the industry is headed right now is really pretty good as-is. The whole Windows Mobile thing was around for a couple years, it was getting kind of stale, and now Apple has started to shake things up a bit with their brand new OS. Google is doing the same next year, implementing a current-gen software stack from the ground up. These kinds of grass roots movements are really going to give people like Microsoft and Nokia a run for their money, and in the end it really helps the consumer because it pushes up the level of what we can expect out of a commodity cellphone. Features like tilt sensors are starting to become available on Nokia phones. Who knows, maybe in two years, multitouch will become standard. I really like where it’s all going, and you can bet Demiforce will be there, right in front, riding that wave.

Doc: Thanks Steve, it was good to get a little background on a project like this. We appreciate your time, good luck with future projects and come back to us when you have something new.

Doc Rogers

Tags: game, games, interview, iPhone, mobile, mobile phone, Steve Demeter, Trism