Who's Who: Nerf Games

The Grand Prix and the prize for the best art at the Indie Game Cup 2015, held as part of White Nights 2015, was awarded to the game Lost Socks Naughty Brothers by Nerf Game. We talked to the team about the history of the studio and the game itself.

App2Top.ru : What is the history of the studio, how did they get together and why?

Anton (investor and founder): Igor (CEO) and I decided to assemble the studio a long time ago, the mobile games market has just begun to develop rapidly. At that time, we were absolutely far away from game dev. The first thing they did was post an announcement about the launch of the project on gamedev.ru . They immediately wrote to us: “you are trolls.” At first we didn’t understand anything, we didn’t even know who trolls were at all. They began to sort it out.

They started explaining to us: you are trolls. We showed people how much money we have to show that we have serious intentions. And then the public believed that we were going to do something serious.

App2Top.ru : Why did you choose gamedev, why did you need it?

Anton: At that time, we were engaged in software and were with a computer “on you”. It was not enough for us and we decided that we should move forward, try something for the soul. Moreover, it was no longer interesting to deal with programs, and here, something new, a creative process. That’s why we chose gamedev.

App2Top.ru Q: How long has this decision been made?

Anton: Six years ago. First we started making a game for consoles.

That is, we had some kind of green dream, and we wanted to immediately do something grandiose, serious, like big companies. The first game we had was motorcycle racing. Of course, we didn’t pull it all.

As a result, we had already assembled a large team by that time, and decided to make a cool 3d platformer. After some time, we realized that we couldn’t pull such a team either, so we had to cut back a little. And then we continued our journey with the studio that we have now.

App2Top.ru : Lost Socks, it turns out, the first project of the studio? Or did you manage to release something else in six years?

Anton: Yes, several projects have already been released. When we were making a platformer, Anton (a project manager from Minsk) suggested starting to develop a mobile direction. We agreed, and gathered a team in Minsk, made a Wimp game: Who Stole My Pants? Wimp is a two-dimensional puzzle platformer in which we tell a story about a green man – Wimp, whose pants were stolen. The main character can change his physical condition, which helps him solve various puzzles and crush enemies. This was our first released project.

App2Top.ru Questioner: You said that all this is for the soul. Does what you are currently doing have a business plan, or does it remain a non-core business?

Anton: It all started for the soul, like some kind of positive indie.

You grow up, dreams change, it comes to an understanding that game development needs to be done seriously, and everything needs to be transferred to commercial rails. Igor is responsible for the business plans in our team.

Igor (CEO): And he always has everything under control (laughs).

App2Top.ru : How did the Lost Socks project itself come about?

Anton: We wanted to make a game on a topical topic, and, as it turned out, the loss of the second sock from a pair after washing is a problem that everyone who had socks faced. Especially washing machines, socks, a bunch of enemies, epic boss fights, very cool fit within the framework of one project… But initially we didn’t even understand how to tie it all together. Well, since we grew up on old-school games that we played on Sega and Dendy, we decided that we needed a main character who would run and wet everyone. So the idea to make a sock appeared.

Evgeny (art director): It sounded like this: “The sock runs, and sometimes garbage cans appear there, and you have to tap on them so that bonuses fall out of them, pick them up and run on.” I said – well, ok-e-e-her.

Denis (level designer): We wanted to make a mega cool platformer in five months. (Laughing). As a result, we did it much longer than planned, and, as a result, the project was frozen. Morale weakened a little, and it was decided to do something quickly to rehabilitate.

Albert (art lead): As it happens with everyone, we almost didn’t fit in on time.(laughs)

App2Top.ru : “A little bit” is for how long?

Anton: A lot. As a result, the “Sock” survived three iterations. Because of this, the deadlines had to be shifted all the time.

App2Top.ru : What was changed, why?

Evgeny: We changed it, because over time our ambitions grew! And the composition has changed several times. People were changing, we had to rebuild, it took a lot of time.

Denis: Plus, we’ve been looking for solutions to our problems for a long time.

Anton: We decided to combine two genres runner and platformer. It had to be something simple and cool, like on consoles. And the most important thing is that our game gives an incredible feeling to the player. We have been looking for the characters of our characters for a very long time, and animation for them took a lot of time too. At first, we placed enemies on the level in chaotic places, but quickly realized that this would not do, the player would not be interested.

We have been thinking for a very long time about how the enemies will move. As a result, the guys made sure that all game situations were matched to a good game skill. And we have been going to this for a long time too.

Well, plus, they didn’t want to release [a passing something]. We wanted to make a unique and serious project, not a “zilch”. And, I understood that if nothing worked out, I would be so upset that I would turn everything off and say “get out of here!” (laughs). But we did it! And now we are already at the finish line, the project is being tested and finalized, and very soon we will have a release.

App2Top.ru Q: What were the graphical iterations?

Evgeny: We were originally coming from our frozen platformer.

App2Top.ru : In what graphic design was the frozen project? How similar is it to Lost Socks?

Evgeny: It doesn’t look like it at all. There was 3D graphics.

App2Top.ru : Without cel-shading [Eng. cel-shading – photonerealistic rendering, which is used to simulate a drawn image, – approx. editorial offices]?

Evgeny: It was cartoon, but without any village-shading chips.

Denis: It’s like if you add some kind of cartoonishness to Unreal 3 with your hands without village shading.

App2Top.ru : How is Trine?

Denis: Not quite so, the final styling was conceived, rather, in the direction of Rocharda. But since we were impressed by control, metal slug and other old-school platformers, then, accordingly, the setting was chosen by the military. I wanted to make the graphics stylized, with pure colors and exaggerated proportions, but the feeling of the game had to remain brutal.

But it wasn’t even an alpha version, so it was too early to talk about some kind of final schedule.

Then Anton decided to downsize the studio, and we started making mobile games. It was quite a long time ago, and the market was completely different then. The games in this market were also quite different. It was 2009 or 2010.

Speaking of Lost Socks, when they first started making, at first the style was more similar to Rayman.

App2Top.ru : What I was playing reminded me more of “Jim the Worm”.

Evgeny: When we made the game, there were very few landmarks, something to look back at. I couldn’t find an example to learn from. And the only thing that fit was “Worm Jim” and Metal Slug. And Rayman Origins, which was just released then. In the development process, I relied on these games.

App2Top.ru Q: Did I understand correctly that development began in 2010, and many things, such as the same monetization, have remained since then?

Anton: Monetization also “jumped”. We thought to make a fritupley first.

App2Top.ru : Why did they refuse?

Anton: They refused because they wanted to make a game, not a service. Although we still tried to put a fritupley there. They tried and tried and realized that he wouldn’t fit in there. We realized that he would only spoil people’s whole impression of the game we are making.

Approximately our game is paid. People are willing to pay for such good and high-quality games. But everything can change at the very last moment (laughs).

App2Top.ru : I really liked the toy. While playing, there was a constant desire to see her on Xbox Live or on PSP Vita. According to the gameplay, on the one hand, it seems to be a runner. But you feel that the “console” is present. Was there no thought to take the game and portanut?

Alexey: Yes, we will take over the whole world! We will be on computers and on consoles, phones and tablets. In general, everywhere! (Laughing)

Alexander: On a big TV with a gamepad, the “Sock” is also perfectly played (laughs).

Evgeny: It means that it is interesting both there and there. But it’s a little easier on the computer, because the physical responsiveness of the buttons is different, even if you play without a joystick. And we have been collecting builds for a long time.

Anton: I have been playing the game on my mobile device from the very beginning. I didn’t play it on the computer at all. I was put in front of a computer a week ago, and I couldn’t get into the buttons. Ran, died everywhere. I thought: you play it yourself on your computer! I played on the device initially, and I’m still playing. I think what people are initially used to, that’s what they are comfortable with. Here are modern children – they do not know what computers, consoles are. They play shooters quite calmly on the touch screens of mobile devices, it is not relevant for them whether there are buttons or not.

We are the “old guard”, we need buttons and physical responsiveness. And for them, tablets and touch controls are ideal. And they play completely differently.

Alexander: The main idea is that we have a universal game. She plays well both there and there. I think all the players will be happy.

App2Top.ru : And what kind of engine? Did you make your own?

Anton: Yes. Initially, we already used our own engine on Vimp, it was made by a team from Minsk. And since we already had the engine on it and launched a new project. Of course, for the “Wimp” there were some basic functions of the engine, and for the “Sock” it was necessary to finish the engine and expand its functionality and tools.

Why did we start writing our own engine? When we made the game on Unreal, we didn’t have the source code, it was very difficult for us to manipulate it, to do something. As a result, of course, we got the source code, but we decided that it would be better to make our own game, where we don’t need so many bells and whistles. Unity wasn’t as popular then as it is now. Of course, if we were doing it now, we wouldn’t have gone into the wilds that we went into then.

Denis: There was a clear opinion that we have everything of our own, why pay? The idea was to do everything quickly in a year and a half, and everything will be OK. Wimp was already ready, it’s also a platformer. The basis was. We just took it, and what was needed was changed.

Anton: Well, it was popular in those years to have their own engines. Now I do not advise anyone to climb into the wilds that we have climbed into.

Denis: The complexity was such – the tools that we needed, we added in parallel by programmers. It was difficult. It is necessary to write what is not there yet, to try logic. Accordingly, everything is based on prototypes. When something appears, something is cut off… We didn’t have so many people to write game logic, and someone to provide tools for the editor and so on. It was difficult.

Anton: Another big problem was that we understood that we were going to make a 2D game. No engine at that time was adapted for 2D games. We understood that even if we took Unreal, we would also have to code a lot and change it for ourselves.

Denis: Rayman Origins came out at the same time, and they used their own engine. We had already started looking at how and what they were doing. We saw that they also have a system of “bones” and so on. Your background. They were trying to spy on something.

App2Top.ru : Looking ahead, will you do the project after Lost Socks on your “engine” or will you already watch something?

Anton: No, we won’t. Why did we choose our own engine then? If I had been asked a year and a half ago whether I was ready to switch to Unity or not, I would have said that I would not switch. I will write on my own. Because Unity has a very big performance problem. Plus, a heavy engine.

Here we are putting the game together now, all the animation is drawn there. It eats a lot of memory. And a year and a half ago, Unity and I would not have been able to optimize anything. We would not be able to get inside, into the “core”. Here our programmers were sitting, watching how the “alphas” overlap, where all this can be caught. Now that the devices are ready for big engines, you can safely sit down… But in those days, roughly speaking, we were developing for the iPhone 4S. Although she won’t go there anyway…

Denis: She was on the second iPad! No, now it can be run on all these things, but the textures will be “squeezed”, you won’t want to play.

App2Top.ru : Everything looks very cool on the iPhone 5S.

Anton: I play on the iPhone 6 Plus, for me it’s like a PSP Vita. It’s already, really, like a console. Almost such a small iPad turns out. We came to the release of Lost Socks exactly when the devices were ready for our game (laugh).

Evgeny: Even if we had finished it at that time, we would have had to play it with an adapter!

It’s all humor, of course. It would be possible to play somehow. But then, firstly, there were no screens with retina. Later it all appeared. And on those devices that were, everything would look passable.

App2Top.ru : Did you redraw the game for iPad?

Evgeny: No, we have a universal one. Just optimization, shaking structures, that’s all…

App2Top.ru Questioner: Such a business question. I was surprised that at the WN Conference you had a bright positioning of yourself as a separate studio (your own large stand). Why I was surprised – usually either publishers position themselves so brightly, or companies that are looking for developers. What is the reason for this positioning?

Anton: We didn’t know that the indies would be sitting in a separate room! If they knew, maybe they wouldn’t have taken a separate place for themselves.

Denis: It’s just that we all came from the “big games”. A gorgeous game is a gorgeous presentation.

Anton: It’s just that if there is some kind of presentation, then you need a TV to show the game. If we are indie, it doesn’t mean that we will send a student and he will show something on a small computer in the corner. We’re just an independent studio. In a good sense of the word. We are indie – because we want to make our own game, not what someone tells us. We make all decisions collectively, everyone has their own responsibility. No one imposes a point of view on us. That’s why we are indie, because we are not dependent on anyone. We often hear this opinion, they say, are you crazy to make a paid game? We answer – well, yes =) a little crazy … (laughs).

Denis: Actually, it’s okay. There are a bunch of good quality paid games that are on sale. We have no problems with this. We understand that everything will be fine. I wanted to say after that, these guys lit up with stands. It’s a big story for us, it’s a good, unique concept. This is generally, in principle, a cool idea. I wanted to show it to people, to declare it vividly, because it’s really bright, beautiful, cool.

App2Top.ru : Are you going somewhere else?

Alexey: Well, yes, we have a ticket to Tel Aviv.

Evgeny: We will go to Moscow.

Anton: By that time we will have worked out all the feedback that appeared after the conference. And we will demonstrate the already transformed and updated game.

Evgeny: Our game will change in terms of gameplay. And I would not say that it is because of the conference that it will change. It’s just that our first working build appeared just in time for the conference. We have finally assembled the entire game on the device and were able to play it as a game. We didn’t have anything on our computer – you just downloaded the level and ran. And when you got the game on the iPad, there’s a store, balance… The picture has become more explicit. Well, naturally, people suggested some points to us. One person wrote that it is not visible how [the weapon] is recharged. These things also took everything. That is, the exhibition did not help us directly, we just had a build on our hands for the first time.

Personally, in my memory, this is a key moment. There were two of these: one was about two years ago, when the build appeared on my hands, and I realized that this was not at all the way I imagined. And I had to redo the graphics, simplify it somewhere so that the enemies could be seen. And after it appeared, we are already starting to implement some changes. It became clear what and where to go. And now.

Anton: The conference also gave in terms of the fact that we had some disagreements with each other… we already had it so that everyone has their own opinion, their own ego. “I’m right!” and that’s it. And the conference gave us an outside view. Almost everything we were told was in our thoughts, but we needed an arbitration court that would say, yes, that’s where you missed, you had to do this and that. That’s what the conference gave us. That is, she acted as such in this story.

App2Top.ru : Will you be conducting beta testing yet?

Evgeny: We are still working out some things that we already had before. They already need to be changed and adjusted. Plus, the exhibition – we looked live, where people play, where they stumble, in which moments it’s good, in which it’s bad. We will work out all these points. Then the testing itself, which will polish everything. And that’s it, in general.

App2Top.ru : And will you publish yourself, or are you looking for someone to publish?

Anton: If Disney or Ubisoft had offered us to publish, we would have agreed. A powerful game must have a powerful publisher. So, like, yourself. But if there is a mega-cool offer… We just had one unpleasant experience with one game. It was released with a publisher. We realized that the publisher… was working a blunder. We could have done the same thing ourselves. That is, to buy the same traffic, to pour, but at least to keep the rights to the game for yourself. Maybe some decisions would have been made faster. And with the publisher, especially if the publisher is not very interested… I wrote to him, the answer is in a week. Everything was happening slowly. We didn’t have a particularly good experience with the publisher. That is, if it’s just an unknown publisher, then we don’t want to deal with it anymore. We are not against publishing our game by a strong publisher. We understand that we will only benefit from this. That is, if there is a strong publisher that releases premium games… I would like to be published by ZeptoLab, for example. This company has such a base of people who buy the game for a fee.

App2Top.ru Questioner: Are you looking for something yourself?

Anton: Of course. Now we already have some developments. So far, this is a corporate secret. But we are always open to suggestions (laughs).

App2Top.ru : Are there any promotion plans? Or do you just want to be ready for now, and then we’ll see?

Anton: Not all at once. In fact, people are already doing this, here is Igor, a marketer, Yulia, with him, a plan has been drawn up in case of an independent release and further promotion.

Evgeny: So far on their own, yes. There are some ideas that we would like to implement.

Anton: There is just such an experience. When Wimp was released, they chose a not very good moment. At the same time, Bad Piggies was released. But the Pocketgamer resource.uk gave us “platinum” for the game. And I gave them two “gold”. But we had a miss on the name. The British perceived it as very vulgar. And although the game “shot”, we looked at where it was held and realized that there was a big minus with the name.

The promotion of a paid game can only be a media one. If the media community liked the game, then it will connect to this issue. Wimp has taken many awards from us precisely as a gameplay game. It had a lot of interesting gameplay mechanics. The character had different states, he exploded, teleported, something else. We realized that if people liked the game, they would write about it anyway. To pay money to write about a paid game … If people take money for it, some bloggers, for example… It is clear that they do not need it. Bloggers are interested in writing about a game worth playing. They see that she is worthwhile. And if you pay money for it, it means that your game is not worth attention in their eyes.

App2Top.ru Questioner: This is a question that not everyone likes to open. What is the project budget? How much does it take for it to pay off? Or is it a secret?

Anton: I will answer. If Apple does, then according to our calculations, a week will be enough for us to repel a project with a price tag of $ 5. That is, not to earn, but to recapture.

Evgeny: You can take a calculator, calculate how much the game can earn per week…

Anton: Considering how much the ruble is worth now… We all live in rubles anyway. That is, it turns out that they spent half as much if they received revenue in dollars.

App2Top.ru : The crisis played into the hands in this regard! The last question is directly about the plans. Are you trying to figure out what will happen next, or are you tired, and the main thing is to release the project already?

Evgeny: It seems to me that you will need to rest. I would definitely take a vacation for a month. I speak for myself.

Alexander: If everything goes well, then the potential of the “Sock”, its mechanics will be developed in other projects.

Evgeny: Yes, indeed, if everything is cool with her, then there are already plans for a continuation. With mechanics, you can come up with something, offer something new in this way. Or develop something new, like a spin-off, for example.

App2Top.ru : Or unfreeze the project. Or is it frozen for good?

Evgeny: No, but it will need to be updated a lot, I know that for sure. Time has passed, and there are already enough similar projects.

Anton: If you make some kind of frituplay game, it’s very difficult right now. I would not advise independent developers to do this at all. Either make a game in the Ketchapp business model, or a premium game. Because fritupley with a team of 10 people is almost impossible to do. How will you compete with the same card battlers? I can’t even imagine.

App2Top.ru : Sad somehow finished. I hope everything will be fine!

Denis: Everything will be fine. We have ideas what things to show next. The main thing is to have a resonance, so that people like what we do. We are sure that this can not be disliked. The quality is good, we want to continue doing so. We will try to take into account previous experience, so that everything does not take so long. But the desire to make good cool games in the future remains. Is this ending more fun?

Nerf Games team (standing from left to right: Alexey, Albert, Anton, Alexander, Igor; sitting from left to right: Denis and Eugene)

Interviewed by: Alexander Semenov

Transcript: Irina Smirnova