This is an interview with Jim Blackhurst of Hailstorm based in the UK who strive to produce innovative and fun games for the mobile environment. So here goes:
Thanks for taking the time to talk with us Jim, Creative Director of Hailstorm. To start with can you tell us a bit about Hailstorm? A little bit of a background Bio?
Hailstorm was founded in March 2000 by myself and John Abbott (our MD). We cut our teeth developing WAP and iMode server-side games until the industry moved over to Java and BREW about 18 months ago. We haven't looked back since. Our games are distributed in mainly in North America, but also in Europe and Asia, so we have quite a large audience. Hailstorm is defiantly not just a technology led company, we really enjoy making games that people want to play.
Where do you see mobile phone gaming heading in the future? Does it have a future?
Oh yes! Does it have a future? It is the future! I don't think we've really seen any mobile games yet, I mean there are lots of games available for your phone, but they are all cut down versions of games you see on your Playstation. In the next few months (with the next cycle of phone hardware) we will start seeing games that simply couldn't exist on a Playstation or PC, games that use the phone's camera or are based on the physical location of you and your phone.
Can you tell us a little about your approach and method to producing a mobile phone game?
Our approach to developing mobile games is very holistic. We all come from a traditional games industry background so we know the benefits of a rigorously controlled development process with huge design documents and producers running around. With mobile, because the teams are much smaller and the development times much shorter we can put away a lot of the red tape and let more of the creativity flow. You still have to know when to stop, that cool feature may be one feature to far.
Where do you see Hailstorm two years from now?
Interesting question, due to the speed that the mobile games industry is moving it's like asking a console developer where they will be in 20 years time. I don't have an answer except to say whatever it is, we'll still be making great games.
If you were to build your dream mobile phone game what would it do?
It would take advantage of the features that make a mobile phone a unique gaming platform. Firstly it would be a multi-player game, I mean the phone is all about communication right? But the same time, it would be a private playing experience, you can't have a bunch of mates all gathered round the screen like you can on an Xbox. It would use the camera as an input device (there are already some fantastic games using the camera) and if I could, I would use location aware technology, so your physical location (or more importantly your phones location) would some how affect the game. It would have some great sound too, which is something that we can't do too well with the current technology.
Do you get together with other developer companies, is the industry close in its ties.
Very close, It's a great industry to be in, there is a really community spirit going on, we all can see that we are building something new here.
Some traditional game developers put hidden features into their product, "easter eggs" I have heard them called. Have you ever done anything similar and if so, care to share.
Yea, Easter eggs! Great fun. It's a way for developers to blow off a bit of steam when the work gets a bit boring. We've done a few, mainly bizarre powerups that don't appear very often. With mobile we have a very limited amount of memory to play with, so if you are going to put something in, it had better be worth it. That said I did put a UFO drifting across background of a parachuting game, one in every hundred or so levels. Fun, but utterly pointless.
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Thanks once again Jim. If you would like to find out more about Hailstorm their website is: