This is an interview with Kevin Holloway of Kuju, based in the UK and employing over 100 staff.
Thanks for taking the time to talk with us Kevin. Can you tell us a bit about KUJU? What is the company background
Kuju Wireless was established in April 2000 as a specialist division of Kuju Entertainment, and has produced close to 60 titles across J2ME, Symbian, WAP and SMS, working with some of the world's leading handset manufacturers, operators and publishers. In early 2003 Kuju Wireless started to publish its own portfolio of titles including Spy Shootout (shortlisted for the Mobile Choice Awards) and its latest release Lotus Challenge: City Racing, a mobile version of its highly acclaimed console game.
Kuju Entertainment is one of Europe's leading independent games developers. Located in three regional UK studios, with over 100 staff, Kuju has a substantial multi-platform development capability. Kuju Entertainment successfully floated on London Stock Exchange's AIM (Alternative Investment Market) in May 2002.
With a unique blend of PC and console experience, allied with more than ten years experience developing top rated titles, Kuju is ideally placed to produce world-class titles on all major formats. Augmenting its development teams, Kuju's superb technology group has built state of the art engines for PC, PlayStation2 and, most recently, Xbox and Gamecube. Recent releases include the number one hit Microsoft Train Simulator and Fire Warrior, based on the Games Workshop Warhammer 40K universe and published by THQ.
Can you tell us a little about your approach and method to producing a mobile phone game.
Our approach to producing a mobile phone game is fairly similar to our console development multistage approach.
Firstly we firmly believe in producing detailed game design documents so that everyone is visualising the same end product. Secondly we distill the game down to the core gameplay elements and produce a working prototype to prove the concept works. Obviously it is possible for a game to work on paper but then not make it past the prototype stage. Only once a game passes these two stages then it is put into full production.
At the end of full production the game goes through a sequence of testing phases which include gameplay testing, handset testing and localisation testing.
Mobile phone games can be basic, so what do you see being possible in future, say two years from now.
Games are already becoming more complex, and over the next two years I think the important developments will be in multiplayer/community play, game realism and 3D.
For example in our latest racing games we are implementing spline rendered 3D tracks, real physics, local area multiplayer via bluetooth and wide area multiplayer via a server.
Do you specialise in any one type of game, platform for example.
Racing and Action games are particular specialisms of ours, but we do produce games in many genres. Each of our teams have certain specialisms, and are responsible for maintaining and evolving our specialist game engines.
Tell me about a game that you could make if the sky was the limit with development and technology
My favourite game series of all time has to be the N64 Zelda games. I'd love to produce a mobile game which captured that same combination of wide open areas to explore, puzzles, quests and exhilarating combat. Combine that with a massively multiplayer structure and I think you'd make most gamers more than happy :)
Do you have plans to move into any related sectors.
Kuju Wireless also produce iTV and Symbian games, and we have an R&D team responsible for finding and evaluating exciting new platform opportunities.
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Once again Kevin, thanks for taking the time out to answer a few questions about what yourself and Kuju get up to and your thoughts on the industry. If you would like to find out more about Kuju you can visit their website: