This is an interview with Simon Ritchie of Spectrum Wired, part of the winning team that took place in the Vodafone Java ™ Games Challenge in 2003. So lets find out a little more about them:
First off Simon, I do this with everyone, can you tell me about Spectrum Wired, where you are based, how long you have been going etc.
Spectrum Wired is based in Newcastle, Australia, and we've been operating since the end of last year. The company was started by Aaron Hoye (CTO), Andre Pinkowski (Project Manager) and myself (CEO). Basically we got together and made Skidlock Racer, our first title, which won the Vodafone Games Challenge in 2003, and decided to make a business out of doing what we love best, making great games. Since then we've expanded pretty quickly, taking on a writer, artists, a sound engineer, marketing staff and of course more coders, and we've focused on developing exciting games and getting them out there and selling.
Do you think that the mobile phone gaming industry has a long term future? (I do by the way)
It sure does. Mobile phones have so many advantages over stationary gaming platforms that they're not just a chopped down console game, they're an exciting alternative. As the technology continues to develop, we look forward to taking advantage of all of the features of the phone to really differentiate mobile gaming and make it into a mainstream activity.
What is the hardest aspect of the mobile phone game industry?
While it is great that mobile games due to their relative simplicity have a short development cycle, the downside is that we have to work hard to come up with creative ways to fit all of the features we want in our games due to size and memory restrictions. Our team always strives to pack as much variety, functionality and performance into our games and this usually means thinking well outside the square.
Blue Sky question, what is your vision for your ideal game
With graphics and size limited, our ideal project has always been something that's incredibly addictive to play, with graphics and flashy features backstage to great game-play. We'd have to incorporate multi-player capability, and would love to make a game which is fun for a few or a thousand people to play.
What have Spectrum Wired got in the pipeline that you can tell us without having to kill us.
We've got a few very fun games which we're pretty excited about, but Final Knight is our next release, and also our favourite game, so keep reading!
Tell us about your favourite Spectrum Wired game, how it was conceived, produced and the main tasks in the game.
Final Knight is an exciting platformer RPG brought to the mobile phone.
With all you'd expect from classic games of this genre, swords, hordes of
monsters, a courageous young knight on a life-or-death quest and a princess
as stunningly beautiful as mobile phone technology can produce, it's got
all the fun of old-school platform games, which you can play anywhere!
This game was conceived due to a lack of quality titles in this genre coupled
with the fact that the creative team at SW really couldn't be stopped from
making the game. Our production is focussed on making sure that creativity
is not lost during development, that the game will be as addictive and fun
as possible, with maximum performance on every device.
Is the mobile phone game developers industry a big one within Australia and do you meet up with like minded companies?
Mobile phone gaming in Australia is still in its infancy, so we've got
contacts with other developers in our region, and often get to local conferences
and launches. Keeping in touch with the "competition" is definitely
one of the best ways to make sure we're on top of our game.
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Simon, I would like to thank you once again. If you would like to find out more about Spectrum Wiredtheir website is: