Tiger woods text interview
Published: February 25, 2009
What control method are you guys going with?
Josh Milton: We spent a lot of time looking though obviously everything the iPhone can do as far as a control method and found that the best way to go was to keep in a touch format, I know everyone is wondering where and how we were going to implement some kind of accelerometer format but after playing around with other golf games and seeing how it was working we felt the experience was best suited for a touch format and staying away from accelerometer providing the user a lot more control to play the game.
Did you try accelerometer or touch right off?
Josh Milton: We planned for both touch and accelerometer we did play with a few different possibility’s and really started hitting a will with where the iPhone was up to. Trying to make control schemes work and be as effective and precise as we wanted them to be just proved to be a little more of challenged on the device moving back towards the touch side, but we did think and try address both, but we felt touch was the best way to give the users a good gameplay experience.
Autumn Brown: And just to add to that as game designer we need to play test and find the best way to play our games, we try to make sure we aren’t giving users options that we don’t think make the most sense in the game.
Is there going to be things unlock in the game?
JM: Still on the table, we’ve hit that edge of stuffing as much in the bag as possible, it’s still on the table but hasn’t been committed one way or the other. Once we know where we’ve stretched to once we’ve wrapped up the rest of it, we’ll come back to that.
Update plans?
AB: Currently we are early still, so no solid plans, again not off the table, definitely we will explore ways. Want to put out best game possible, at launch have everything to make game its best, but doesn’t mean we wont explore updates if it makes sense down the road.
JM: We’ve had a lot of great idea flow through coming up on how this is going to work. So we’ve got a list of other cool things wed like to try later on, but at this point we just want to see how much we can stuff in here before we commit to next updates.
How many courses? Are there going to be real life course?
JM: All based on real life courses, there are 7, 18 hold courses, they are looking spectacular.
Abbreviated games? Like 9 hole ect.
JM: Absolutely, we’ve provided functionality for front 9, back 9, random holes and quick play or play around with the entirety of the courses.
Putting challenge or other modes?
AB: We’re still trying to lock down final features, pretty confident on final courses but everything else in kind of in flux
Does Tiger have an iPhone?
AB: We hope so, we haven’t seen any pictures or anything.
JM: Doesn’t everyone have an iphone at this point?
Tigers input into the games and specifically the iphone one?
AB: As a whole Ea works with tiger to make sure his franchise in accurately represented, and he is confident that we can transfer his brand to a gaming platform? So, in that sense yes, were taking our cues from the console side to bring the best golfing game on console to iPhone.
Have you guys met Tiger?
AB: We’ve been the same room, very exciting.
JM: Basking the glow. Going back to iPhone question, once he sees our game we hope he will go out and get one.
Challenges in bringing major franchise to new platform?
JM: Spectacular device that everyone is experimenting to find out where it caps out, we did the same thing, in terms of challenges, there have been a lot of challenges, its a beautiful device that can render out some beautiful quality graphics, it does have its limitations as well, as every device tends to. Have caused some hiccups, some say quality is as good or better than a PSP. It can be commonly referred to as identical to a PSP, but we have a lot of fun getting through there, rendering and poly count, and quality of the golfers and courses, definitely a balance to not bring the user experience down. We think we’ve done a really good job of teetering and balancing.
AB: With any new device comes the excitement and challenge of trying to figure out how to create that brand on this new platform, we do that on all platforms including future phones. They are all challenges but that’s what makes the industry grow, and we are happy to tackle them, its learning the device and learning the strengths of the device and making sure we fit the feature of there game in the best way possible.
JM: Going back to control, that’s one of those challenges as well, finding the best way to provide that user experience. in the way you control the game, not feeling like you glued on something or kind of hacked through it, want to come up with something that truly fits the device you are using.
Ground up or port?
JM: It’s a ground up in a lot of ways, we have to draw from all platforms to try to find what the best case is, for example the DS, while it’s a great device graphics are a little bit less than spectacular, compared to the iPhone. So it doesn’t completely translate across in that way, and obviously the PSP and console being a little above in that way. So we’ve got to find a happy medium in between so its a lot of puling from all of our experiences across all platforms to get to something that works correctly.
AB: Its more inspired by than a port.
Glad to hear taken into consideration on controls, wouldn’t like swinging phone like a golf club.
JM: I have a mental image of someone on a bus trying to accelerometer swing the phone wildly around taking out everyone around them, or if not taking someone out, seeing them swinging around like they are trying to beat a fly away or something.
User Chad: based on screens, is there another level of polish going into the game?
JM: Absolutely, another level or 2 of polish, we are still finding that edge and keep polishing and polishing and seeing if we are breaking anything. Compared to what we have seen there is still a lot of polish.
Games get buried easily, how do you overcome?
AB: Great thing about the app store is that users have public forum to voice rather a game is a good game. We pride ourselves on not launching a game until we are 100% happy with it. Its so important to make sure users are happy with experience, and if you release a good quality game the users will keep you at the top and that’s the best way to bring your brand to the iPhone deck.
What do you see from the iPhone in the future?
JM: I think like any new platform everyone is going to try accelerometer support and all the other uses which are very cool and applicable in certain applications, everyone is jumping out and finding ways to use those and realize that while they are neat, they all have specific functions. They can be useful in different points of a game. I think there is going to be a lot of refining, much the way other devices and platforms. Where everyone jumps on quickly and then over time starts to find a better way to refine things and make them work better on the device. So i think right now you are seeing huge numbers of game that are really great and it’s nice to see many fresh ideas but I think at the same time people are going to start widdling away at what the core functions and features they really want to deal with on the device and that’s going to create better games. I think it’s only the tip of iceberg as far as high quality games coming out. Everyone is just seeing what we can do, and the next level is going to be everyone seeing what more we can do.
AB: I think the bigger more robust games just take longer to develop we’re anxious to see what comes out, were iphone gamers and we love our games but we love other games as well. I think iphone games have opened up a new world of casual gamers to us and were excited to see where that goes.
What games you play?
AB: I’m a scrabble freak, so I was very happy when we put our game out on iphone, spent a lot of my free time playing scrabble.
JB: There’s not one particular game, besides a lot of tiger. Off hand I can’t think of any one in particular, I play so many iphone games, but I’m not locked into one. I’m a bit of scrabble person myself so I was excited to see that as well. I’ve played with a lot of games out there, there is really amazing stuff out there. Some of the games I like are less innovative and more traditional. Like labyrinth, being able to use the accelerometer in a way that really makes sense into what you are doing. Things like that. Can’t put one title to the test, I just love playing through all of them.
Have you played puzzlequest?
AB: I actually haven’t played PuzzleQuest. We’ll look into it. We do play games everyday, and we like download whatever’s new and be aware of whatever is in the market.
Nacho gets confused and forgets question….. Oh yea, anything you want to say to gamers about EA and Tiger.
AB: Keep playing, keep looking for the next best thing, we have a lot of titles we are working on and we are really excited about where a lot of these titles are going, keep an eye out, I think people will be impressed, or we hope so. We are constantly refining and play testing games to make sure we are putting out the best game on the platform, which is not easy with the touch and accelerometer there is a lot more play testing we have to do because there is so many different options, its a great thing, a great problem to have. Were having a lot of fun with so we hope everyone out there is having a lot of fun as well.
JB: It’s a new frontier, keep coming back and look for more games.
AB: From us and from others, its a great exciting platform, it’s really energized us over here. We are happy to work on it.
Review disclosure: Any games reviewed on this page may have been provided to us by the developer for the purposes of this review. Note: the resulting review score is never impeded by this fact, all opinions are that of the TouchGen reviewer and not the developer. This is in keeping with our O.A.T.S oath. Read more about O.A.T.S here
