Posted by Ross
Thu, 5th Apr 2012
Hi everyone. Welcome back to the Laughing Jackal Q&A. We’ve got a couple of new questions this week, both from Ajescent, who wants to know more about our future and our relationship with Sony. Before I get onto that, I’m relieved to be able to tell you that Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone’s Fighting Fantasy: Talisman of Death can now be downloaded from the Vita store :) We’re still waiting for Duael Invaders and Hungry Giraffe, but everything else should be available on there now.
Now, onto the questions:
In an ideal world, where do you guys see the LJ name in 10 years time? Is it still making Minis and PSNs, or full blown AAAs?
Well, 10 years is a very long time in gaming and an awful lot can change in that period. I mean, if you look back where gaming was 10 years ago the Xbox had only just launched, online hadn’t really taken off on consoles yet and the only game I’d played on my phone was Snake, and all that’s ignoring trends in AAA gaming.
In 10 years time I’d hope we would be stretching ourselves with more ambitious games, although I’d hope we’d still be flexible enough that the scale of each game would be no smaller or larger than the concept demanded. While I wouldn’t ever want to rule out boxed games (and there is something very cool about walking into a shop and seeing a game you’ve been involved in on the shelves), digital is going to be the way to go long term.
While it’s not a very complete answer I’d basically hope we’d still be working on great games and whichever format it’s on is of secondary concern.
What exactly is the relationship between LJ and Sony? Is it 1st party, or will we see LJ games on other platforms?
While we’re not a first party publisher we have a very good working relationship with Sony and we enjoy creating games for their platforms. We’ve also received a lot of support from Sony with banners on the PSN store and have regularly been included in the PSN + programme, which gets our games in front of a huge number of people. Having said all that, we are platform agnostic and we’re planning on releasing some of our Minis on iPhone in the near future. :)
Anyway, that’s all for now. I’ll be back next week, so while you wait why not go and download the Fighting Fantasy games onto your Vita and then join us on our Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google+ pages?
Happy Easter everyone. :)
Posted by Ross
Thu, 29th Mar 2012
Hi everyone, welcome to part two of our Q&A series. This time around we’re going to be answering questions about our future plans as well as talking about DLC:
Today’s first question comes from fifteencharword, who asks:
“What's next for the Fighting Fantasy Minis series, and when? Why do I suck so much at Cubixx (and Qix)?”
We are at full capacity on a number of internal projects at the moment, but once we start seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, we’ll be lining up the next projects. Although it’s too early to say what they’ll be at this stage, another FF (ForestOf Doom, if we’re lucky) is still on the cards. As for why you suck so much at Cubixx, well, we’ve only got so much space here. :)
Next up, PS3Gamer87 wants to know:
“Are you guys planning to make more affordable games for the PS3? I love Cubixx HD; bring more games with trophies :)”
We had a great time thinking up the Trophies for Cubixx HD and we’re currently working on another game featuring Trophies, the fabled ‘Mystery Game X’. We can’t say for certain what platform it will be on yet, but it will definitely have Trophies.
Finally, Ajescent asked us:
“What is LJ's opinion on DLC and the mentality of releasing "unfinished games" for the full price?”
This is a tough one and our answer really depends on how the DLC is handled. From a developer’s perspective, DLC can be very exciting, as it allows you to revisit a game without having to create a sequel or expansion pack.
Priced at a reasonable level, DLC can give an older game a new lease of life or implement those great ideas you’ve had since you released your game. As a gamer I’m perfectly happy to buy and download new content that genuinely enhances a game, so long as it’s at a reasonable price point. In some cases, well-executed DLC has inspired me to return to games after I’ve finished with them.
With all that said, however, no one likes to feel cheated, or that a game they’ve paid full price for has had parts of it senselessly lopped off to be sold at a later date as DLC.
The situation is slightly different with what I tend to think of as “pick n’ mix” games. These are free-to-play games in which the game itself serves as either a form of demo or a basic template and players choose which parts they want to pay for. When this is done well (and fairly) I think it works well for players, as not only do they get to try the game for free as with a traditional demo, but they only have to pay for the parts of the game they want to play, and can ignore bits that don’t appeal to them so much. While it’s not something we’ve done before, I’d imagine that this approach provides the opportunity for the developer to gather great feedback, as you really get to see which parts of your games appeal to people, based on what’s being purchased.
That’s all for now. I think I’ve covered everyone’s questions, but if anyone’s got any more questions for us we’d be happy to bring this series back at a later date. As always, you can ask us in the comments below or on Facebook, Twitter, or Google+. You can also view all our trailers and other videos over on our Youtube account.
Posted by Ross
Thu, 22nd Mar 2012
Hi everyone. We’re going to take a week off from the Q&A this week but it’s still ongoing so feel free to ask us your questions in the comments below. We’ve received some fantastic news from Pocketgamer recently as our chain reaction shooter, OMG-Z, has been nominated by their readers for the Pocketgamer Readers’ Choice Awards 2012.
To have one of our games receive so many nominations from gamers is amazing and I’d like to thank everyone who nominated OMG-Z. Seeing it listed alongside games the quality of Legend of Heroes: Trails in the Sky, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D and Super Mario 3D Land makes it even more fantastic. So why not vote for our Zombies? They’re cute little things (if you like decaying, brain eating undead) and they’d really appreciate it. You can check out the full list and vote over here. You’ve only got until Monday 26th if you’d like to vote.
Now, at the beginning of the month I threw down the gauntlet and challenged you all to beat my score on Cubixx HD. Well, time is nearly up and to be honest it’s gone rather well for me at the time of writing I currently sit at 45th in the Arcade mode single player high scores table with a score of 14382348 which means I’ve moved up 22 places since the competition started :). It’s not over yet though and anyone who has a higher score then me on Monday the 26th should email us at competitions@laughingjackal.co.uk to win a selection of games from our awesome back catalogue. Full details on how to enter can be found here.
That’s all for now. I’ll be back next week with more from Laughing Jackal, but until then feel free to leave any questions you want me to cover in part two in the comments underneath or on the Twitter account. You can also join us on our Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Google+ pages..
