Hello everyone!
Welcome to our bi-weekly developers log, in which we will give some insight into the weal and woe of our studio and the road to creating our first mobile game, Henry the Cloud. In this first post, Nick and Xander each tell us a little about Dual Cortex Gaming and Henry the Cloud.
Nick: First, some background information. Dual Cortex Gaming is an independent game development studio founded by Nick van der Meulen, Xander Horjus and Brent van der Meulen in the Netherlands. We are currently creating the mobile arcade action game Henry the Cloud. When the three of us discussed the possibility to create our first indie game back in the summer of 2014, we used this simple sentence to guide us in our development process: ‘At Dual Cortex Gaming we believe that mobile games should allow people to play for short moments but still be challenging in the process.’ Traveling, waiting for public transport or just on a short break? Our game was meant to fill these boring gaps in the day. Gaps in which you think, “I wish I had something other to do than expanding my social skills by starting a conversation with somebody, or to endlessly refresh my social media feed over and over again..”
However, what kind of game would fill this gap? Yes, it had to be mobile. Of course it would. You can imagine that we would have loved to develop for Nintendo or Sony, for either of their incredible handheld devices. However, let's be honest, except for the most geeky of us (yours truly included), who carries their mighty handheld gaming devices with them these days? Most of us would rather download an emulator to get some taste of that nostalgic handheld Pokemon glory from back in the days. No, we knew our game had to be mobile. But this didn’t mean we couldn’t derive some inspiration from the big two.
When analyzing the mobile market, ranging from King and Supercell productions to indie hits like Monument Valley and Flappy Bird, we discovered that the games that actually fit our aforementioned mantra were games that were mostly based on what we call the ‘tap to flap’ principle. You guys saw what I did there, didn't you! Games like Flappy Bird use the most basic of mechanics: tapping. Is this the golden ticket to game design for mobile these days? Tapping? But there are so many games out there that use tapping, it has to be.. No! We are not going with the flow.
First, let’s take another step back. It was November 2005, back in the days when Europe got everything half a year later than the rest of the world. A young me just got a hold of Kirby: Canvas Curse, Nintendo's first Kirby game for the DS handheld. Unlike most previous Kirby games, the player could not directly control Kirby with a directional pad, face buttons, or shoulder buttons. Instead, the player had to use the stylus and touch screen to control Kirby. The game mechanics consisted of drawing rainbow lines that gave Kirby a direction! This, ladies and gents, stuck with me until that summer in 2014. This was swiping on steroids. Yes, we had seen games like Fruit Ninja and Temple Run, which were incredible games. However, we wanted to take swiping a step further. Our game had to be able to steer our character through swiping!
Xander: When in the summer of 2014 Nick introduced me to the idea of creating a mobile game together, I was somewhat reluctant. I was starting my own business and, while I found the concept of the game very compelling, I wasn’t sure where to find the time. I was working more than full time and my evenings were mostly occupied trying to remain physically fit by hitting the gym, leaving no time for such ventures.
However, as anyone who is passionate about their venture will tell you, there is no easy way out. I knew we would have to work hard. For us, it meant sacrificing any remaining free time we had, as well as sacrificing the aforementioned gym sessions. We started working workweeks close to 80 hours, neglecting social contacts (sorry guys) and physical activity, so we could put in the required effort to create the game we had in mind. I would say this defines Dual Cortex Gaming: extremely passionate, always going the extra mile - or as we have joked before, the extra marathon - and not being satisfied until we get the tiniest detail right.
In fact, this really shows in Henry the Cloud and its evolution over time. The next devlog will grant some insight in how the game’s concept evolved from something very minimalist and rough to a full-fledged game with a lot of bells and whistles. This is all to blame on our passion and perfectionism, which has been both a good and a bad thing.
Finally - don’t worry, we will not keep you waiting on the next devlog for two full weeks without anything to keep you going. Keep a close eye on our social media pages, where we will steadily treat you with goodies like trailers, images and GIFs in the coming two months until release day. Stay tuned!
Visit our website to stay updated with the latest news, release date and exclusive codes to unlock goodies in-game!
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