PikPok
My time at PikPok is a treasured memory. I joined at the beginning of March 2010, just as the smart phone boom was beginning. Angry Birds had recently been released, iOS was the leading platform, Android was the up and coming star, and in-app purchases and video advertising were specs on the horizon.
PikPok was an imprint of Sidhe Interactive, at the time it was considered their mobile brand. It was nine people in a small office on a different floor of the building separated from the console developers. PikPok released three sibling games late in 2009; Flick Kick Rugby, Flick Kick Aussie Rules, and Flick Kick Field Goal to moderate success. The coming 2010 FIFA World Cup would present a great opportunity to overhaul the formula and create a football/soccer based Flick Kick experience.
My first title in at PikPok was Flick Kick Football. On release it would go on perform significantly well and enable the company to invest more resources into mobile games, publishing, licensing, and player services. Through hard work and a seasonal release schedule PikPok eventually became the leading brand of the company where the majority of resources were placed.
With the increased capacity I began working on the titles assigned to me, as well as helping around the studio on other projects when they needed a little... "oomph". At some points I would be working on three games at once, starting my day on one game, transitioning to another game after lunch, and then in the evening working on which ever team had to put in a little bit of crunch to ship.
I don't encourage crunch culture, but the ability to work on so many games at the same time exposed me to a myriad of ways games are made. At the time PikPok was using a proprietary game engine and it was usually locked off to designers with only programmers able to build and implement ideas. This barrier to entry enabled me to invent designer friendly tools, datasets, and other novel ways of configuring data to get the best out of each game.
My two favorite titles during my time at PikPok were Robot Unicorn Attack 2, and Flick Kick Football Legends. I was lead game designer on both of these titles and we developed the titles back to back with the same core team. These games enabled me to contribute a large amount of world building, core mechanics, UI, IAP, and generally overseeing the quality of the games with play testing.
Eventually PikPok would start using Unity to create games, which empowered me too iterate with increasingly better prototypes. This lead me to my mantra, "show, don't tell". Often game design is descriptive, it describes the way a game should be played. I found it's better to spend four hours writing code, then to spend four hours writing a document; as at the end you have an automatic pathway to getting real feedback. And the simple act of observing play is the most fundamental tool in a designer's toolbox.
I left PikPok voluntary in 2015 to take a chance on making spatial computing a reality. During my exit I was a game design generalist on multiple projects including a VR mode for Into the Dead. My time developing in VR gave me enough perspective to think that it was the future of interaction. My last task at PikPok was to urgently help develop the core the gameplay mechanisms of Monsters Ate My Metropolis, which is a unique asynchronous card battler.
PikPok has continued to see great success over the years and is a stalwart in the industry both in New Zealand and internationally.
PikPok was an imprint of Sidhe Interactive, at the time it was considered their mobile brand. It was nine people in a small office on a different floor of the building separated from the console developers. PikPok released three sibling games late in 2009; Flick Kick Rugby, Flick Kick Aussie Rules, and Flick Kick Field Goal to moderate success. The coming 2010 FIFA World Cup would present a great opportunity to overhaul the formula and create a football/soccer based Flick Kick experience.
With the increased capacity I began working on the titles assigned to me, as well as helping around the studio on other projects when they needed a little... "oomph". At some points I would be working on three games at once, starting my day on one game, transitioning to another game after lunch, and then in the evening working on which ever team had to put in a little bit of crunch to ship.
I don't encourage crunch culture, but the ability to work on so many games at the same time exposed me to a myriad of ways games are made. At the time PikPok was using a proprietary game engine and it was usually locked off to designers with only programmers able to build and implement ideas. This barrier to entry enabled me to invent designer friendly tools, datasets, and other novel ways of configuring data to get the best out of each game.
My two favorite titles during my time at PikPok were Robot Unicorn Attack 2, and Flick Kick Football Legends. I was lead game designer on both of these titles and we developed the titles back to back with the same core team. These games enabled me to contribute a large amount of world building, core mechanics, UI, IAP, and generally overseeing the quality of the games with play testing.
Eventually PikPok would start using Unity to create games, which empowered me too iterate with increasingly better prototypes. This lead me to my mantra, "show, don't tell". Often game design is descriptive, it describes the way a game should be played. I found it's better to spend four hours writing code, then to spend four hours writing a document; as at the end you have an automatic pathway to getting real feedback. And the simple act of observing play is the most fundamental tool in a designer's toolbox.
I left PikPok voluntary in 2015 to take a chance on making spatial computing a reality. During my exit I was a game design generalist on multiple projects including a VR mode for Into the Dead. My time developing in VR gave me enough perspective to think that it was the future of interaction. My last task at PikPok was to urgently help develop the core the gameplay mechanisms of Monsters Ate My Metropolis, which is a unique asynchronous card battler.
PikPok has continued to see great success over the years and is a stalwart in the industry both in New Zealand and internationally.