Got Games on Your Apple Watch? PG Connects Digital #2

the next topic is called unseen how or excuse me it's got games on your apple watch um sorry and uh so i'm very happy to introduce orchid who will present this topic for us hi i'm orcas from abelite studios i handle all the communications on our team and if you've interacted with us on social media in the recent times it was probably me replying to you or reaching out we are a game development and publishing company based in barcelona spain and we've been around since 2004. it's us who brought hyper light drifter to ios apple tv and nintendo switch a special edition and yes that's the game that the app store editors chose as best ipad game of 2009 of 2019

but there is more to us than that we made another cool thing that is a 3d adventure puzzle game for the apple watch mind keeper the lurking fear so yeah now this meme about god games on your phone needs to be updated to god games on your apple watch so why develop for the apple watch now finally it has its own app store that is totally separate and independent from that for the iphone it's directly accessed through the watch as well you don't need to download the app on your iphone and then only then have it on your watch this this is uh this is a way to use all the features that the apple watch platform possesses as opposed to having the watch app being like an extension of an iphone app and it's your opportunity to shine the space the app space for the apple watch is still not too crowded

especially with games and even more so with 3d games i think we're still the only one or at least one of the very few there is of course there is this higher entry barrier in terms of technology but it's totally worth it in addition to you being able to create something unique you showcase yourself as a developer capable of creating something that has never been seen before this is an apple watch and this is that game on applewatch minekeeper the lurking fear let me take you through the creation process from the idea and release and a bit more so how on earth does one come up with an idea like this our stars aligned in june 2019 a year ago when apple announced uh the app store for the apple watch and we got an apple watch to see what this

thing is capable of what what can it what it can do and since we chose games as both our passion and our profession naturally we asked the question but can games run on this no 3d games and there were no 3d games so we created one and as every new and currently one-of-a-kind project this presented us with a set of unique challenges and opportunities let's start from the bright side but actually both of them are bright but from the brighter one of the opportunities there are still not too many games of on the apple watch as i said before it's uh easier to be seen both by your audience as well as by the apple team and in terms of games none of those games is a 3d one usually it's an extension of something on iphone so it's quite simple and the wow effect here you have a

higher chances of delivering something that has never been seen before that the players have not seen before and not just the players of course the challenges we do like a good challenge and no one on our team had prior experience of game dev of development for apple watch at all of course no game development experience for it as well however we all the members in our team have experience with dealing with different platforms and their challenges since the 80s so we knew we could do this then come the usability limitations that did need attention like if you put a finger on a tiny apple watch screen it's going to obscure everything and you can't see stuff then we could not force the players to put their arm in a playing position for a very long time they would not be happy about it so we need to be extra careful about this kind of things the user expectations here and here comes a bit of a different approach than with other

games they were mainly too low because again games that are extensions of uh iphone games and they're so the main one is an iphone and the extension is on apple watch it's uh it does not provide the experience that we do a full 3d puzzle adventure game hardware limitations the apple watch has not initially been designed for creation of for gaming and for game development for it so we had to be extremely creative here we had to keep an eye on a lot of small details like for instance how haptic feedback and sound perform on a wearable device like this and the good old battery life and then surprise we couldn't use the our favorite unity 3d because it's not it's not tailored for apple watch development so again if you don't find what you need what you do you create it you create it and this is how the providence engine

appeared challenge accepted as as i said we do like a good challenge the providence engine is a visual editor it's super light so it can even run on like a prehistoric macbook air it's for creation of games on an apple watch it's quite easy to use and even entry-level team members can use it kind of feels like a game you can whoops all right you can draft and iterate games right here like in the bottom you can see all the elements you can put in your level which can be of any shape that that you choose you put those elements there and uh it's like from floors and walls and uh uh traps collectible gems if you'd like for the monsters and you can preview them on the virtual apple watch that's in the top left corner so you don't really need to have your physical watch on you while developing with

providence engine and we we used xcode and spritekit to make this thing so what is minekeeper like what is that game i know i've been torturing you with telling about the game but not showing it that's what it's like so mine keeper the lurking fear is an atmospheric action-driven video game that combines puzzle and adventure it's it was developed specifically for the apple watch platform and in my keeper you step into the shoes of an investigator who is exploring a haunted mansion and a place called the swamp of storms the game has 50 levels in four different locations and those places are full of surprises full of weapons to discover gems to collect if you're a collector and also very unfriendly creatures there is a story which unfolds as you progress in the game

the character and mind keeper moves automatically so you only need to use one finger to control him with the digital crown you steer him and he he keeps going and probably among the best news is that minekeeper lurking fear runs on any apple watch with watch os 6. minekeeper is for you if you like the lovecraft world as it's been inspired by story stories of lovecraft if you're a busy gamer and you don't want to give up your passion however you're very time constrained those short play sessions which take roughly 30 seconds maybe 45 and fast access to the game make it a very good idea for those who want to keep playing despite although being so busy if you don't want to sacrifice immersion for the sake of simplicity mind keeper might also make you happy because every of the every bite size level of the game has been designed in a way to provide an immersive experience so you don't feel

like when you're done you're ripped out of the of the mood it's complete but you keep craving more and for those who are not fans of the intricate controls some more good news from my keeper you only need a single finger to control it to control the character on apple watch it's just with a digital crown the release we released the game and we timed the development this way that we we released it together with the apple watch app store in sept on september 19th 200 2019 and it's been featured on the storefront ever since it was initially an independent app on apple watch so it was not an extension of anything else it was developed specifically for the apple watch and even the apple editors who know this device probably better than anyone else they couldn't believe their eyes and it's still on the front page at least in the spanish app store hopefully

in your countries as well it's a health not this perfectly describes the feedback that we got after the release here are some comments that we got under the videos by influencers video no it's fake because the finger doesn't line up with the movement of the character well it's not fake excuse me what the some commas were like this so uh we since it's something that could catch the attention of fans of apple technology who decided to promote the game we decided to to share it with them and they were showing showcasing it on their social media channels however their audience was a bit skeptical about that so we had to explain that no it's not a hoax it's real it's very real and we're showing them the link to it on the app store itself the game was quite well received too and some players even compared it to uh

to outlast because it has the same creepy and mysterious vibe and some like this person were confessing that they did not expect this kind of performance on an apple watch didn't expect to have so much fun on it and and be almost addicted would recommend to anyone with a watch who wants a good game on there thanks for that and even the press like venture beat they were impressed that the gameplay that you would expect to see on a pc or our console or maybe a smartphone it was created specifically to run on the posted stamp size screen size postage synthesized screen of an apple watch so what's next for minekeeper that is expansion across all the devices of the apple ecosystem we want to improve visibility by bringing the game to all possible apple devices and we another thing to improve is

user experience by giving them four platforms to play instead of of just one so you can start playing on your apple watch then move on to a bigger iphone screen or maybe even ipad and then from the comfort of your home you can enjoy it on the apple tv and for all this we have preserved the perks of the original apple watch version which is the simplicity of levels and the accessible and simple controls with just one finger so you still need one finger to control on digital crown apple watch touchscreen iphone and ipad and on the serial remote on apple tv so we want to improve the game continuously to stay on apple's radar and on the storefront and of course improve ours our sales we keep working on the game until the revenue matches the value because the game is more than than a lot of people have expected

and do you think your game will play nice on apple watch if you think so feel free to reach out to us and we are more than open to questions right now thank you very much for that orchid um do we have any does it look like we have any questions at the moment but we do have time left over so um i'm curious um you know if there are people who have any questions about any aspect of organs talk feel free to chime in there you've got the q a section um i'm curious about um just the form factor and uh maybe it's an obvious question but i'm curious because i don't have an apple watch i don't uh just i don't at this point i'm still kind of analog old school so i'm curious um i'm curious what are some of the challenges of it of adapting for the size i mean like do you have user feedback or i mean what exactly do you rely upon um in order to scale that down and make it

work for that kind of form factor so we initially designed it for that kind of form factor which all eliminated this need for adaptation since it was not like first an iphone and then adapted to the smaller apple watch it was right there for the apple watch so what we did is the in terms of controls you only use the digital crown so no fingers on the screen that's the first thing also the character picks up weapons and gems automatically so you don't need to make him or like tap him or make him do anything you just run there and it happens automatically and same with keys and opening doors so we simplified the controls as much as possible okay that's great no sorry go ahead and on iphone it's just the same way it's uh you don't really since the iphone screen well it's bigger but it's not huge and it's still one finger control so your fingers do not obscure the view

and do not ruin the ruin the overall experience okay another another question is that um so given the restrictions of the apple watch the screen size and the input possibilities do you think there are games that would be simply out of the question um for that platform like there's no way you could do that type of game i think that would be something with small details or it would at least need a lot of adaptation like complete redoing uh for for that uh imagine a game with a a lot of small elements that you need to for instance move somehow around the screen uh then you can't really do it with uh with your finger on the apple watch because your finger is simply too big for that exactly so we do have a couple other questions so first one is how do you control the game on apple tv uh it's through with a serial remote and only also you only need one finger to control that and this one so this one does not require a controller okay great and and also are you thinking

of licensing the apple watch engine of yours that is an interesting question it's an internal tool it's an internal only thing for now so we haven't focused on that we're more focused on using it to create apple watch games okay super well is there any other uh well here's uh here's another question um that came in how did sales for the game on the apple watch compared to sales on other mobile platforms uh so i would need to pull up the numbers to uh to tell you the exact uh the exact uh amount of those but uh it's the wow factor plays in our hands here because people are like there is attention and i would say there is quite a lot of even more attention to this game because it's so innovative i wouldn't say it i wouldn't say it's less it's much less than than on

mobile platforms okay this is something i need more information on sure no understandable uh here's another question for you so were there issues you found with playing uh the playing position of the person like over long periods of times like having one arm out and the other hand tapping away um is there an ideal way to play the game you know in terms like the human form factor we had the question from the players too before they try their like your hand is gonna be numb in a few minutes it's really up to the player for how long to to play but uh the play sessions are so short it's like 30 30 seconds if you're good maybe you don't have the time to get your get your arm tired and uh it's you can always take a break you don't if you take a break you're not ripped out of this immersive experience it's been designed this way in a way to

so that people would be okay with taking breaks and also it's easier on their eyeballs right yeah of course um another question is do you have any more games in the pipeline like this one why not sounds good so the answer is maybe yeah everything's possible as we as we figure out for the development everything is possible super so and how about um here's another great question um what about privacy so unlike your phone which you generally you know you point outwards um does this affect the implementation and type of notifications um when you're playing a game on the on the watch [Music] this is this is something i'm not sure about but with the notifications they uh usually if i understand it correctly uh the game takes it takes over the apple watch but i would need to confirm that if that's what the question is about well basically what they're asking is is

more about the privacy issue because your watch when you wear the watch it kind of hangs out so people can see information on your watch as opposed to your phone which you typically are holding facing only you like if you're playing a game um you know so they're basically just uh it's a good question about the nature of the privacy that is really interesting that's something that i've thought about personally but the games so the only thing they can see while the person is playing is the game i wouldn't say it's it's that it's that exposing of anything else but yeah so i'm sorry so during gameplay so that basically nullifies like any notifications that might pop up or anything or uh yeah it's that's from from from my experience i would need to confirm that for sure uh in terms of whether it's all all of them but yeah there is not much they can see or maybe when you're just picking the app so if you're trying sneaky gaming you

need to be careful with showing that you're picking a game right and uh another question that just came up is did you learning lesson from other game consoles with tiny screens such as like the the sega game gear or the nintendo game boy micro that was out of several years back um were there any lessons learned from from those other platforms definitely we did use the experience we had with other platforms and their challenges because our team team members have all kinds of different experience and some have it uh dating back to the 80s so with those devices and up to the modern ones so of course all together we combined everything we know and this was this is what this is one of the reasons why we knew that we can we can do this fantastic great um so do you have any uh we don't have any other q a or wait yes we do i'm sorry so uh yeah i have to keep paying attention here so how much does the game affect

battery life of your watch it's not as some players were like it's gonna drain it in uh in uh like in a minute it's not more draining than other apps however if there is an older battery or if there's there's a lot of running at the same time that can affect it but from in general it's not as draining as it was expected to be um that's good to hear so yeah because i know that a lot of the apple watch owners i know that's that's always the constant concern um you know you just can't risk having your watch failure when you're out and about um how about updates and file size so is there a danger that feature creek can impact the storage space on the phone um i mean how mindful or are you of that in the creation process of a game for a watch uh could you please elaborate that so about the file sizes and updates um so in thinking about how how the size

of your game starts impacting um basically the the storage space on the phone itself or excuse me on the watch yeah uh we uh we made sure when when just uh just developing it we made sure that it's not over using the phone's capability so it's not using the maximum we we left some wiggle room great okay so that's not so you don't really foresee that as becoming concerned like if you expand the game out or add a lot of additional content you don't really see that as being a possibility that is what players were asking like doing additional content but so far we haven't uh we haven't faced that challenge however we are curious if we ever do we're curious how curious about creative ways of handling it right of course so uh any other questions out there um it's pretty intriguing because you know we don't we don't often talk about the the watch platform as much these days um

i think just because of some of the inherent challenges that it can present to people um you know it's compelling because you've got you know you've got a very powerful advice right there on someone's arm but i know a lot of game developers are still kind of reticent to dive into developing for the watch just because um a lot of it i think is because the fear of constraint you have so many constraints on the watch the storage space the screen size the um you know the human input the controls and whatnot um so it makes it an extra challenge but it sounds like you you guys embraced it really well um so um one one one last thing here um another question keeps rolling in so um at this point now that you've been through this experience and developed the game for the watch i mean would you have any feedback to apple on the next design um for the next apple watch so you know has the game design process revealed any major flaws or potential hardware software improvements that you would really like

them to implement well not really flaws because we don't we don't see the challenges as flaws we take it like okay how do we make the most out of this or how do we make this this constraint to work to our advantage for instance we figure out that on apple watch of the built-in vibrations they are tied to the sound so you can't really tie them to your in-game sounds and here is where we figured out that less is more we took the the one that is the easiest to basically override with in-game sounds and we use it to emphasize the the most tense moments of the game to basically scare the living hell out of the player when it's the most appropriate so we're not overusing the haptic feedback we're not using it for less for less emotional intense moments however when we use it we use it less but we use it more targeted this is just an example how to how to see those restrictions very cool

so um just out of curiosity just from your own perspective now that you've you know you've you're obviously working in this space closely and what is your prospects for seeing more games on on devices of that size i don't know if we want to call them micro platforms or whatever whatever term we want to apply to them but what do you what is your prospects do you see this is becoming uh more and more popular i mean are we waiting on other devices to show up or what what's your perspective i would say this could be a a developing option for because more more people are still they're still gamers but they're so busy that especially if they work in game development they're so busy that they don't have the time to play games they usually do it on the flight on the run while waiting for something so this could be a possible direction of applewood games development i'm not sure about other small devices because people still game a lot on their smartphones however on the apple watch the opportunities this specific platform

provides as well as the creative challenges developers would have to face when when developing for it this could be another interesting uh direction in indie development as well as well as the separate app store now you don't have to make an iphone app and then maybe an extension on apple watch you can make the game specifically for the apple watch targeting this platform and using its its uh special features like the small screen or those technical restrictions you can use them you can turn them into advantages yeah that's great um another question that just came in so um uh how long are the typical gameplay sessions that you've noticed with this game so each level is about 30 seconds maybe 45. it's like within a minute and people usually play it it really depends on whether they're seeing it for the first time how busy they are how much on the run they are at the

moment but usually they kept playing for for a few minutes on the apple watch and it's really interesting to watch them do it so following up on that then do you from your perception for games that are on the watch do they need to be kept really short and sweet or you know have you seen other games that on the apple watch that actually have much longer playing sessions i would keep them short and sweet because of the partly because of the physical limitations of the human body you can't really hold your arm like that or you can't like that yeah or you can't be sneaky enough doing this like in a meeting or somewhere else and also it's a bit of an ice train this screen is tiny it is what it is so i would keep the like i would advise to keep those game sessions sweet and and short however they need to be packed with the experience they need to be like a small like a small bite-sized experience that would keep the players satisfied and and make them crave more but it would

not be it would not require too much of a constant time and attention investment great well very cool well thank you so much that was that was fascinating and um for anyone if you have additional questions obviously you have orchids information there