One Player Ran 10,000 Games on This Skillz App

[music]
We've never got close to 300 game. We've got like we've got like a 280, but 280 is is miles away from 300, right? And then we saw quite a few people got 300 game.
Oh, quite. Yeah, they filled the they filled the leaderboard.
[music] [music]
Here we are, Pocket Gamer dot biz podcast, this time live at GDC Connecting with some of the cool indie studios and some of the great stories. That's what I like about you, Grant and Carl. You know, two brothers starting a studio back in 2004.
Yep.
How do you divide up the roles? So, someone has design, someone has technology, someone has day-to-day decisions. What does that look like between you?
I do programming. I do fixing all models and stuff.
Okay.
We both do game design cuz we both pretty much agree 90% of the time on what we want to do. I

probably do a little bit more of the business cuz Grant's got such a lot to do with the programming. So, I'll probably take a bit of the business stuff.
I think one of our best friends is cuz we're brothers, we're very connected.
Oh, yeah.
We just we just talk straight, you know, we've known each other our lives. We just we don't have to sort of be careful how we talk to each other. We're very straight. If we don't agree, we just say that very straight away. We don't worry about upsetting each other. I think that's that's quite strengthening, I think.
I don't really think we don't really get upset to be fair.
No, no, I mean we just we just [laughter] do We're not rowing at all.
No, no. The one thing I think we try and do more than anything is like is it good for the game? So, like we just did a game called Speedball Skills.
Yeah.
And we spent
Say that.
Yeah, we did all the little little things, but very cool. Yeah.
No, I was going to ask you about that in a moment, but go ahead.
We would just just the amount of stuff that we did did the graphics, did the ideas for stuff, put it all in, took weeks, and then we looked at it and went it doesn't work, so we took it all out again. And we do that all the time.
Mhm.
I mean, we said we had a we had a prototype running within sort of 2 weeks of starting it.

But we didn't release it till 10 months later till it was finished.
Yeah.
So, we that's where we're going to
to iterate. It helps to iterate.
Yes. It's but it's basically just We have a saying which is um the way you find out what works is by finding out everything that doesn't work.
I'll go with that.
through everything that and try everything. So, right, this doesn't work because of this, that doesn't If you do it enough, you eventually get to the point at the end where you go, right, this is working now because we've got rid of all the stuff that didn't work.
So, what's the process that brings the two of you together? You know, we've got bowling, we've got darts, we have speed pool.
Uh my husband is now totally into darts. And I hear that you're from England, so darts is the culture. It's in your DNA. What what is it that pulls you back to it as developers?
I think um we do the sports games cuz the rules are already written. And I think that they're just great games to play, you know, they're very quick to play.
Exactly. And um we want to expand to other games in future, but I think they It's a bit like a cover band doing cover you know, songs first. It's kind of like

you know the rules already. And I think also they're brilliant games. They've standed the they stood the test of time. So, I think there's a lot to be said for that.
I think the other thing is sorry, just to jump in is we get an idea of how we could do the interface. That's where it starts. Control system sort of got we got oh we see something we go, actually, we could do we could make a bowling ball do you you throw a bowling ball by using a touch screen. Or we could do a dart with a mouse but do it dragging backwards and forwards and stuff. And so, we start with that and then obviously having an existing game that you can play, it makes it easy for us to sort of develop it.
And also with mobile phones cuz you've only got a touch screen, you can't be too complicated. And those games lend themselves perfectly to that sort of simple
Yeah.
Yeah, input that side of it, you know, that's that's another big part of it.
We play all the games that we make. So, when we were doing the bowling, we would go bowling once a week and we'd and just like 2-3 hours bowling. Trying to get like the finer points, seeing the stuff that the pros did up there. Trying to sort of see which which shots are exciting.
And work it into the interface.
Yeah, well makes it fun. Yeah, exactly.

Yeah, really. And then um we did we would we pulled it we used to pull once a week. We're going to play and just sort of sit work out how we playing the game, what we doing and then try and sort of reproduce it when we put it on the mobile platform.
But when it's competitive, I also have to have the feeling that I can master it over time. How do you make that part of it work? Because otherwise it would just be well, yeah, but I can't I can't get better at it. But you've built it so I can get better at it.
Control system I'd say. Um physics and control system. So control system has got to feel fair but you've got to have that you've got to have direct control of what you're doing. So in all those three games you really felt you were controlling things directly. Like in the bowling you felt like you were throwing the ball.
Yeah.
With the pool you know you feel like you're using that cue, you're lining it up and then when you do the cue action you're properly doing it backwards and forwards. There's no power bar. You just feel it and then it feels right. That's the whole point.
Uh-huh.
It's just recognizing the elements of the game that makes it fun. Like in pool it's all about cue ball control. So it's not just about hitting it. You've got to you've got to do that shot and then you think where's the cue ball going to go

next? And that's why we have like spin control on it. So you can position it properly. And that takes time to master and when it takes time to master that's rewarding cuz you get better and better each game.
Because it's that satisfaction.
The kind of the kind of analog controls as opposed to digital control. So the old digital control would be like especially a golf game for example you would you push a button to start you push a button to set the power and then you push a button again for the angle. You know and that's that works fine. That's digital but we're doing analog so basically it's a motion. The amazing thing is when we first released the bowling game uh we first released it on Apple on um iOS and we had a leaderboard on it right which was uh online part game center at the time. And we released it and about 2 weeks later somebody got a 300 game right? Which is perfect game. And we were like wow cuz we'd never got close to 300 [laughter] game. We got like a got like a 280, but 280 is is miles away from 300, right? And then we saw quite a few people got 300 game.

But you can see that people have got so good at it they can actually do it. Yeah. They wanted to get good at it. How does that change the dynamics as well? Because if you think about it, they're competing against each other as well as in the game. So, that changes the experience. It does, yeah. It does. It's playing against somebody else especially three games because you have real, you know, human opponents. That's why it works so well because of it, yes. That's the whole point, yeah. Human opponents make mistakes as well. How did that shift the way then you design the game because you have to think about I can master it, but I can also compete with others. We added some we put with bowling you have oil on the lane, which is which is what you do and it's actually protect the lane. What it does is it varies. So, therefore, how thick the oil is depends how much the ball will move when you bowl down it, you see. So, we vary that. So, that's a variable. So, they have to adapt to the to the conditions. So, that's And that's what happens in real bowling. I I did it for university for a year. Well, I used to bowl in the league at university. And so, that's a big part of the game is the oil. You actually adapt to the conditions. We we

put a new thing there called warm-up. So, in real bowling you don't just start. You get like about 5-minute warm-up to do it. So, we've got a similar thing. Now that is you start bowling your balls and you get a feel for the conditions for that day. So, you have to adapt to the game. [clears throat] That's what we've done in bowling now. So, you have like a It's like a
22nd 30 seconds
full blind oil now, isn't it? Because we used to tell you how how wet the oil was, but then we'd change it to blind oil and basically you get you get like, you know, a few shots to see how wet the lane feels to yourself and then you start your game. So, that puts like an extra variable for the players to go to adapt to, yes. That's something we've done, yeah.
And that helps with then the matchmaking and everything. You're really sort of into your zone by that time. So, you partnered back with Skills back in 2014. You weren't always thinking about a skills-based competition. What attracted you to the idea of adding that on top of what you were building?
We were very early to the skills side.
we had been out for even a year and they approached us and they said originally about putting it in the side game and then we realized no, let's make it a separate one. Keep it very focused on skills.

Okay.
And we launched it like that, yeah. We've always liked to try things. Something
it's taken off as I understood with the massive, yeah, with the leaderboard, everything.
And it's still going, you know, what, 10, 20 years later, whatever.
It took us about 2 weeks to make it, the first one.
We just had the original one and we just like right, we sort of decided that as what I said, it's just there's quite a bit in the original game that we had and we're like if we put skills in there, are people going to be able to find it or are they going to get confused about what they're doing? Whereas if we just make it a skills game,
Mhm.
they just go in and like right, this is what I You start it, the skills UI comes up and you can play a game.
It was much more
It was much more
And it just took off.
And it just took off really well. It was just really good.
What's really awesome and interesting is that you're like so focused on the game and the gameplay. And that's where indies normally, you know, they have divided attention cuz they're thinking about the infrastructure, the back end, the live ops, everything. You know, what changes from a developer perspective when you think about, for example, if we lean into the news, yes, skills and Beemable, then we've got

competitive, but we also have infrastructure, back end, live ops, all of that coming together. I mean, what does that change or what do you think it will change in what you can build because of this?
Mhm.
I mean, a game at its core, whatever game, should be fun. It doesn't matter if it's video game, it should be fun. And we do focus number one on that. It doesn't matter what else you put on it, it needs to be that. I mean, all these extra things we're adding are really exciting and they help you out and help to expand the audience and all that, but you've got to focus on it being fun.
What this will bring to the game actually once we get it all in is um people will be able to really customize their experience. They're going to have better balls, you know, bowling bags, maybe bowling shoes, stuff they can actually, you know, own themselves, wear, own, personalize, show off when they start a match and stuff. So, they So, they feel they've got a bit more ownership of it. Feel like they've made some achievements. [clears throat] So,
I never thought of that. I always think about well, it's going to be more efficient, you know, easier. I'm like
So, yes, you can personalize them all. Yeah, yeah. We've got some lots of good ideas lined up actually.
I have never heard developers talk about

that. They were mostly like saying, "Hey, you know, I can think about, you know, live ops will be easier. I won't need a big team, you know, it's great for the calculus of figuring out what you're going to do as a small studio." But, yeah, there's a plus for the players here as well.
We are We are really small studio cuz it's just us two. That's it. And uh
But, it's a plus for the players then as well because not only will you be able to put out the games the way we're discussing them, but the experience for them is going to change. You're going to use this to make this more personal because everybody, if you have, you know, literally if you have skin in the game, then you're going to be engaged and you're going to stay, right?
That's exactly what we want. That's exactly what we want is to feel like they own it and
We've also we we speak pool, we've learned a lot doing that and we can take that knowledge over to the bowling game.
Well, tell me about that because you just It's um It's now launching as we speak.
Yes, we started a soft launch about about I don't know, about 14 months and we finally properly got the one we wanted to do with the Excuse me.
[clears throat]
With the better graphics and stuff. So, it's it's really rich now. The light and that It looks fantastic. It's kind of

what we wanted originally, yeah.
Mhm.
Um and it's very exciting. We've also worked on sync play which is is not going to come out just yet, but we're going to once we build a user base, we're going to have that. So, you better play real time against other people, eight ball, nine ball.
Yeah.
That's cuz At the minute, you The way it plays at the minute is you pot the balls and the first one to pot, say six balls, 10 balls, wins, okay? But, we want to play directly against other people so you can play real time, you know, like eight ball, you know, spots versus solids versus stripes, things like that.
Okay.
So, that can be really exciting, yeah.
It can bring that type of depth into the game cuz I was going to ask you, you know, pool is again one of those games where, you know, we know it, well, how can you be different?
Mhm.
And you've answered that already. It's going to be by adding all of this precision, this depth, you know, this real feel. It's not just just shooting. It's like
Oh, no, no, no, it's just Yeah, it's We really wanted to make it feel like you were playing a 3D pool game properly. It wasn't a top-down game like a lot pool games are. And so, we wanted to have wanted to have spin on the ball, backspin, side, English, and Australia

is really important cuz you don't play pool like that. When you play pool, you do that. You know, and that's what we want to simulate, you know, that's what we want to replicate. That's the, you know, that's the skill of the game. We wanted people to think when they pot the ball, they've earned it, and when they miss it, they feel, "Yeah, I wasn't good enough." We don't want to cheat people. We want to feel like We want to reward skill, and that's what we're trying to get. You know, when they pot something really good, a long pot. And they feel a bit smug with themselves. Yeah, the fist-in-the-air stuff, or if you're actually playing real pool, you'd smack the ball that and you'd just stand up really straight.
[laughter]
Same that it wasn't it wasn't, you know, the most fluky shot you've ever done. But like we want to have those moments where in the game. That That's what we're always trying to get is just those little moments where people are like, "God, that was amazing."
You can do it, you know, you do it against your opponent, you can almost you know, sort of try to intimidate them with that sort of shot.
A good example would be like, you know, you're on the black ball and you know your opponent's got is is 3 seconds, you know, you 3 seconds time your opponent beats you, and you just wet the back ball and it just rolls around the table and flukes in. Just before, and then

you'll be sitting there fist-pumping. That sort of stuff we're trying to create so people get those moments that they're like, "I did it. I did it."
So, where do you get the inspiration that it like feels right for the players? Is just because you're playing it and living it yourselves and bringing that
Go down the pool hall, we played it, and then we make notes what feels right. Obviously, we've played these games for years anyway. We go down there fresh, we take some we just record on my phone as it comes to us, you know, ideas. I don't know, we need to be able to do this and do that, and that's where we realize you have to play like this. I mean, one of the things we do in pool is when you play a shot in pool, you don't just do that. You look at the whole table.
Yeah.
You pick the ball you want to pot, which is what we have. So, you look overhead, you actually tap on the ball you want to go for. It will line up perfectly straight. That's what you do. You approach the ball and then you adjust and then you shot. And that's what we've got in the game. That's how it works. You have a look down. Yes, I want that one. Click on it. It will line up. Adjust it and you take your shot. And that's just what you do in real life. That's how you play. And we all try to get that feeling, you know? That's the key bit, yeah. The other thing we do is like you can see
balls while they're moving. So, you take your shot and if you think you know where your next ball is, even before everything stopped moving, you can touch

it and it will focus on the next ball and you'll wait for the cue ball to stop. Second the cue ball stops, cuz that's the rules. Soon as that cue ball stops, you can take your shot and carry on.
[snorts]
So, you can clearly you can really start clearing the balls up quickly.
can Well, what we like to do is get a game to flow. So, you can just keep flowing. And as you get better at something, you just flow quicker and quicker. So, you imagine someone's playing for 6 months, they'll just flow through. And they look really good. That's how it works in any sport.
those off to the engagement, right? From the start then, because the engagement with the game is handled, you know, it's it's done through the game play. Others have to think about, you know, what is my engagement mechanics going to look like? And here it's like, no, just be very authentic with the game.
We've had some customers for like 10 years. We have I won't say his name, but we have one customer and he used to used to email us weekly.
Oh, got you.
He's so happy. He
[laughter]
He loves happy. He absolutely loves the game. He just put up, "Oh, can you do this? How about this? I had a great game last week. I did this last week." And we're just like, "Yeah."
I think he's done 10,000 games or something like that.
Yeah. We've had some great reviews over the year, yeah. People love it, yeah. Which Which Which means the world to us.

That's what matters, you know? I say how addictive it is.
what is your portfolio now? Cuz you have your speed pool. So, how many games do you have now in total?
on skills, we've got two at the moment. We've got Striker Skills and the Speed Pool game has just been released.
Okay.
Uh we have got darts game, but we've never been able to quite figure out how to bring it to
That was an earlier game, yeah.
I mean, if that happens
on the on the platform. Maybe now you can give it some thought.
You know, possibly maybe we've talked about possibly if we build a big enough audience we could possibly put it into another game so they could play sync play because darts is a two-player sync play game.
Yeah, yeah.
So that's something we could possibly do in the future. It might be might be a bit strange going to a a pool game and playing a game of darts, but that's where you'd find a dartboard is next to a pool table.
It is. You do in a pub. I mean It's there.
Pub especially, yeah.
There you go. You got you got something there, you know? You could be like, I want to go in there but I'll wait over here or something. Yeah, there's something there.
possibilities there, yeah.
There's something there. Something.

We're waiting for the right idea to come along.
We've got a lot of plans still for pool and strike, yeah. So we want to bring that's the next stage is to bring those out, yeah.
I was going to ask you what sport comes next. What is it that you're playing and you're thinking yeah.
Oh no, it's these two games for now but we've got to concentrate and we want to add a lot more content to it and just grow the games now. That's the idea, yeah.
We have ideas. We can't really sort of share them at the minute. We would have ideas for new games. We We haven't got time to bring all the ideas in.
We have got we've got like a fog box website with the game ideas you put on there and it's just it's just pages of
We've got a lot of years left to go.
We've got a lot of ideas. It's time.
It's all the games.
You've got to pick your moment, yeah.
So we're just picking and choosing ones we like.
Well well it's also smart to like zero in on what people are already playing and enjoying.
yeah. Yes, yes, that's right, yeah.
I was talking to a developer. I can't remember his name now, but I will have him on We'll have you on Pocket Gamer, I promise. Um and he was telling me how he has a cult following and what he's done is gone back to look at medieval card games of England. Right?

Okay.
And um because these are, you know, old card games. So obviously, but um there is a following for this and they are very very cool. So there you go, you know.
Very You don't always have to go forward for the ideas. You can also go backwards.
We are not looking cuz we're already old. So we grew up in the '80s and '90s, you know, '80s and '90s playing games then and we still love looking back at them old games cuz they're so small yet they're so playable. Like in a single screen they managed to fit a whole game in and I think the same could be said for that and I think
Well, they're games before the graphics really took over.
You're talking about Pong, right?
Good try. You're about [laughter] Pong.
Not at all.
Not at all. I was going to say don't go there, but yeah.
There's a lot of Commodore 64 games that were really inspiring to us as kids. So, we look back, you know, they they they did some wonderful stuff with the graphics, but when you actually start playing the games, the games are just really funny.
California Games, things like that, old games. They were some brilliant little games.
They're just really fun games.
They had so little limitations, yet they managed to make a game out of it and I think the same could be said for that.
Bring it back.
There's something to be said for the old things that all made them fun.
A lot of developers I'm talking with,

they're like, "Nostalgia. If it worked back then, just bring it back."
thing Oh, sorry to cut you off. The other thing that was really I just thought about was is comedy. We don't see a lot of comedy in games anymore.
That's true.
Where them kind of games The The comedy in them was brilliant. It was fantastic. Like if you've ever played Barrel Jump.
Quite whimsical.
Yeah, you you got Barrel Jump and you just you jump over the barrels. If you didn't land properly, he'd go through the eyes.
Yeah.
And his head would pop out and he'd go blue. You know, just little visual jokes like that.
Yeah. Yeah.
This is on a 64 game machine, you know what I mean? There, it's it's wonderful, the ideas. I think yeah, I think that is
Yeah, that whimsy. That whimsy.
Whimsy is a good word because whimsy games are whimsy.
Yeah.
Should be fun.
It's just the fun. Just the fun.
Exactly.
So, it's fun chatting with you, obviously. Let's say we meet again next year. I would hope so cuz it would be a blast. Um what do you want to be telling me next year?
Ooh.
Ooh.
Um
It'd be nice to have another game here.
to say
It'd be nice to have another game here to to be chatting about a new game.
I think so.

I think yeah, we'll be chatting about a new game in the future.
Different t-shirt. Yes. Different t-shirt. Different t-shirt. New game. It's a date. It's a date. Let's see what happens. Absolutely. Well, it's been great and hey, you talked about it needs to be fun. It has been fun. So, we have done it. Thank you so much.
Thanks so much. Thank you Katie. That was great.
Absolutely.
[music]