With almost all games selling for one dollar and iFart being the most popular application, we were worried what would happen with our title that was borderline between a game and a toy, and selling at a higher price point. Before launch things looked rather grim for our team. And quite conveniently, we had recruited the same person as our art director, and I'm not certain we even knew of his musical talent at the time!Īs a shameless plug, there's plenty of Ghost Monkey music on his website: What part of Zen Bound are you happiest with? We couldn't have picked anyone else for Zen Bound. The original PC game already featured some tunes from the Ghost Monkey album Tea for Miss Yamaha, which created a wonderful surreal atmosphere. Why and how did you end up using Ghost Monkey's music? The game is coded with our proprietary technology from ground up, with raw 3D models from Silo exported to a custom level editor that handled the final visuals and difficulty tweaks. Zen Bound was developed by a core team of three people, each putting in roughly three man-months of work over a calendar period of twelve months. But we simply didn't have the necessary resources to develop the game for those platforms back then.Ĭan you give a rough breakdown of the development time and any significant tools you used? The gameplay can be adapted to a slightly different but equally compelling experience on other kinds of control schemes. Would Zen Bound be a good game on other platforms? Yes, we believe so. At the business level, the most appealing qualities were that Apple pays out monthly and that iPhone wasn't burdened by huge technical requirements.ĭo you think you could have successfully released Zen Bound on any platforms other than iPhone? We evaluated Wii and PlayStation 3 and realised that despite our ability to finish the game, we might not have had the necessary budget to make it through the technical requirements and quality assurance required for a console release. Selecting the right platform was actually a huge part of the project, and one reason it took so long. Were there any other major challenges to overcome? But ultimately it is the audience who decides if your work is good or not. Of course we were proud of our work: we always knew we were going to make something very aesthetic. We did see a lot of positive buzz around the game before its release, but we had no idea how that would convert into sales. How quickly did you realise that you created something special?įrankly, not before the game had been on sale for a week in the App Store. What took most of the time were things like the game rules of how and when is a level considered complete, what kind of a larger context each level is tied into and how all that is presented to the player. Those weren't the hard part of this project, since they were already quite well prototyped with the PC version. How long did it take to get precise features such as the feel of and control over the rope, the camera angle, and the audio working well on iPhone? I always admired its simplicity, and once Mikko returned to Finland after finishing up his work on Crysis, I tugged his sleeve and asked him to join our company so that we could make a full-fledged game out of the idea. This had the basic gameplay of Zen Bound already in place. That realisation led to a gift-wrapping game prototype which turned into a freeware PC title called Zen Bondage. Mikko Mononen, the inventor of the concept, originally came to think some things are fun when done slowly. We started Secret Exit to develop and self-publish our own intellectual property in downloadable channels with a team of experienced and talented colleagues, with the company fully owned by the people working in it. Too many startups just frantically rush toward an exit without worrying about such matters as profitability or a consistent strategy. We wanted to start a company that would be based on common sense instead of VC funding. Secret Exit was founded by myself and Jetro Lauha, an ex-colleague from Fathammer. What was the reason you formed Secret Exit? In 2006, a year after the studio had been acquired by Telcogames, it was time to start a company of our own. My position at Fathammer grew from game designer to producer and finally creative director. Jani Kahrama: I was a freelance 3D artist for a number of years before joining Fathammer as a designer of 3D mobile games. Pocket Gamer: What was your background before setting up Secret Exit? We caught up with Jani Kahrama from Secret Exit to find out more about the process behind the game. Released in February 2009 by Finnish start up Secret Exit, Zen Bound is a game that proved developers could find success on the App Store with something simple and playful.įrom the wonderful graphical presentation and audio to the tactile way with which you rotate the rope around the various wooden objects, the experience is incredibly meditative.
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