World class handheld games developer, Firemint, have released their first game on Apple handheld hardware called The Sims DJ. And while it's not exactly for the eagerly anticipated iPhone, it's a testament to the capabilities of Firemint and yet another great milestone for the Melbourne based developer.
And while we're looking forward to what they're going to accomplish on the Nintendo Wii, I thought it would be great to find out more about The Sims DJ, and what Firemint thought of developing on the iPod platform.
Can you give us a brief outline on what the gameplay in The Sim's DJ entails?
Rob Murray, Firemint CEO: You're a DJ who plays various gigs using your own real-world iPod music. The goal is to get the Sims up and partying, and you have a range of tricks to get them in the mood. There are a number of different types of clubs and gigs that will present you with a large variety of different challenges. Each Sim likes a certain kind of music and you may need to get fans of Pop, Country and R&B all dancing at the same time. You've got to figure out how to use your talents to solve the challenges each gig presents, and of course toy around with the dancing Sims' lives along the way. As you complete gigs, you earn money which you can spend on "buying" songs from your iPod library, and assigning them to a musical genre. It doesn't have to be the song's real genre, so don't worry if you don't have a lot of Country in your collection! Just like any other Sims game, you can also spend your cash on customising your DJ's appearance and you also unlock more interesting challenges as you proceed through the game.
The original game design of The Sim's DJ was created at Firemint. What was the inspiration behind it, and what did you set out to achieve?
RM: EA approached us with the original idea of combining The Sims style gameplay with the ability to incorporate real songs from your iTunes collection into the game. We explored a whole lot of different angles, some more heavily focused on character progression like you might see in the PC version, and some more biased towards the musical aspects. In the end I think we hit on a really fun combination for a casual game that will feel very familiar to Sims fans, and lets you show off your awesome music collection to a crowd of adoring fans!
It's yet another big profile game brand that you've worked on (the others include Madden 08, Need for Speed, Ratatouille). How much pressure is there working with such highly well known franchises?
RM: When a publisher has such a huge existing investment in a brand, you obviously have to treat that with a whole lot of respect and an understanding of how the game is positioned, and how it fits in with the overall brand strategy. We're very careful to stay true to what it is that people love about the license in the first place. The drawback is that we often can't talk about our high profile games until a few weeks or so after they launch because we need to get all our marketing material through the approval process and make sure that we don't dilute the publishers own marketing and PR efforts. Once again, it is all a function of respect for the value of the publisher's brand. I think this does place a bit more pressure on the project, but it is well worth it.
How did you find the development process on the iPod? Were there any quirks, conveniences, or limitations that you found while working on that platform? Is developing for the iPod the same as the iPhone / iTouch? Do you use the same software developer kit that's available for the iPhone?
RM: The bulk of our development experience is on mobile phones, and it was quite a nice change to only have to think about one device instead of thousands! EA approached us about this project before iPod games were even announced by Apple, so it was an exciting discovery process for us. Apple has taken a very different path with the iPhone SDK to that of the iPod. iPhone seems to have been thrown open to everyone who is interested, while the iPod SDK is very difficult to get your hands on and unfortunately I can't comment on the specifics.
Being able to use the click wheel to spin records, and being able to use your music library in the game is a stroke of genius. Is the music stored on the iPod free to use like this for games, or does Apple provide some restriction or limitation on their use?
RM: The game comes preloaded with some pretty entertaining "Simlish" songs, the style of which fans of The Sims will recognise from the PC version. As you earn Simoleons from your DJing you can also "buy" music from your iPod through the in-game store, and it doesn't matter whether you've bought the songs through iTunes or ripped them from your CD collection. There are no restrictions on what you can play, other than being limited to certain numbers of songs to make gameplay manageable.
Because of the musical nature of The Sim's DJ, it seems perfect for the newer iPhone and iTouch products. Are there any plans on bringing The Sim's DJ onto there?
RM: I can't comment on EA's plans, except to say that of course we'd be happy to be involved with anything along those lines!