Friday, June 4, 2010

Super QuickHook Trailer Evolution



The above is the final trailer for Super QuickHook, the sequel to Hook Champ. It was submitted Tuesday morning, and we're just waiting for it to be approved for the App Store. In just the last couple of months, the game has come a long, long way. There's no better way to illustrate this than showing the very first trailer we made for the game



The above trailer is the game two months ago. At this point, the game was going to be Avalanche Mode only. At most, there would have been 4 racing levels you could unlock, and then the tutorial. Avalanche Mode had about 10 more sections than it does now, and included the magma type slices.

After the first footage trailer was sent to TouchArcade, we got a lot of feedback for it. People wondered what happened to the levels, like Hook Champ had. Someone pointed out the suspension of disbelief required to run from an avalanche while inside of a volcano. There was a lot of criticism on the art. For the most part, the comments were harsh. We listened to almost every single one of them.

These comments directly influenced the evolution of the game. It lead to SQH going from a "pick up and play" style game, to a game that focused on many levels, with progression. We removed the volcanic sections from Avalanche Mode, while adding more ice and grassy sections to compensate. We did another pass on the art, especially the background art. Then we released another trailer, which we also mined for the harshest criticism. Then another.

I notice that many games, iPhone games especially, go to great lengths to not show their game too long in trailers. This seems to be the case for both preview trailers and release trailers. We showed our earliest footage, at length, right to the public. The end result is a very polished game, whose trailer does not need to be obscured.

11 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

You should include a Platinum rank for your most loyal players in what shoul be an increased and almost impossible difficulty

June 5, 2010 at 1:56 AM  
Blogger Kepa said...

There's a bronze through platinum ranks for each level, already. The platinum one is a secret rank.

June 5, 2010 at 4:43 PM  
Blogger 0000100 said...

Hey Kepa,

just wanted to say i really appreciate that you let us know what you guys are getting done daily and how you respond to almost every message and are open about advice. I only follow Minigore, Hook Champ and now Super Quick Hook which im really siked about. Mountain Sheep compares nothing to the response Rocketcat games has give. Dont lose that, keep up the fantastic work.

June 6, 2010 at 11:14 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hello Kepa! Congratulations for the release, i will be the first one who is going to buy it. Since i like the "style" of what you do, i really buy everything (incl. the DLC so you can eat your pizza's :) ) what comes from RocketCat!

I however, have something negative to say too. The attitude of the twitter account, who ever write's that, is kinda harsh and so "emotionless".

If you have suuuuch a big community, wouldn't it be wrong to submit messages that are harsh and don't have any at least, emoteicons in it?

Negative 2:
Why don't you simply release a PSD and make a contest so people can design their extraordinary hat's and you can add some to the game? Or even let them design char's.

WHY NOT?

As a developer, i applied for beta testing, when there were only 5 people who were following the (original) hookchamp twitter account. And finally, i didn't got even selected as beta tester. The people who were selected had to have a gmail account (?) which i dont have, and the one's who got selected, tried to pirate the game. It's so sad, that even after such a tragedy, the attitude hasn't changed.

Still, nice trailer and nice game, hope you will do the million like flightcontrol. :)

June 8, 2010 at 4:42 AM  
Blogger Kepa said...

Josue: The lead developer behind Minigore is a cool guy.

Herrkaleun: I write the twitter account. It's mostly just for announcements and updates, and there's a lot of information to cram into the character limit. Not enough space for emoticons. I did use to post HAT IDEAS (do not steal) to twitter, but we've had a lot of updates to talk about recently. I'll probably go back to stuff like that when we're not so busy.

We did release a PSD for Hook Champ, so people can make their own hats and such. It's in this blog, I believe. As for a design-something-for-us contest: Probably not, mostly for legal reasons.

The gmail account requirement was because we handle the beta group by google groups. It's a big hassle to not do gmail addresses for that. That's the only reason. I know you were one of the original followers of the account.

June 8, 2010 at 4:50 PM  
Blogger Xuzz (Grant) said...

This game looks awesome. I'm a dedicated Hook Champ addict (and another iPhone Developer: does this game appeal to us or something?), and I can't wait to try out Super QuickHook!

June 8, 2010 at 6:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah.. I understand. BTW, i wrote and wrote and wrote over twitter and then sadly noticed, my tweets were protected and rocketcatgames had no way to see them! :) That's probbably why you didnt answer too hehehe

I used to draw pixel-art myself, that's why im sooOOooo in love with the SNES and 8Bit style.

BTW, i run the HookChamp page on Facebook, http://www.facebook.com/pages/Hook-Champ/238851498919?ref=ts
if you want it, just add and and i transfer you the ownership :)

June 9, 2010 at 12:00 AM  
Blogger Kepa said...

Herrkaleun: Looks like you're doing a good job with it. We might want it later, when we revisit the series (way in the future).

I saw your twitlonger post. I didn't respond because of the character limit. I'll have to make a fan email address pretty soon.. twitter just doesn't lend itself to long discussions. The blog is better for it, yet I think just a dedicated email address would be best of all.

June 9, 2010 at 10:55 AM  
Blogger 0000100 said...

This comment has been removed by the author.

June 9, 2010 at 8:01 PM  
Blogger 0000100 said...

Couple of ideas:

Have the rocketcat character as a secret hidden playable character who's special abiliity could be an extra jump from the rocket boots.

Each character have their own unique power up in which after they collect a certain amount of food or coins, they could speed up or maybe land in like a small vehicle like a cart or small rocket that that appears and they get into for like 4 seconds to take them further in distance.
*could be an extra mode)

idk, just some random ideas

June 11, 2010 at 12:39 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I'm the editor of myapple.pl and wonder if you give me the code to Super QuickHook! so I could write a review.

my mail d.yrtart@yahoo.com

June 19, 2010 at 1:34 AM  

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home