Most iPhone gaming news is of the “I can’t believe I’m playing Assassin’s Creed: Mirage on a smartphone without it melting” variety. But as impressive as having AAA games in your trousers might be, it’s not what I first loved about iPhone gaming. Mostly because there weren’t AAA iPhone games back in the day. That didn’t bother me, though, because I instead immersed myself in countless inventive indie titles.
The gaming landscape has changed dramatically since then. One thing hasn’t. The iPhone still plays host to a huge range of games made by individuals and small teams. And these are often more creative, opinionated, experimental and unusual (not to mention affordable) than their AAA cousins. So it’s great that Apple’s celebrating such efforts with its own Indie Games Week on the App Store. Even better: one of the announced titles is the loooooooooooong-awaited iPhone/iPad version of No Man’s Sky.
The groundbreaking title by Hello Games arrives for iPhone and iPad on 28 October, and is available to pre-order. It includes every major content expansion added over the years, including Cosmos, which lets players command their own space stations. I was fortunate enough to ask Hello Games MD Sean Murray about the challenges of bringing the game to mobile, and what doing so meant to him personally.
Mission improbable
The Mac release was the beginning of the journey with Apple, according to Sean. But the subsequent step to mobile was a major challenge. “No Man’s Sky is a very ambitious game – a universe you can play in seamlessly that’s generated at runtime. But the idea of having a huge universe in your pocket was really exciting to us. And mobile reaches millions of people who don’t own consoles and gaming PCs, who we thought would be interested in a different kind of experience.”
Conventional wisdom might suggest a game of this complexity wouldn’t – or couldn’t – run on a phone. Limits in terms of memory, processing power, heat and battery life were formidable obstacles. But Sean says “the fact it seemed impossible was really exciting to us and sort of what made it fun”. And the team kept upping the ante. Unlike quite a few AAA games on mobile, No Man’s Sky will work right back to the iPhone 11 and iPad Air (3rd gen).
You might at this point wonder whether Hello Games is entirely staffed by masochists. But apparently not. For Sean, effectively rebuilding everything from the ground up for mobile was necessary and worth the effort: “The first builds I played felt like magic to have in my hands.” But he adds that getting the game to run was only half of the challenge. It also had to feel and perform well, right back to those lower-end devices.
Touch and go
Sean reveals that there was a point during development where No Man’s Sky for iPhone only had controller support. “We then faced what we call nerd sniping: when you say something is impossible but your inner nerd disagrees,” he says. The team knew the game was complex and that many premium iPhone games barely cater for the touchscreen. “I didn’t want that and so got quite involved in designing the controls,” says Sean, adding that this involved rebuilding controls and interfaces alike for touch, while still retaining full physical controller support – including a mouse and keyboard option for iPad.
The big surprise came during playtesting. “We found when we sat people down who’ve never played the game before, somebody with the iPhone version would get further in that first hour than someone playing the console version,” says Sean. He puts that down to how intuitive and natural the touchscreen feels. It even changed how Sean approaches the game. “I’ve obviously played No Man’s Sky a lot,” he says. “But I now find it really nice on iPhone to dip in and out for ten minutes to progress an expedition goal – in contrast to when I’m on console, playing for hours at a time.”
Whether these experiences will be typical of iPhone players is another matter. Sean thinks No Man’s Sky is very different from what else is out there. Its long-form gameplay runs counter to the fast-paced immediacy typical of mobile games. “But I think there’s a place for that,” he mulls. “We’ll see how many people agree.” Regardless, he’s pleased with the result: “If you’d told me ten years ago that this would ever be possible on an iPhone or an iPad, I wouldn’t have believed you. We’re super proud of it.”
Small wonders
Unsurprisingly, Apple’s pleased about its Indie Games Week too. The company’s head of App Store Worldwide, Carson Oliver, has enthused about how indie games constantly push boundaries and “take creative risks to push gaming forward”. That will be apparent to anyone familiar with No Man’s Sky and other titles making their iPhone debut: Sifu; Little Kitty, Big City; Dome Keeper; 9 Kings; Yes, Your Grace 2: Snowfall; and Vampire Crawlers.
On the last of those, Poncle producer Tommaso Verde is similarly excited about bringing his company’s much-loved deck-building game, Vampire Crawlers, to iPhone: “Players kept asking us when the game would come to mobile, but we knew we couldn’t just get the game out there for iPhone and iPad as it is currently on PC. We had to make sure it was the best possible experience. So we focused on satisfying swiping action – that feeling of moving cards with your fingers that you just don’t get with a mouse or controller.”
It’s tough out there in the games industry today. Studios are closing on a regular basis. I’ve also spoken with many indies who’ve felt the pinch on mobile in recent years. They’ve battled a ‘race to the bottom’ in pricing. Too many users now expect everything to be free. And discovery is an increasing problem, with a diminishing number of outlets covering mobile gaming.
So this influx of new blood should give the iPhone and iPad a much-needed injection of rocket fuel. Sustainability, though, remains a question. And much of that won’t come down to the games (we already know they’re good), but to Apple. I’d love to think this week is the first of many rather than a one-off – an extra life for indie games on the App Store, rather than a last hurrah before a crushing ‘game over’.
