App Store Insiders: Kepa Auwae, Rocketcat Games
Also, gnomes. Lots of gnomes.
I spoke to Kepa Auwae, who is in charge of "Planning, Business Stuff, Design" and is the public voice for Rocketcat Games, and was previously a registered nurse before Hook Champ allowed the him and the studio to make games full-time. We discuss why their titles remain so unique, the future of the studio, and just why we don't hear from the other two members of Rocketcat.
148Apps: There are a lot of pixel art games on the App Store, but Rocketcat Games seems to have a voice and style all its own with games that have attracted a loyal fan base. What do you attribute this to?
Kepa Auwae: Our games have a pretty clear voice, probably because there's so few people working on them and everyone contributes. I think it's also easier to build a fan base when you're working on a small niche that others don't really touch. There's not a lot of people making our sorts of games on iOS, with our level of difficulty and scope.
148Apps: Your grappling hook games (Hook Champ, Super QuickHook, and Hook Worlds) are actually only a few titles using the grappling hook mechanic at all on mobile. Is this due to the challenge of using the mechanic well?
Auwae: It turns out that level design was really difficult for our grappling hook games. The placement of every bit of ceiling was important to the flow of the level. It's kind of like designing a level for a platformer, except imagine you control each leg and you'll trip if you don't step on the floor exactly right.
As for how few games use the genre, I think it's mostly just how genres work for videogames. You need a huge hit to really provide incentive to cloners on a big scale.
148Apps: Reminisce back to the time of Hook Champ and its cosmetic IAP. How did the response and reaction from people then compare to the reaction you got for the IAP in Punch Quest? How have your fans responded to your evolution in titles you've released?
Auwae: We get as many complaints about Hook series IAP, still, as we get complaints about Punch Quest IAP. And because the Hook games are out longer, we have a bigger amount of complaints total. It's bizarre, since the Hook IAP was almost entirely cosmetic, hats and such.
That said, we didn't get many complaints about the Punch Quest IAP at all. I think fans knew that we were trying to do things right. Trying to anyway, I'm not happy with how the design in Punch Quest turned out. In the future, I'd like to completely avoid the concept of people paying to skip in-game progression.
148Apps: Your games have largely been core-gamer-friendly genres; do you see your future mobile titles going down this path, if you even have a future on mobile at all?
Auwae: It would make a lot more sense to make casual-friendly games, as the "core-gamer" type of games we make take big amounts of time to work on. This next one we're releasing, our randomly-generated action-adventure game, is getting to the 2-year mark. These are the types of games we're interested in making, even if it doesn't add up from a business standpoint.
Our plan for the future is to release on multiple platforms, especially PC. The big differences are that there's a much bigger audience for such games there, and you can feasibly charge more than $5 per copy. Definitely not leaving mobile, any game that makes sense on iOS will be developed simultaneously for it. As an example, I'm starting work on a project with the Punch Quest developer (Paul "Madgarden" Pridham), and that's being worked on for both PC and iOS so we can make sure the controls and graphics are perfect on both platforms.
148Apps: You, Kepa Auwae, have served largely as the public voice of the company. Who are the other members of Rocketcat, and why do you keep their voices silent? Do they even exist?! Or are they actually gnomes?
Auwae: There's Jeremy Orlando (Programmer) and Brandon Rhodes (Artist). All three of us are incredibly shy. We had to pick which one of us would have to interact with everyone. I'm not better equipped to talk to anyone, it's just that I lost when we drew straws. After a few years I'm now ok at the whole "public voice" thing. Also they're gnomes and I'm really ashamed of that.
Thanks to Kepa Auwae for his time; it's truly appreciated.