A tale of two iPad game developers: Telltale and SGN attack market from different directions

The Apple iPad is one of the most interesting platforms for game companies to emerge in years. One reason it is that the device is squarely in the middle of the hardware markets. PC and console game makers can readily adapt their games to run on the iPad’s beautiful 9.7-inch touchscreen. Meanwhile, iPhone and iPod Touch game makers can quickly redo their games to run on the iPad.
This contrast is evident in the launch of two games today from two companies that are coming at the iPad from the two different directions. Telltale Games in San Rafael, Calif., launched its Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse (pictured right) for the iPad today. Meanwhile, SGN of Palo Alto, Calif., launched its EXO-Planet game for the iPad. Telltale had been working on its game for eight months and had originally targeted it for the PC and PlayStation Network on the PlayStation 3.
Two months ago, the company decided to adapt the game to the iPad, said Dan Connors, chief executive (pictured right). It was very easy to adapt the high-fidelity graphics of the PC version to run on the iPad. Most of the work involved converting the game from a game controller or mouse version to the multitouch screen interface of the iPad.
Meanwhile, Randy Breen, who like Connors is a former LucasArts executive and is now chief executive of SGN, said his company started working on Exo-Planet, an innovative shooting game, about six months ago. At first, the game was targeted at the iPhone. But the company had always planned on doing a game with good graphics and adapted it within the past couple of months to work as an exclusive on the iPad.
Breen and Connors said their teams were both excited to be working on games for a brand new platform, and that both approaches appear to be valid, in terms of coming to the iPad from the iPhone or the PC/consoles. They both also know that it is best to design a game for the iPad from the ground up and to make the games as social as possible.
Connors said about six of the company’s 80 employees were dispatched to work on the iPad game, which is the first handheld game that the company has ever done. Most of the company’s work is for downloadable episodic games or for platforms such as Xbox Live Arcade. The team took the 3D art that was developed for the PC and PlayStation Network versions and modified it for the touchscreen. The game is the exact same version as will be available soon on the other platforms, but the user interface is different. Connors said the investment in art work for iPad games will continue to get bigger and bigger as the company makes more games for the platform.
The $6.99 game will last for four or five hours. In the game, a crazed space gorilla attacks the world and tries to capture Max, who has psychic powers. The goal was to make a piece of “interactive cinema,” Connors said. It was nice, Connors said, that Apple’s device had really caught up with the visual quality of the art in console games.
“We think it’s going to be really hard for companies that make low-resolution art to adapt to the high-resolution art for the iPad,” Connors said.
Breen (pictured right), meanwhile, said 12 of his company’s 80 people were working on a next-generation game with high quality art. They re-targeted the game for the iPad’s exact specifications once they knew what they were. Breen said that the content for the iPad will be diverse, but his team wanted to shoot for the high end of what was possible. They had already pushed the graphics limit of the iPhone with their Skies of Glory and F.A.S.T. flight combat games.
“If you look at the content that is possible, there is more range in the iPad and iPhone than any game that I can think of,” Breen said. “That’s why the approach of coming from either direction is viable.”
The concept for EXO-Planet (pictured right) was to create a shooting and capture the flag game in space, where combatants in space suits could jump from one metal platform to another. Since it was a zero gravity space, players could jump from one place to another, walk up walls, or run on ceilings. With a shake, based on the iPad’s accelerometer controls, players could re-orient the 3D view so that the ceiling becomes the floor and so on. One player can play against another or two can play against two in multiplayer mode. The design was inspired by Portal, a shooting game on the PC and consoles where you could do much the same thing. The game will sell for $6.99.
While the graphics are cool, Breen said it’s good to remember that the graphics on the Nintendo Wii aren’t as important as the motion-sensing controller, which inspired a whole new generation of games. The same is true with the natural interface of the touchscreen and accelerometer (a motion sensor which lets you control the iPad by turning it or shaking it).
Game makers see the iPad as Apple’s sneak attack on the game console business. Only this game platform is launching with tens of thousands of games on it already (in the form of iPhone games that will run on the iPad), many of them free. You can expect to see all sorts of games, from those with weak graphics to those with great graphics.
Companies: Sgn, Telltale Games