Candy Crush creator Tommy Palm has moved into making casual virtual reality games with Resolution Games. They’ve already released Bait! on the Gear VR, and it’s the first VR app to feature in-app purchases, and they just announced at Google I/O that they’re designing a launch title for Google’s Daydream mobile VR platform with a title called Wonderglade. I had a chance to catch up with Tommy about developing causal VR games that are interruptible, how they’re designing in natural breaks to not create games that are too addicting, thoughts on the future of free-to-play VR with in-app purchases, how VR games can be social without it being multi-player, developing a game with Daydream’s 3DOF controller, and how casual games may really start to blur the line between games and VR experiences.
LISTEN TO THE VOICES OF VR PODCAST
Here’s some other videos and updates from Google I/O including a new GoogleVR YouTube channel and the @GoogleCardboard has been deprecated, and Google’s main Twitter VR account is now @GoogleVR.
Here’s some of the relevant GoogleVR talks from Google I/O over the past couple of days (with more coming soon to their GoogleVR YouTube channel.
VR at Google Keynote where Daydream Labs was announced.
Daydream Labs: Lessons Learned from VR Prototyping. This is an absolute must-watch talk by any VR designer since they condensed lessons that they got from rapidly prototyping 60 experiences in 30 weeks.
Daydream Labs: Drum Keyboard will revolutionize text input.
Monetization and Distribution on Daydream
Designing & Developing for the Daydream Controller – Google I/O 2016
VR Design Process – Google I/O 2016
Learn more about the Cloud Vision and Speech API – Google I/O 2016
Rough Transcript
[00:00:05.412] Kent Bye: The Voices of VR Podcast. My name is Kent Bye, and welcome to the Voices of VR podcast. Today I talk to Tommy Palm of Resolution Games, and Tommy's actually one of the creators of Candy Crush, but he's moved on now to do Resolution Games, but he's still in this realm of doing casual games within the VR market. So he's primarily focused on mobile games. He has one Gear VR title out called Bait, where you're fishing and you are able to do in-app purchases, which is one of the first apps to be able to do that in VR. And it was also just announced on Wednesday that he's working on a new game for the new mobile VR headset from Google called Daydream. So we'll be talking about casual gaming and mobile VR and as much as he can say about Daydream on today's episode of the Voices of VR podcast. But first, a quick word from our sponsor. Today's episode is brought to you by the Virtual World Society. The Virtual World Society wants to use VR to change the world. So they are interested in bridging the gap between communities in need with researchers, with creative communities, as well with community of providers who could help deliver these VR experiences to the communities. If you're interested in getting more involved in virtual reality and want to help make a difference in the world, then sign up at virtualworldsociety.org and start to get more involved. Check out the Virtual World Society booth at the Augmented World Expo, June 1st and 2nd. So this interview happened at Google I-O just about three hours after the announcement of Daydream VR. And so this was one of the first developers that I've been able to talk to who's been able to actually have some early access to the equipment. So with that, let's go ahead and dive right in.
[00:01:52.060] Tommy Palm: My name is Tommy Palm and I'm the co-founder and CEO of Resolution Games. And Resolution Games is focusing on building VR games and we are primarily trying to make the games very accessible and social and good entry points for anyone who wants to experience a great VR game.
[00:02:11.865] Kent Bye: Great, so maybe you could talk a bit about your background of where you're coming from and then how you're going to apply some of those insights into VR.
[00:02:19.105] Tommy Palm: Yes, so I've been a game developer for a really long time. I started back in the 80s, developing for Commodore 64. Past 16 years or so, I've been working with mobile games. And this is my fifth startup, so I've been doing this for a while. My last startup, Fabrication Games, was acquired by King, and the first game we built there was the mobile version of Candy Crush Saga. That was a fantastic experience. I was there for three years and January last year we started Resolution Games. And I definitely think that there's a lot of interesting learnings to look at smartphone games and see they have been extremely good at expanding the target audience for games. A lot more people play games now because they're more accessible. more adapted to people's lives. So if you're a good mobile game, you can quit anytime, basically. And if you're on the bus, you can go off and you can go back in where you were. I think there are definitely a lot of interesting learnings there that we can bring with us to VR, just to make sure that everybody can enjoy it. To me, VR is one of these super big human discoveries. And we've tested it with a lot of people and it's not something that's specific for gamers, that they would enjoy VR. I think everybody has the potential to enjoy VR. And then it's going to be about content, you know. Not everybody is wanting to play space shooter games, even though I'm a big fan of them myself. So we're trying to actively look at making design decisions where more people can enjoy it. So typically, at this point, not having too much motion of the camera, so you get much less motion sick than you would if there was. So about two months ago, we released a game called Bait. It was our first kind of real game. It's our second game, actually. And this is a fishing game where you're in a tropical location doing missions and fishing and upgrading your equipment etc.
[00:04:28.897] Kent Bye: And so we're here at Google I-O. And there was just an announcement this morning about Daydream, this new mobile VR headset from Google, where they showed a trailer of some of the games that were on there. And it looked like a fishing game that could have been bait. So with the Gear VR, you have the trackpad on the side of the headset. But this, it seemed like there was this three degree of freedom controller with a trackpad. So maybe you could do some extra swipes. So maybe you could talk a bit about your integration with this new Google headset.
[00:04:58.070] Tommy Palm: Well, I can't talk too much about somebody else's hardware, unfortunately, but just a small comment. The fishing game was actually not our fishing game, so that I can say. But yeah, there definitely seemed to be three degrees of freedom for the controller. I think, from my point of view, it's great to see somebody giving mobile VR a take on the input, because that has been one of the big question marks and one of the things that's not standardized. I think most people agree that in the end we want to see our hands and reach out and touch things in VR but we're not quite there yet and this is a great way of going a bit in.
[00:05:39.090] Kent Bye: So you just sent out a press release announcing that you have a new title that you're also working on, and also that you're working with Google. So what can you tell us about what you've done so far?
[00:05:48.556] Tommy Palm: So the title is called Wonderglade, and it's a carnival-themed game. And again, we're aiming for making a very accessible, intuitive game where people, typically if they have this headset at home and want to show somebody else, We want to have a great entry point, a door opener, where you can understand what VR is and has the potential to be. And you can go in and instantly have fun with friends and family.
[00:06:21.944] Kent Bye: So is this a social integration thing? You're actually interacting with other people that you know?
[00:06:27.947] Tommy Palm: Well, I can't comment on that yet, unfortunately. You'll see. OK.
[00:06:35.034] Kent Bye: Well, let's go back to Bait, something that you have released and is out there. One of the things that was unique about that program was that I think it may have been the first app that had in-app purchases. So maybe talk a bit about selling digital objects and where you started with that and where you see that going.
[00:06:52.713] Tommy Palm: Well, I think, to me, games that are free has the ability to be much more social, because it's so much easier to tell a friend about a game that you really enjoy, and it's easier for them to just download it and check it out and see if that's something they're interested in. Games are such a complex product in itself, so I think it's a more fair contract with the consumer that they get to download it and check it out first, and then decide if they want to pay or not. So, yes, bait, the game is free and you can play the whole game without ever having to pay. And there is one in-app purchase where you can buy additional premium bait if you want to. And then you'll have a better chance of getting bigger and more rare fishes.
[00:07:37.505] Kent Bye: So what have you found so far? Are people actually doing the purchases inside the app?
[00:07:42.789] Tommy Palm: Yes, there is people who do it. But it's not very aggressive. It's very volunteer to buy this premium bait and it's not even pushed in the game very much. We felt that we wanted to understand more and see if this was viable. And I definitely believe that, especially in VR when you are in that world, buying virtual objects, can really make sense if it's great integration. I've definitely seen a lot of bad examples of free-to-play. I think a lot of more hardcore gamers have that negative connotation with free-to-play. But I think it's very much up to the game developer. There's also plenty of really great examples of games that is not cannibalizing on the game experience itself. But it is one of those things that's very hard from a game design point of view to find a good balance where you're generous with content and yet actually getting money from the players.
[00:08:42.434] Kent Bye: So when I gave a talk at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Conference where I kind of mapped out the different domains of the human experience and one of the spheres that was just below the identity and towards the private is your digital objects and avatars. What I see that as is people are going to end up going into virtual reality and buying these virtual goods to be able to express their identity in some way, but also express their values. In some way, communicate with other people, either their social status if they've achieved something, but also what their belief systems are. From your perspective, where do you see this digital virtual economy going in the future?
[00:09:22.363] Tommy Palm: Well, I think we're going to see that trend continuing to grow where the game itself is free and there is continuous revenue somehow for the app developers so they can continue developing in IP without having to release a sequel. So, yeah, no, I think that's something that a lot of young people are getting used to seeing on both PC and mobile and will eventually see a lot in VR as well.
[00:09:50.092] Kent Bye: And so going back to Candy Crush, it seems like this is a game where people really get immersed and engaged in it. And so what were some of the game design principles that you did in that game that you're going to kind of carry forward as you move forward into virtual reality?
[00:10:06.697] Tommy Palm: Well, it's always hard for me to talk about Candy Crush now, as that is an IP that belongs to a company that I'm no longer with, and I used to be a spokesperson there. But from a historical perspective, being there, I've worked on many, many mobile games before. But this was the first game that really integrated cross-platform, so you could play it either if you were on a PC or on a mobile. So it was very, very accessible. And it had those social aspects to it, where it was easy to share it with friends. And I think that social aspects of games doesn't necessarily need to be multiplayer or, you know, they can be very simple. It can be just that it's interesting to talk to your friends about this game. So even single-player standalone games can sometimes be very social game experience where you just love to chat about this game with another friend who's playing it. And I think that's one of the things that Candy Crush really succeeded with, that we saw a lot of, that was a common topic in the family. And it was so fun to see that not only guys were interested in playing games in the beginning, It was pretty much 50-50, so a lot of guys downloading games and females as well. But then I think the big difference was that there are so many games for guys, so they typically played other games, whereas a lot of the girls stayed in that games and continued playing.
[00:11:37.972] Kent Bye: Now, something like bait is, you know, it's fishing in VR. And, you know, some people, they go fishing and they're actually in nature and they're communing with actual physical earth. But in VR, you know, when I played bait, there was a moment where I was just like, okay, what am I doing? I'm fishing in VR, like, why am I doing this? And I haven't really played it again. I'm curious, this seemed like it could be like a very meditative thing for some people to kind of escape from whatever they're doing and then to just relax themselves. And so from your perspective, what kind of feedback have you heard so far from people playing bait?
[00:12:12.824] Tommy Palm: Yeah, it's definitely one of those things that we also seen from smartphone games. That's one of the way people like to interact with games, that they maybe had a stressful day at work and they want to kind of calm down a little bit before going to bed or something. And games can be really great at that, quick to forget what you were stressed about and just go into that a little bit negative state. So that's something that we were aiming with a lot with bait. It's one of those games where you, is it a game or is it an experience? Somewhere in between. It was definitely really interesting to see. I like fishing in real life. I would never replace it with with virtual reality fishing completely. I think the combination is best. You know, it's not so easy to go out fishing. We're from Sweden, so a lot of times the weather doesn't allow for any nice experience when you go out. And then a tropical island in virtual reality is much better.
[00:13:11.492] Kent Bye: What is the actual gameplay that is involved in bait? I mean, is it just kind of random you throw the bait out, or is there actual skill that you get in trying to detect where the fish is going to be?
[00:13:22.690] Tommy Palm: Well, there is some skills in hooking the fish and wheeling it in, but it's one of those cases where we make sure that that part is actually pretty simple, so it doesn't require you to be super skilled in being more open for a wider target audience. But we're still working on the game and doing some upgrades, so there might be some interesting development coming up soon.
[00:13:50.109] Kent Bye: So what is your response to people that may bring up the point that some of these casual games could be very addictive for people where they may just get completely immersed and do virtual fishing all day when they should be doing something that could be more productive in their lives?
[00:14:05.839] Tommy Palm: Well, I definitely think that that's something that virtual reality game makers eventually will have to be on the lookout at a little bit. I think it's always smart to make sure that there is in the game somewhere where there's a natural break so you can, as a player, not just get hooked and continue playing for Six or eight hours without taking a break. It's not it's not very good for you and that's been the case on PC games for a long time and then especially back when I was in the 80s and I was a teenager I could definitely get hooked on something like Ultima 5 and play that for hours and hours and hours through the night and So it is something that me and the team we talk about having like natural breaks where there's a good opportunity for you to stop playing and do something else for a while but then still be interested in coming back some other time. So it's one of those things how you think about game design. But I don't feel that virtual reality, especially on mobile phones, it's not there yet where people would lose themselves completely and never come back out. But with development going really quickly, we'll see where we're going to end up.
[00:15:26.272] Kent Bye: So during the Google I.O. keynote today, I was tweeting out the different news, and I said that the Daydream had a 6DoF controller, and I had a lot of people write me back saying, no, no, I think it's 3DoF. And I actually had a VR designer from Google say, it is 3DoF, however, there's a trackpad on there that you can move your finger around, and to do two extra degrees of freedom. I can imagine how you could start to get a little bit of depth with that extra trackpad, but it's this kind of thing where a lot of the 6-degree-of-freedom controllers, like with the HTC Vive, you have this full range of movement within a 3D space, and there isn't a lot of abstraction from doing different swipes with your fingers in order to compensate with something that is not fully natural. this controller seems like it's a little bit of a hybrid between something that's a little bit more natural but something that's still in the old paradigm of using two-dimensional trackpads to be able to have some interaction. So I'm just curious from your own perspective if you found that having those extra couple of degrees of freedom does give a little bit more design possibilities that go beyond what just a 3DOF controller would give.
[00:16:36.277] Tommy Palm: I definitely think that everybody wants absolute positioning. That's the best scenario, where you know your hands are exactly where they are in reality, and you can only get that if you have, at this point, to my knowledge, where you have stationary devices that is nailed up on a wall somewhere, and you know exactly where that zero point is. So then you get complete hand tracking, but you can do a lot of things with three degrees of freedom that also feels very natural. Just you don't have the full range of hands that you would in the case of like Oculus Touch controllers. When you actually look at and you see your hands and it's It's still an abstraction because you have to learn how to use them, but it's definitely the furthest along to kind of natural hand movements I've seen so far. But the fantastic thing that happens if you have hands is that it's so intuitive to see an object, just pick it up and then apply all the knowledge you have from the real world on the virtual world. Whereas if you look at baits that we implemented with just a single button for instance you have this abstraction where pushing the button means casting the rod holding the button means wheeling the bait in again and that requires teaching people something and that's it is harder and it becomes a little bit more abstract and less natural which is definitely something that we are striving to do as much intuitive things as possible.
[00:18:14.313] Kent Bye: Have you found that you get a little bit more level of immersion and presence when you're actually using even a 3DOF controller?
[00:18:19.876] Tommy Palm: Yeah, definitely. The more natural the controller is to the things that you are mimicking, so like casting a rod is much better than using a single button for that, for instance.
[00:18:32.748] Kent Bye: Now, I went to the IEEE VR conference and talked to Rob Lindemann, where he's doing a lot of looking at different user interfaces, and he's really focusing on non-fatiguing interfaces. And so what he does is look at tablets, sitting down and having a tablet that you're actually using a 2D interface to do some interfaces. And so there's a lot of things that he's been able to find that you're still able to do motions that are actually less fatiguing than giving the full range of six degrees of freedom. I'm really curious to see whether or not this new Daydream controller, having this hybrid combination of both three degrees of freedom as well as a trackpad, is able to kind of play with some interfaces that may be a little less fatiguing by just using the trackpad in combination with having those three degrees of freedom.
[00:19:20.912] Tommy Palm: Well, I think that my personal experience from playing the Vive, for instance, is that once you get properly immersed, if it's a game you really like, then you don't mind moving around quite a lot, for instance. So that's okay. Whereas if you need to hold your hands over your shoulders for a long time, then you get like static feeling in your shoulders and that wouldn't be good. That would be some other type of fatigue. So it all depends on what game you're designing and how long you want people to engage in it. Like it can be very okay to do something that's highly fatiguing if it's just a short sprint that you're doing for a minute or something and you're building up anticipation for doing that, etc. But yeah, that's also an interesting point. You probably don't want to hold your arm out straight for a very long time in a row. Then that's probably not good design. You're holding out the mic now for quite a long time during this interview.
[00:20:25.547] Kent Bye: So is Resolution Games primarily focused on just mobile VR because, you know, you find that that's going to be much better suited for these types of casual games?
[00:20:35.052] Tommy Palm: Well, we are very interested in both these two different branches of VR. I mean, on the console and PC side, you have the positional tracking and the three-dimensional or six degrees, as you call it. And I think eventually we'll see that on both platforms. We're a small outfit. We're 19 people. We have two teams. And it's important, if you're starting a business, to focus on something and do something really good. So we've said we want to focus on mobile VR. We like the price point. I think that's very attractive. And it's much easier for us to bring along our games and demo it. So I have it with me in my backpack, which I couldn't possibly if I had a game for Vive at this point. But yeah, now you have to start somewhere. I think down the line, I think these are going to be very similar. I think on the PC side, you probably won't have that cord that's now connecting, tying you to the wall. And on the mobile side, you probably will be able to see your hands one day.
[00:21:42.902] Kent Bye: Nice. And finally, what do you see as kind of the ultimate potential of virtual reality and what it might be able to enable?
[00:21:50.682] Tommy Palm: I think one of the things that really got me completely convinced that VR is going to be a significant human discovery is when I thought about the educational aspects of this. Everything else, if you're reading a book or if you're looking at some painting of something, it's an abstraction and you're interpreting it. Whereas in VR, when VR works, you're experiencing it directly, and the impact that will have on your memory and ability to learn something, I think is going to be very, very significant. And in the core, making those type of applications is all game technology. It's building virtual worlds and working with voice acting and building characters and everything that we do from day-to-day business. I'm super excited about where VR is going and it's taking up at faster speed than I would anticipate from the beginning when I started looking at this.
[00:22:49.224] Kent Bye: Awesome, well thank you.
[00:22:50.405] Tommy Palm: Thank you very much.
[00:22:52.086] Kent Bye: So that was Tommy Palm of Resolution Games. And they have a couple of casual mobile VR games. One is Bait, which is on the Gear VR. And they have Wonderglade, which is going to be released on Google's Daydream mobile VR headset, which is going to come out in the fall. So that will be released at the same time. So a couple of quick thoughts about this interview. First of all, it was a little bit of a boxing match, trying to get specific information out of Tommy. And there was this little interesting thing that happened while I was covering the Google I-O event, which is that I misreported that this controller that comes with Daydream was a 6DoF controller. And there's a lot of debate within. the discussions online, on Twitter, and then eventually I had some people from Google come back and tell me that, no, it is a 3DOF controller, but there is this trackpad that's there that gives you an extra two degrees of depth freedom. So I was able to kind of weave that into the interview and talk a little bit about that. And I've since had some other discussions with people here at Google, and it does indeed sound like there will be a trackpad that is on this three degree of freedom controller. And if you think about it, mobile VR does not have positional tracking. And so it actually kind of makes more sense to not have a positionally tracked hands because you're going to just want to forget that you're in VR and you're going to start moving around. And so if you think about it, it kind of makes you more stationary rather than trying to move around a lot. I know at SVVR 2015, Oliver Kralos, also known as Doc Ock, had made the point that it's actually really good to have a diversity of different types of VR input, because they're each going to have different specific strengths and weaknesses, and we're better off having a diversity of different tools that could be better in different use cases, rather than just having everybody do the exact same thing, and there's no differentiating factor between them. So I see that there's at least four or five different VR input devices that are out there right now. First of all is the HTC Vive, which is laser track controls with the lighthouse, and that gives you the absolutely best positional tracking at 360 degrees. It's just solid gold for doing room-scale VR. The Oculus Touch is pretty good with front-facing, and once you start to try to turn around, though, you can very easily lose tracking, and it's really meant to kind of facing forward, and the thing about the Oculus Touch is that it's a little bit more ergonomic, and you can also do a little bit more gestural controls, so doing hand movements is going to be a lot more expressive when you're in social VR. And so then you got the Leap Motion, which you get your actual physical hands. And that's from a camera that's inside out looking at your hands. And that's really good for being able to kind of really feel like you have your hands in an experience, especially if you have a mixed reality experience. And so that's going to be really great for that. And there's going to be other experiences where you really just want to have that sense of actual virtual hand presence. And then there's also the STEM system, which is electromagnetic, and that could have some more specific use cases as well, although there are some other issues that come with that in terms of potential drift and interference that could happen. But there could be specific use cases where the STEM system is actually a lot better than either the Oculus Touch optical tract or the Lighthouse laser tract. And so then there's this Daydream VR, which is yet another input control, which is only 3DOF, so 3 degrees of freedom, but yet you can still do a, with the touchpad, use your thumb to be able to pull objects towards you and away from you. You can point, you can draw. And the thing that was told to me was that it's a super low latency and it just feels really great. It gives you a really extra sense of presence in mobile VR. I'm actually really excited to see where one of these controllers takes mobile VR because mobile VR is quite frankly going to be the thing that is going to be driving a lot of adoption of virtual reality and it's going to be the thing that's accessible and that people can take their phones that they already have and just have this extra headset to be able to do a lot more capabilities within VR and to have an actual motion track controller along with that I think is going to be really huge when it comes out in the fall. So there's also just a quick other thought on Tommy Palm and the Resolution games is that you know there's a really interesting moment when I asked him about the game of Bait and he said you know a lot of people think of it either as a game or as an experience and so it's kind of interesting to think about how you could think about some of these casual VR games could just look more like experiences rather than having some sort of explicit goal. And there may be things that you're doing, but it's just kind of like this repetitive action that can be just super meditative and doesn't have to have this super intense game design. But it's really designed for people to kind of hop in and hop out. And so if there's any company that's really focusing on these types of casual games that kind of create this hybrid casual game slash VR experience, then I think it'd be really interesting to see what Wonderglade ends up being when it comes out for Google's Daydream in the fall. So, being here at Google I.O., there's a number of big announcements that happened at the keynote. If you haven't heard, Google announced that they have Google Assistant, which is essentially like a personal assistant that you talk to, as if it's your personal, like, assistant to help you organize different things and search. And there's a lot of voice-controlled input, I think, is a big takeaway here, is that, A lot of the products that Google is putting out is based upon voice as the primary input. And especially with mobile VR, you're going to see voice be the primary way of interacting with different experiences. But you're also going to have a control to be able to kind of point and click, which I think is useful as well. Also, there's been a lot of talk about Project Tango, and we went to a number of different sessions on that, on area learning, so being able to scan a room and be able to remember what that room looks like, a lot of their computer vision that they've been working on that's using a lot of different machine learning as well. as well as a session on combining the Raspberry Pi with their Cloud Vision API as well as their Cloud Speech API. So both of these are cloud-based programs where they basically have these neural networks on the back end where you speak into it or you send it an image and it sends it through the neural network and it responds with some sort of response and so it's kind of using this same type of Google Assistant type of AI but in the context of these robots or potentially in apps on Android or potentially even on the Daydream VR. Although I don't think that Daydream VR is going to be using the Cloud Vision much at all because that really is based upon the dual depth sensor cameras that you really need in order to identify things and where there was no big announcements here at all. There might be something here the rest of the week. Or it may have to wait until the Lenovo Developer Conference, which I think is coming up here in a couple of weeks in San Francisco. And I think that release is probably in the fall sometime when you start to see Project Tango. But the thing that I really took away is that the combination of a lot of these cloud-based APIs that are doing both image recognition as well as speech recognition Combined with the Project Tango, I think that is really a combination where you're starting to see a lot of mobile augmented reality applications that are super useful and really easy for developers to pay some sort of amount and service to these AI algorithms on the back end to be able to drive these different augmented reality applications. And so when we're looking to the future, it looks like that's a little bit of the Google strategy moving forward. A lot of really big, exciting news here at Google I.O., and I will continue to be doing some coverage here out the week. And follow me on at Kent Byeon Twitter. I've been doing a lot of different live tweeting from the different events. If you want to see a little bit more experiential age and emotional take on things, follow me on Snapchat at Kent By. 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