This month I start a new activity on my blog. I decide to investigate for improving my knowledge on User Interface and Game Design for mobile devices and share my thoughts with some guru designers.
My first mini interview is with designer Juri Pratesi (Kurai.it) about his experience on mobile game designing at MicroForum International company.
I had the chance to talk with him and discover what it means to create graphic contents for mobile devices and how Flash Lite could change the designer's life.
You can see his works from these urls :
Kurai Portfolio Web Site
Invisible Man - Mobile Game - Screenshots
Calling Yuki - Mobile Game - Screenshots
Timeline Battlecruiser - Mobile Game - Screenshots
College basketball - Mobile Game
Bookmark on del.icio.us
ME: How did you get started as a designer, and what's the big diffrences from a Web Designer and a Mobile Designer ?
Juri: At the very beginning I wanted to become a comic artist so my first work experience at 16 has been as an artist.
Then a friend of mine asked me to work with him on a website for a TV show. It was 1997, that's how I started and got interested in web design.
The greatest difference between a web designer and a mobile designer is, as you can guess, the size of the screen you're working on. You often work in pixel art... it's funny when you have to draw landscapes... less funny when you have to draw sprite on a grid of 30X30 pixels :)
Another difference is the size of the files... it seems like you get back to the web Design of the 90s :D
Me: The most of your graphics were for Java games. How did designing for a technically limited machine inspire the game structure?
Juri: The game structure is absolutely influenced by the machine you're working for.
For technical and marketing reasons your .jar file should be 150 K for a S60 phone and 64 K for a S40 [tnx Simo for the Techical Advice], this is a great limitation speaking about graphic elements.
During the creative process the game designer usually thinks about small handsets and then add new elements for the biggest ones. This is to avoid great differences between the versions of the same game.
It’s different if we speak about Symbian games of course.
Me: What are your thoughts on Flash Lite design ?
Juri: Flash Lite gives more freedom to the designer. Untill today designers didn’t have the opportunity to create amazing graphic interfaces for mobile utilities, but with Flash Lite... wow... you can almost do what you want. Your MUSIC application is a great example of what a good designer can do.
Me: Who do you consider your major competitors ?
Juri: There are a lot: EA, Glu and THQ wireless, but I can say Gameloft is the major one: they’re great developers with great ideas and have very good artists/designers.
I have to mention Microforum because it’s a small team with great talents :)
Me: How much do mobile games cost?
Juri: It depends on the mobile game you’re willing to develop of course. I know about very good games developed by a team of three people in two months or less. It’s not so expensive. The greatest problem is the porting, it’s expensive because it requires a lot of time... A LOT!
Me: How do you see the Flash Lite landscape ? Do you think it will be quite easy for Flash Lite to expand quickly in the mobile market ?
Juri: As a designer I can say I hope it will. I'm sure that once designers and programmers will understand the potential of Flash Lite both for games and utilities it will become a standard in mobile applications developing.
Me: So do you believe that the penetration of Flash Lite depends on developers ? Or a technology become a standard when handset manufacturers will embed it on the mobile devices ?
Juri: Both: I think handset manufacturer will be interested in embedding new technologies in their devices once the tecnology shows it's potential.
Juri, thank you for this interview.
I really appreciate it, as does the flash lite community!
Marco....REALLY GOOD POST! :-)
Very interesting for me and Alberto :-)
Bye
Posted by: Dave | March 04, 2006 at 10:55 AM
It's interesting because I was talking with Bill Perry this week at webDU, and he has said the same thing in regards to handset manufacturers (and operators) needing to see a flow of content being created by the developers in order to be convinced of Flash Lite as a platform they should support. The Flash Lite Exchange is a marketing tool for Adobe in terms of being able to show the operators and manufacturers what's being created (I know we've discussed the role of the Exchange before). If the developer community becomes a loud voice in the market, even though the market is almost non-existant at the moment (compared to current standard platforms), then it becomes easier for Adobe to do their work in getting the players onto handsets and to get the operators to start including FL in their prouct offerings. Flash Lite ... say it loud, say it proud ;)
Posted by: Dale Rankine | March 04, 2006 at 02:04 AM