Interview with Swoop Software
March 22, 2005 | Stu Willis | |
Kitty Spangles Solitaire is a brand new take on traditional Klondike featuring colourful characters and an intuitive fun interface. It's also exclusively for OS X. The game developed by a Swoop Software, a husband and wife team that have been developing Mac games for quite a long long time. They made their reputation with great games like Swoop, Bubble Trouble and Deimos Rising.
Stu: Swoop Software is a husband and wife team. Who does what?
Sheryn: Accounting, web site development and maintenance, art where required. David: Overall design, research, programming, anything geeky, smacking Grunts in Halo 2. Depending on the project, we contract work out, such as character illustration by icon guru David Lanham and other programming by Alex Metcalf. Stu: You have a long history in developing for the Mac, having created such games as Bubble Trouble and Deimos Rising. Why the Mac? Sheryn & David: Style goes a long way! It's a platform and a market that values aesthetics and doing things well. The Mac has clearly been designed for people, instead of being cobbled together. The Mac community as a whole is more concerned with the quality of their computing than just getting the cheapest price or doing things like everyone else. Stu: How does developing for Mac OS X differ from developing for the classic OS? Sheryn: It's so pretty! David: Mac OS X is much more stable, programming is simpler and the tools are better. The ability to really multitask has been a great improvement. Gone are the days of firing up a renderer and hoping it won't crash or bring the machine to its knees. Oh, and it's pretty. Stu: What's it like developing games in Australia? Sheryn and David: For the most part, pretty comfortable, especially with broadband. Distance is a problem, but we were able to attend Macworld San Francisco this year and got to meet some cool Mac people for the first time, face-to-face. The weather is great. However, offers of house-swapping to Tuscany during our summer will be seriously considered. Stu: With Kitty Spangle Solitaire, you are appealing to as many gamers as possible, especially women and girls. Was this influenced at all by the success of Bubble Trouble? Sheryn: We've created three shoot-em-up games essentially for 'boys' and needed to even up the score! David: Yes, we had a lot of fun developing BT with Alex Metcalf. The feedback, especially from chicks, has been very rewarding for us.
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