A Quick Q&A With Madarina Games

Recently, I had the privilege of talking to Peter from the indie studio Madarina Games , creators of the highly successful game Charlie Hop .

. We wrote an articleon the game shortly before it was released, and since then it has become an undeniable hit, reaching over 100,000 downloads.

IGM: It’s been several months now since Charlie Hop was initially released and, by all accounts, it has been extremely well-received. From your perspective, would you consider the game to be a success?

Peter: Charlie Hop is our first published title. Since we are indie developers, we can say that we are pretty happy with over 100.000 players and average rating around 4,4/5.0 to 4,5/5.0. However, we are still working on the game, making it better every day. There is never too many players.

IGM: Physics-based platforming games tend are rather common on mobile platforms. What do you think it is that sets Charlie Hop apart from other similar titles?

Peter: As far as the controls go, we used standard three-arrow navigation system to move the main character around. The twist of course, is the ability to rotate the world by 90 degrees. We also spent a lot of time creating the whole atmosphere. With combination of retro music, graphics, gameplay, puzzles and Charlie’s character, we tried to achieve an unique mobile gaming experience.

IGM: Developing video games is a tough job, and it’s not uncommon for games to be delayed for days, or even weeks, due to difficulties that arise during the development process. Were there any issue that arose that particularly hindered the development process?

Peter: Development of Charlie Hop went quite smoothly. We spent more time on the optimisation for the low-end devices that we thought we would, but other than that, there were no problems at all.

IGM: Starting up an Indie Studio can be a daunting task. If you had the chance to start over, is there anything that you’d do differently?

Peter: We are a really young indie studio. So far we do not regret anything we did and let’s hope it stays that way.

IGM: Are you planning on making a sequel to Charlie Hop at this time, or do you intend to work on other titles?

Peter: Right now, we are just trying to make the current version of the game as good as possible. There are new level packs on the way to keep our players busy. We also have fresh prototypes on the table and new games are definitely coming out in the future.

If you haven’t had the chance to check it out yet, you can pick up Charlie Hop right now for either iOSor Android. If you want to learn more about Madarina Games, you can contact them via their websiteor Facebook page.