Plan for Russell Fincher

This plan summarizes my work as game designer on the recent release of Batman Begins Mobile.

Just released, my first effort on the mobile platform, specifically Batman Begins for S40, S60, and BREW devices. Adding to my responsibilities at Sickhead Games, I stepped over to Klear Games for a few months to bring this great re-invention of the Batman series to handheld devices all over the world. We're getting decent reviews at Gamespot. Check out screenshots and a movie at Klear's Batman Begins page.



Technology Ramp-Up/Limitations
Or ramp-down, as the case may be. As game designer, the first and possibly most important thing to understand about cellphone game development is limitations. We developed for 3 different platforms, and those platforms were ultimately ported to what must be dozens upon dozens of different devices. The smallest screen we developed for was 96x65 px and the largest was 176x208 px, then the game was ported to variations of those. Each platform was able to achieve a different maximum framerate. And the footprint of the game was drastically different for various phones. Some as small as 64k!. Luckily the programmers at Klear are amazing (and quite patient), and we were able to fit a decent version of the game onto each device. Which brings me to...

The Team
We've probably all experienced the difference it makes to have a great team. I've been fortunate enough to have been surrounded by incredibly competent people for years, Sickhead Games and the Batman Begins project included. Klear's staff is as professional and talented as they come. Please visit Klear's site to familiarize yourself with these folks. They've got big things in the works. Also, Klear brought on a number of great contract artists, most notably Mike Penrod, who is responsable for most of the stunning environmental graphics, and Bobby Pavlok as level designer. Bobby has worked on American McGee's Alice and Duke Nukem Forever, and currently teaches level design at the Guild Hall at SMU. The music was provided by Rich Douglas, who did a great job creating original compositions to suit the Dark Knight. All were a pleasure to work with and were as inspiring and they are talented.

Proprietary IP
Aside from a few restrictions on the NHRA license I worked with at Motorsims, this is the first published title I've worked on with heavy IP standards. We dealt with both Warner Brothers Online and DC Comics, each who obviously have an investment in the characters and story and wanted to make sure the lore and style of Batman wasn't compromised. Both were great to work with and finding solutions to narratives and gameplay was never a problem. And as it was also important not to reveal too much from the movie, we opted to follow a side-story from the movie's plot for this game.

The Gameplay
We initially had lofty goals for this title. We had envisioned a multi-genre game, but eventually realized that fitting such a game onto devices with such little space is currently an impossibility, so at Warner Brother's recommendation, we put all our efforts into bringing Batman to the cellphone world in the form of a classic side-scrolling platformer. Building on what Klear had begun with the previous Catwoman game, they added scrolling movement in favor of paginated movement. We decided on Batman's style of fighting, a list of his particular movements, attacks, defenses, enemies, and any special bat-devices. All decisions which really had to be kept fluid to accommodate narrative changes, surprises in device limitations, etc. This was my first experience in mapping character interaction, which is no small task even on a handheld device.

Wrap-up
Overall this was a very challenging project for me. As 3D gaming is becoming more and more sophisticated, we are all racing to stay on top of the technology curve (which, frankly, I rather enjoy). It's easy to forget that popular devices such as cellphones are still working under relatively great restrictions. However, without the ability to rely on such stunning visual effects, I was really given a chance to focus on simple gameplay and strong narrative. As a game creator I found this very liberating. The daily process of trying to fit more into less space was an exercise in efficiency and strategy. My experiences on Batman Begins Mobile have definitely enhanced my overall game development skills, and I recommend to anyone in game development that they spend time contemplating game creation with drastically different limitations.

Pimp
Batman Begins the movie comes out in the middle of June 2005 in the US and cellphone providers will begin carrying the game around that time. Check your provider. Also, keep an eye on Sickhead Games as we are knee-deep in Torque development and will be spending the remainder of the year on some ass-kicking projects. If you haven't checked it out, our Pipeline exporter, coupled with Cartography Shop, is a fantastic solution for level design/DIF creation.

Thanks for listening...

Russell Fincher
Lead Artist | Co-owner
Sickhead Games