One of the leading iPhone publication companies, Chillingo LTD, is known all to well for searching high and low for RPG style shoot-em-up games, especially those that involve zombies and other creatures that go bump in the night such as Minigore HD, now available for iPad. It came without mention that Chillingo would push a new and upcoming title called Zombie Wonderland, developed by an emerging studio called Xoobis. I got to speak with Xoobis President, Alex Bortoluzzi this week regarding their company, iPhone experience, and upcoming game for the iPad.

Company Name: Xoobis
You’re Name: Alex Bortoluzzi
You’re Title: President
You’re URL: www.xoobis.com

Q: How do you think the iPhone and iPad has revolutionized the mobile phone industry?

My first mobile platform was actually an Apple Newton. It was the coolest thing I’ve ever used at the time, and definitely ahead of it. Since then, anything with a modicum of computational power I could carry along was welcome. With the iPhone, though, it was like I was finally touching the future. More importantly, it was functional, tangible, easy to use and powerful enough to perform advanced tasks once only relegated to computers, and it would fit in your pocket. With the iPad, you get all that, in a larger area, with great possibilities for displaying your content, be it video, games, images and applications that will take friendly computing to a next level

Q: How do you think the iPhone or iPad has revolutionized the portable gaming industry with contenders such as Sony and Nintendo?

The moment people realized they had a new platform where they could actually develop their own games for and explore completely new ways to interact with players, the iPhone and the iPad became the platforms to beat.

Away from the rigid constraints of large console manufacturers and publishers, a new way to play was brought to the masses with incredible success. Players now can interact with developers in a way that was unheard of before. Gamers now have influence during the development and help steer the outcome of a game. And now the iPad is expanding on that. Touch, pinch, swipe and tap are all common household words now, and I believe a new era of board type multiplayer games will flourish on it. And I can’t wait for a front facing camera on both machines.

Q: What separates your company from your competitors with mobile phone applications?

From the get go, we decided to make cool, mobile oriented products that people would enjoy interacting with. Simple, accessible, funny and great looking. We don’t want to be too tied to traditional gameplay mechanics. Now that you can literally interact with the screen with your fingertips, we better take advantage of that.

Q: What is your company background, size (employees, developers, etc), and company inspirations?

We are a very small huge team. I work from my home office, and work with people all over the world. We have artists in Los Angeles, New Jersey and Miami. Our animators are in San Francisco. The publisher is in the U.K. Our soundtrack came from Tempere, Finland. Code came from San Diego, Los Angeles and currently from Halifax, Canada. I have Skype meetings with the crew daily, and use a couple of third party services to make everything run smoothly.

Our idea for Xoobis is to keep it a lean company, that makes cool games, keeping the development costs under control, so we can keep a tight team delivering neat, fun and good looking games that we had the time and money to polish, and be proud of. It might be a little crazy business decision, but I believe that people will see it for what is worth, and enjoy playing our games the same way we enjoy making them.

Q: Do you outsource any projects or development, if so, how much?

We do outsourcing, mostly to find the best talent for the job, anywhere. It’s more about the quality and diversity than costs, as they are not astronomical on the mobile arena. At least not yet. But the majority of the development relies on Xoobis, as I’m responsible for the original concept, most of the art that went in the game, voice-overs, sound effects, design, gameplay, etc. We also handle all the online presence, Facebook fanpage and Twitter in-house, and rely on small power team to handle a lot of other non-development related duties. It’s a very organic endeavor!

Q: Advancements in graphics and animations in the mobile phone industry have astronomically grown within the past couple of years. How much time does your company devote to graphical, animation, and sound production for mobile applications? Are there areas that you focus on?

Coming from an art background in game development, I believe that a good looking game is crucial. We made a real effort to ship a great looking game with Zombie Wonderland, and Xoobis will always strive to deliver great looking games that are fun to play. Besides, I really like to play beautiful games, that transport me to a little alternate reality of sorts and inspires us to reach a higher standard. Ugly games with great gameplay always feel incomplete to me. And pretty games that play badly are a waste of anyone’s time and money, because at the end of the day, gameplay is king.

Q: How many applications has your company planned, developed, or created at any given time?

We are a small development studio, so a single title at a time for now. That’s not to say we don’t have any other concepts or ideas being developed, but we like to focus on the project at hand and make sure the players have their say and are heard. And that Xoobis delivers on the promises.

Q: What do you think of the iPhone or iPad Operating System in comparison to other mobile platforms? Are Apple’s competitors finally producing a comparable product or has the iPhone already monopolized the niche market?

The best thing about the iPad and iPhone is that the OS and the hardware strive to disappear from the user experience, and that’s a good thing. It’s like the hardware is just a window to a lot of great content, instead of something you have to wrestle with. The iPhone made smartphones accessible and popular, something that several makers are still struggling to achieve. Besides, the software development environment behind them is great, and the App Store is a good way to showcase and distribute your work.

As for an Apple monopoly in the market place, it’s the product of a coherent approach to the market. A store that is user friendly and welcoming to users, hardware and software that allows for rapid development and distribution by developers, all that allied to an inviting profit sharing model, makes for a great combination.

Q: Is your company currently developing for other mobile platforms, if so, which ones and why?

No, we are iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch exclusive at the moment.

Q: Marketing an application can be a very difficult task. With so many applications being developed and released on a daily basis, capturing user attention in an App Store is challenging. What have you found to be an effective way to market your products to users?

In a market that is very saturated, any help in capturing eyeballs to your product is welcome. Our work with Chillingo certainly helped us in two aspects. One is the fact that it brings legitimacy to the work we are doing, as Chillingo is known for releasing only really cool games, and the other is their support in testing and approving of the product, allied to a great PR effort to make sure the game is known around the world.

Q: Following the response above, what do you think of the store review process? Is it helping or hurting your business? What are some recommendations in order to speed up this process?

Coming from the console world, Apple’s review process is quite straightforward, actually. But I’m not too versed in how the review process works behind closed doors, and it’s up to them to make sure their clients are getting the respect they deserve. I’m confident we won’t run into trouble, as we are making everything very transparent from a developer stand point. Also, we are using Unity, and the games developed with it are usually very clean and conforming to Apple’s guidelines.

Q: What do you think about other application review websites? Are they effective at providing in-depth reviews of applications and helping market your products? Or is your company experiencing challenges of trying to find quality application websites? What do you think of Appmodo?

This is still a very young market and I believe there is room for a lot of sites to add their flavor to the review of apps and games. As reviews are very subjective, it takes a good editorial body to attract and keep a community, so the least able will probably go by the wayside. With Chillingo working on our PR campaign, Xoobis will leave that to the pros and focus on making great mobile games.

I find Appmodo a great aggregator site to find everything mobile, covering what’s happening right now on the mobile world. I really like the way it’s presented, in a streamlined and informative way.

Q: What is your favorite application?

I have tons of apps and games in my iPhone and iPad, and there are several that I can’t live without, but to point to a single one is very difficult. I love Red Laser, Shazam, Sleep Cycle, Flixster, among several others. As for games, Minigore, MyTown, Doodle Jump, Zombie Smash, I Dig it, and The Deep Pinball have a soft spot in my heart.

Q: What is your most popular application? Have you received any awards or achievements for that application?

Zombie Wonderland! I’m hoping for all that you said above! Wish us luck!

Thank you very much Alex Bortoluzzi and Xoobis for your time.

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