Zombie Wonderland 2: Outta Time!

[Editor's Note: This article an another in our ongoing series of interviews with app makers. Our desire is for these interview articles to give you insight not only into a specific app but also about the app making industry at large.]

Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for AppPicker, Alex. Give me a moment to introduce you to our readers. Your name is Alex Bortoluzzi and you are game director and CEO at Xoobis, which is a kind of super cool, indie game boutique, is that about right?

That’s correct! We are an awesome indie studio located in Venice  Beach, California. There’s nothing like making games a block from the ocean.

What games has Xoobis released in the past?

Xoobis released Zombie Wonderland in June 2010. It skyrocketed to 5^th place on the Top Paid Apps in just under two weeks. Zombie Wonderland was a great title, and it really resonated with mobile gamers. Making a sequel was matter of when, not if – except that we wanted to deliver a true sequel, not one of those 1.5 releases that simply add content and leave the game itself unchanged.

So, we’ve heard that the second installment of Zombie Wonderland, Zombie Wonderland 2: Outta Time is coming our way just before Halloween. So when can we expect it and what does it offer?

Yes, we are working frantically on Zombie Wonderland 2: Outta Time! to deliver the best possible combination of Zombie Survival, Tower Defense and Time Management in a single package. Unfortunately, we won’t be able to deliver it before Halloween anymore, as we want to polish it some more. There is so much good stuff in the game we didn’t want to rush it – one of the many joys of independence.

We are aiming for the holidays now.

Tell me, why is Zombie Wonderland 2 that much cooler and more awesome than any other zombie killing game out there?

Alex Bortoluzzi, Xoobis CEO

You’re right – there are already way too many zombie games out there. We didn’t want to make your usual “Undead Shoot’ Em Up” — you know the type: acquire rocket launcher, use flamethrower, shoot zombies to pieces, blood everywhere. We wanted to make an original game with gameplay no one has experienced before. So we added weird weapons and unusual levels. Our zombies don’t bleed red blood, they spill green goo all over the place when killed. And you have to clean up after that – talk about a novel concept in gaming.

We have a ton of content in ZW2: 25 different zombies, 12 levels, 2 overworlds and 20+ weapons. And the best part is that these zombie types and weapons are all unique. Where have you seen a Ballista with a toilet plunger with TNT stick tied to it? Or a Wasp Grenade? Or a Zombievore plant. a turret-like contraption that protects Chuck from the zombie horde? Yes, we have all that and more, much more.

Chuck is back, he is a legendary zombie killer, or shall we say, cleaner, given that zombies are already dead.  So in the original Zombie Wonderland, he had these great one-liners like “You guys are supposed to be dead, why don’t you act like it,” and “Oh, I love the smell of Zombie in the evening,” can we look forward to more of these great one-liners in the sequel? Want to give us an exclusive sneak preview of your favorite one-liner from ZW 2?

One-liners and funny quips are one of Chuck’s many talents. He is very vocal about his work… and zombies, of course. In ZW2 we have a huge variety of level-specific quips and a bunch of zombie-specific ones, too. One of my favorites is when he sings “I like to shoot it, shoot it! I like to… Shoot’em!!” like that famous Real to Real song, “I like to move it”. It’s a new classic in the making.

So, the original ZW was supposed to be a three-month project and in the end it took you 7 months and a whole lot of volunteer work from a whole bunch of friends and even strangers who donated their time and skill. What was the development timeline and budget for ZW2 like?

Yes, ZW was a different beast altogether. I worked from our home office, mostly on my own and using Skype to coordinate with people around the world. My wife worked mostly on non-game stuff, like the business side of things, plus all the operational stuff, legal, PR, websites and so on. I had a bunch of great people helping us in unexpected (and very welcome) ways.

Now on ZW2, we are working with our lean and very talented team in-house: 5 artists, animators and designers, plus a team of coders based in Halifax, Canada. We do everything we can here and outsource the rest to contractors. Like ZW, the timeline was incredibly short – especially for a game this big. We have been working hard on it for the past 16 weeks, with 4 more to go. So around 20 weeks total. Budget-wise, we are being very conservative in order to maximize the ROI for everybody in the team.

What did you learn from your experience with ZW 1 and brought with you to the development of ZW 2?

I’ve been developing games since 1997, and all that knowledge really helped during the development of ZW1. Now on ZW2 we are much more efficient and streamlined. Development was much faster and of higher quality, for example. I had more time to help with the creative vision and let the art and code happen around it. The results are impressive to say the least.

Zombie Wonderland 2: Outta Time! trailer

If you were writing a recipe book for how to make a game app, what would be the essential ingredients that go into making the product possible? In other words, can you describe for me, in brief, everything I would need and would need to do to develop, produce, publish, market and sell a game? How does it all start? What are the different departments involved in producing the application?

Whoa, that’s a big one. Making games usually starts with a spark, that moment when you play a game and go “I can do that, but better!” Soon enough you have an idea you’re passionate about. To move forward, you’ll need to be able to model, texture and animate 2D and 3D objects. You may also have to create sound effects and write dialogue.

A core skill is to design gameplay, understanding difficulty levels (ramp-up) and narrative. Once you have figured out the core elements, then put yourself to work. It will be tough: hard work, non-stop, for several months.

Once the game is ready, you may want to lure a good publisher to help in promoting the game, unless you want to do it yourself or with the help of outside PR. You can’t forget about all the legal aspects of starting a company either, plus organizing industry contacts and nurturing long-term relationships with VIPs and contractors alike. It’s an insane amount of work, but it can be extraordinarily rewarding as well.

Ever think about developing non-gaming software? Like a cool utility of some sort? If so, what might it be?

Xoobis only makes games, but our sister company, Status Not Quo, develops mobile apps for business and entertainment, along with some serious back-end software, logistics and corporate websites.

Before your work at Xoobis, you had developed twelve games, some of them were really big budget like Spiderman and Transformers, but I want to hear about the lower-budget stuff, for example, what was the first game you ever worked on?

My frst game was called Adrenix, published by Playmates interactive. It was a 3D shooter where you controlled a spaceship through several levels. Our worlds needed to have less than 1,200 polygons – for an entire level!  Most games nowadays use this many polygons to display a character’s head. It was on a small company, but the game never got much traction with the publisher, and I left to work at Treyarch soon after.

At Treyarch, I worked on Draconus: The Cult of the Wyrm. It was one of the coolest experiences ever. We had it all: a talented team, a start-up-like atmosphere, plenty of freedom to be creative and no one telling me to spend less time polishing the product. It was an awesome time, even on a tight budget.

The knowledge of low-poly modeling and texturing came super handy when transitioning from big-budget AAA console titles to mobile, where your texture and polygon budgets have to be carefully taken into consideration.

What are the benefits of having Chillingo publish your apps instead of doing it solo?

Chillingo brings more than just awareness to your title. They know mobile games. They have been in this industry for years, even before smartphones were all the rage. So when you send them your build, the feedback and requests are always spot-on. They really help you make your game be the best it can be, and become as polished as any Chillingo game out there.

Finally, why should we download and play ZW2 when it comes out? And what can we expect from Xoobis in the future?

The first Zombie Wonderland allowed players to enjoy several genres blended into one, while keeping things on the tongue-in-cheek side of the things. We’re taking it up to 11 for the sequel.

Where else can you shoot a bullet that extracts the flesh out of zombies? How about a tentacle inside a crate that loves to slap zombies around? What other game has a vegetarian vampire? Or a zombie Pharaoh? Only in Zombie Wonderland 2:Outta Time! – you have no choice but to download it!

Xoobis is poised to make more of this type of highly polished experiences, never “copying” other games and always pushing the hardware to its limits. Thanks for the opportunity to talk to AppPicker – and for the great questions. We really appreciate it!