Bestowed with the title of the ‘Most Innovative Game’ amongst 66 games submitted from 13 countries at Casual Connect Asia 2013 held last month at Singapore between 21-23 May, Circulets, the two player game mobile game by Hashstash Studios has contributed greatly to the Indian Gaming Industry!!The game participated at the Indie Prize showcase held during the international game developers conference.
‘Circulets’ brings forward an engaging game play of collecting tiny colored circles and scoring points and the game developed in a span of 3 weeks by Hashtash. Released on IOS and Android Platforms in the first week of May, Circulets has been able to build its space in the gaming world and received positive reviews!
To know more about the win at Casual Connect Asia 2013 and Upcoming Plans for Circulets,Animationxpress.com’s Zeenia Boatwala caught up with Kinshuk Sunil, Founder of Hashstash Studios.
Heartiest congratulations on ‘Circulets’ winning The ‘Most Innovative Game’ award at Casual Connect Asia 2013, please share your thoughts with us.
Delighted to see Circulets winning the ‘Most Innovative’ game award at the Indie Prize showcase at Casual Connect Asia 2013.The showcase included 66 games from 13 countries across the globe, and 10 games were awarded for achievements in specific aspects of game development. We were awarded for bringing innovation as a new form of game play and engagement to the mobile platform.
Showcasing your game at such a huge platform must have been a great feeling?
We were very happy about the opportunity to showcase circulets at an international forum and were looking forward to the exposure and visibility that would come with the conference. Winning the award was the icing on this cake.
So which aspects of ‘Circulets’ you feel are the prime contributors behind this win?
For me, the winning aspects would be, the open ended, two player game play: while same device-two player games for the mobile platform have existed for some time now, each of those experiences has been very structured towards building a specific form of engagement between players. With circulets, there are no such rules. The game can take any form, can fit any scenario as the players can imagine. It takes the form of a toy; you can play with in infinite way and the minimalist art: a lot of open-ended nature of the game comes from its minimalist art; the art does not get in the way of the game and does not make the player think in specific directions. The art is being interpreted by our players in different ways and thus they are exploring the game in many more ways that we could have imagined.
How was the selection and nomination process?
For Indie Prize, the game developers submit their games for the showcase. You are not expected to submit for specific categories (in fact these categories are not even announced). You submit for the showcase and if shortlisted, you stand to be awarded by the jury. The jury goes through all the submitted games and highlights games that take the art form forward in specific aspects. Feeling extremely happy to be selected as the most innovative game amongst 66 games out of which, some of these games were very popular and successful games like Pixel People, La Mulana, Puzzle Retreat, Bitejacker, Alien Hive, Dreadout and many more.
We would like to know about the response that Circulets has received since its release?
The response for the game has been favorable, but we can hope for more. The game has been consistently rated highly: 4.79 out of 5 on the App Store (from 19 reviews in 6 countries) and 4.72 out of 5 on the Play Store (from 18 reviews). Our press reviews aggregate to 85%, right now, from 14 reviews.
Since launch, we have now acquired about 40,000 users (all platforms combined) in three weeks, and have about 8000 daily active players. We are still following up numbers on player behavior within the game, what modes and themes are popular, how are players consuming the game, and so on. We are not sure how favorable these numbers are, but we plan to keep learning from our experiences and keep building a formidable playing experience in future.
Could you share some best reviews that you received for this game?
All of our game reviews are quoted on the game website (www.circulets.com). Some that we really like to include are:
Ford Seewus, the surfing violinist: “it’s like a new form of Rock, Papers, Scissors when you need to make quick decisions between friends”
Spanner Spencer, 100percentindie.com: “It’s an intensely simple game, but the action is as furious as any FPS or beat-’em-up.”
Prasad, gsmarena.com: “one of the best two-player games available on mobile right now. It’s simple, fun, looks good and at just $0.99, is quite cheap”
Preshit Deorukhkar, beautifulpixels.com: “I’ve been playing with friends and it has been a lot of fun. They get used to the game very quickly and start enjoying it even sooner.”
Sameer Desai, mcvindia.com: “…is a unique two-player tabletop game for touch devices”
The varied user feedback really makes us happy, seeing how different players are extracting different purposes for the game.
After this win, what is your vision now for ‘Circulets’?
Casual Connect was an eye opening experience and we received tons of feedback on our game play and visual design. We plan to make the experience snappier and dynamic, and give a new range of social integration to our players. Our design philosophy for the game, from the beginning, has been about making a game about people playing the game, and we are looking at how we can extend that experience and bring in social integrations that make sense.
Are you planning any new features for the game?
Visual Design, Preset Modes, Social integration are the three aspects of the game that we are exploring. It is too early for us to have a clear direction, but we would like to do something more in these domains.
Would you like to reveal about your upcoming games?
We have already started working on a new game with our friends at Bangalore-based Path Seventeen (www.xvii.in). These are early days for the project, so we don’t have much news to share about it. But expect some word from us in the coming months.
Did you crack any partnership deals at Casual Connect Asia?
We made many new friends at this Casual Connect. And it was a fantabulous experience overall, exposing us to a lot of players in the industry and a many more developers. While we were not looking for deals to crack at this edition, we hope some of these friendships will lead to newer opportunities in future.
Circulets is available on:
Apple App Store: https://bit.ly/Circulets
Google Play Store: http://bit.ly/circulets
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