Gadgetell Interview: Robert Sprogis, VP Your World Games, publisher of The Shroud

We had the opportunity to speak with Robert Sprogis, Vice-President of Your World Games, publish of The Shroud. The game is a fusion of the farming sim Harvest Moon and the original Legend of Zelda for the NES. It is designed for play on GPS enabled mobile phones and can be found here.

1. Robert, we appreciate you taking the time to sit down and offer our readers a glimpse into your current project, The Shroud. Can you please tell our readers what the Shroud is all about?

The Shroud is a role playing game for the mobile platform. Hopefully I don’t come across as too overconfident here, but it will be the best game for this platform yet. It has an incredibly deep single player mode, as well as a multiplayer component that uses the latest phones’ GPS capabilities.

2. What sort of handsets are required to play it?

The single player versions of the game will run on most handsets. But because the game is visually superior to other mobile games, phones with larger screens are ideal. GPS enhanced phones are obviously crucial to playing the location based aspect of the game, but most modern high end phones have this capability. The only determining factor as to whether or not someone can play the GPS version is operator support. Long story short, the Shroud will run on pretty much any phone made in the last two years, but the ideal gameplay experience will be had on a GPS phone from the last few months. The game is certainly pushing the technology, sometimes I feel like we are waiting for the tech to catch up with us!

3. Are there security issues you’ve had to address with the game, considering the GPS component? Will be people be worried that others are watching them?

Protecting people’s rights is paramount to Your World Games. If I am playing a game on Xbox 360 Live, the Internet or even The Shroud I certainly want to know I am safe. Both physically and financially, I say financially as there seems to always be a new way to lose your credit identity these days. I’ve said this in other interviews before, but we designed the Shroud first from a consumers point of view and then from a business point of view. We did not want to create a game no one would like and enjoy playing and we have carried that mentality over to our security features as well. I am pleased to say that we’ve looked at the security issues, and we have found that there is no more risk of playing the GPS component of the Shroud than there is using GPS in one’s car to get directions to the movies. There isn’t any personal info being used when playing the Shroud and no one will ever be able to find out where another player is. The only organization with the ability to access a player’s location is the operator and well quite frankly they have always had that power.

4. Did you develop the game to primarily develop GPS gaming, or is the emphasis on a single player, more evolved mobile game?

That is a hard question to answer as I don’t see this as either a single player game with GPS gaming or a GPS game with single player features. The Shroud is best looked at as being almost 2 separate games. A fantastically feature rich single player game and a state of the art revolutionary GPS enabled game. There will be people who want nothing to do with the GPS game, which is fine as we have an amazing single player game for them to play. On the flip side there will be people who scramble to get the latest GPS phones just so they can play the GPS version of The Shroud. In some ways comparing the two versions is like comparing apples and oranges. They are both fruit but taste nothing alike. It is our hope that all our games in the future will be GPS enabled and that people will play the Shroud as a stepping stone to more engrossing GPS enabled games. I do hope however that players will migrate from the single player version to the GPS version and at least get a taste of GPS gaming. It really is pretty cool!

5. How does the GPS integrate into the game?

First let me say that even if you own a GPS phone and are using the GPS version, playing a GPS challenge is entirely optional. “GPS Challenges” are initiated by a player physically moving into a hotspot, or a “breach.” It is within these areas that evil is seeping out into the game world. It is necessary here to get a bit deeper into the story of the Shroud… there are places where monsters and other evildoers have broken through to the real world. These are the “breaches” – from here evildoers begin their fight against all that is good!

In terms of the GPS, the only way to close a breach is to actually go there. Once a player enters, they will then participate in an in-game challenge – complete the challenge rid that area of monsters and add to your high score. Players with GPS compatible phones will be alerted to breaches, so they know to play. A compass will point them in the direction they need to go, and they will have to physically move themselves to these hotspots in order to play. Once completed, new breaches will be revealed, and players will have to continue to move themselves to new breaches.

6. Is the Shroud ahead of its time concerning phone tech? Are you worried a lot of people won’t be able to play it?

I do feel like the game is a bit ahead of mobile phone technology – I would love to have the processing ability of a PSP or even a Nintendo DS! But I truly believe that the mobile platform offers a lot of advantages, even if not everyone has GPS tech or the graphics aren’t as good as the traditional handhelds. But we were very, very careful to make sure lots of people can play the Shroud, we have tested the game on a seemingly endless number of handsets. If you have a high end phone, The Shroud will be at its best, but if you don’t, it will still play just fine. Sure some phones can’t support the GPS version but that should not stop people from downloading the single player version which assuming people have bought a new phone in the last decade should be able to play The Shroud.

7. Who is your competitor? Gameboy DS games? Other mobile games? PSP?

All mainstream entertainment is our competitor. I don’t look at many mobile games right now as our competition, because they seem content to offer only casual gameplay. The Shroud is a real game!

8. I’ve read elsewhere that there are farming challenges in the game? Can you explain this?

The farming challenges is the International Farming League (IFL), a component of the game that lets you compete against others at things like chopping wood or growing a the largest variety of different crops. We loved Harvest Moon, we were certainly influenced by that game. The IFL is not GPS-enabled, it is something designed to add more depth by bringing competition into the mix. Winning an IFL event will result in the player being awarded points which will then be added to the IFL leader board, which will viewable at The Shroud’s website. Upon the close of each month’s competition a winner will be crowned and rewarded.

9. What games have influenced the Shroud?

Harvest Moon, as I just mentioned, is a big one. All of the Zelda games had a big impact on me as well, I’ve played all of the Gameboy versions, and they taught me that a compelling RPG could be made on a small screen. Modern MMO’s like WOW have motivated me as well, because I’m fascinated with perpetual virtual worlds where people connect and play with each other.

10. Are there any cell phone games that have influenced you?

Actually quite a few games have influenced me, not in the typical sense however. I’ve never played a cell phone game and said “wow that was great!”. I wish we could do that. Rather quite the opposite. Apart from the really casual puzzle games like Tetris, every cell phone game I’ve played have actually disgusted me. At times the controls and graphics have made me want to hurl my phone across the room. But as it turns out this strong reaction I keep having to cell phone games is actually a good thing as it inspired Your World Games to create the Shroud. Basically by looking at cell phone games now on the market we pretty much tried to do the exact opposite and buck the trend completely.

11. Bill Gates recently said something along the lines of “Why would we develop a handheld Xbox when everyone is already carrying a cell phone?” What are your thoughts on this?

I couldn’t agree more. Look at the installed base of phones, I do believe the number of cell phones in the US topped 200 million just recently. And look at the number of people playing videogames who may not want to go buy a DS or PSP, much less carry something else around! Then compare the cost. Basically, there are a lot of people out there carrying the technology to play good games right now, but don’t do it because they have no idea where to get the games. I think this will improve as the operators realize the demand and urgent need to fix things. It is time for mobile games to break out of the casual ghetto.

12. Can cell phones replace the current popular handhelds, namely the Nintendo DS and PSP?

There will always be a place for handhelds dedicated only to gaming, especially as long as Nintendo keeps delivering such high quality content. And no phone is going to match the screen size of the PSP any time soon. But mobile phones are catching up in terms of processing power, and the operators are learning about games, so I do believe that mobile gaming will certainly carve into Sony and Nintendo’s market share.

Well Robert, we wanted to thank you again for taking the time to offer our readers a glimpse into the Shroud and the new possibilities this type of game is exploiting. We are looking forward to seeing people on the streets interacting with one another in The Shroud and in real life.