Introduction

Welcome to our in-depth report on what's new in the iPhone/iPod Touch version of Payback, a GTA-style game that we've developed over 10 years across many different platforms. In this article we're going to give you a brief introduction to the game as well as the key improvements that have been made for the iPhone/iPod Touch.

The Story So Far

The original version was released for the Amiga in 2001 to rave reviews and was voted Game of Year in multiple polls. Mac, Intent and GBA versions followed, the GBA version being nominated in both IGN and GameSpot's "Best of E3 2004" awards.

In 2006, the game received a major overhaul for the powerful GP2X handheld - GamesTM awarded it 91%, describing it as "the best GTA clone you've never heard of". The lighting was made fully HDR (the paths of trillions of photons were calculated to produce some of the best looking lighting ever seen in a portable game), the menu system was completely redone, a complete vocal soundtrack was added and many other significant improvements were made. There's a full report on the changes made for the GP2X version here.

The iPhone/iPod Touch version builds on the strong foundations laid down by the GP2X version by adding an automatic save system, reengineered controls, HUD refinements and further gameplay improvements; read on for the details.

Controls

Probably the most important part of any game is the controls - if these don't work well then the game would be about as useful as a chocolate teapot. For this reason, getting the controls right was the #1 priority in the iPhone/iPod Touch version of Payback. We tried to keep the on-screen buttons as minimal as possible so that they did not distract from the gameplay itself. The final layout was as follows:

We tried to create a clear design for all the buttons by using a consistent border and a common, unobtrusive colour scheme. The arrows on the right move you forwards and backwards and are always visible, whilst the two text buttons on the left perform context-sensitive actions depending on whether you are on foot or in a vehicle, and what weapon you are carrying. These primary controls are semi-transparent so they can be big (so you don't miss them in the heat of battle) without getting in the way. They also pulse when touched to give the player all-important feedback and their position has been carefully adjusted to make them as comfortable to use as possible.

The smaller, less critical icons at the bottom allow you to pause the game and repeat the last message. The box in the top-left shows all the weapons you are carrying (in this screenshot the player only has one weapon - fists), displays how much ammo your current weapon has (none in this case) and allows you to cycle through your weapons by touching it. The game also of course implements full multi-touch to allow any combination of controls to be used at once.

Steering

We tested virtually every driving game on the iPhone to come up with the best damn steering we could. We quickly decided to use the accelerometer to turn (it would be too cumbersome to use buttons in addition to the others already required for the game) but getting this to respond exactly as we wanted took some work.

A common problem we noticed with iPhone driving games was that it wasn't clear when you were turning left or right as much as you could, so the temptation was to turn the device further than strictly necessary which could make it hard to see the screen. We addressed this problem in several ways, the first of which we affectionately call the steering-o-meter:

The steering wheel at the top of the screen shows the player how much they are turning left or right, allowing them to more easily judge how much to turn their device. Incidentally, the health bar beside the steering wheel is another addition for the iPhone - on previous versions, the other health bar on the far right would change to show the vehicle's health rather than your own when you weren't on foot.

Another important detail was to make the steering non-linear - this allowed maximum steering to be reached with only a small movement (avoiding the "hard to see the screen" problem) without compromising the accuracy of small movements. The game also calculates the steering angle in such a way that it doesn't matter if the device is tilted forwards or backwards - this allows the steering to work even if the device is held flat.

The final key ingredient was to allow the player complete customisation options for the sensitivity, linearity and calibration of the steering so if they don't like defaults they can easily tune them to their tastes.

Other Nifty Stuff

One of the most notable things about the iPhone is, well, it's a phone. That means the player might be interrupted at any time by a phone call so it's really important to have a very robust save system. In addition to autosaving after every chapter and allowing the player to manually save at any point, the game also auto-saves if the player gets a phone call, presses the home button or exits in any other way. The game will then automatically resume from exactly where they were the next time it's loaded.

The iPhone/iPod Touch version is fully localised into English, German, French, Italian, Spanish and Polish. It features the improved soundtrack from the GP2X version (which includes both speech and music), has eleven huge cities to explore and dozens of varied vehicles (everything from tanks to helicopters to ice cream vans!).

The menu system has also been reworked to work with the touch screen. We worked hard to make sure all the controls work as you'd expect - even the credits screen can be flicked about with your fingers!

Conclusion

Well, that about wraps it up. We're really pleased with the iPhone version - it builds on over a decade of development to create what has to be one of the biggest titles for the iPhone so far.

Payback has now been approved for sale by Apple and can be bought from the App Store here.

Please feel free to email us with any questions, suggestions or enquiries. For general information about Payback, please click here.