The GamesBizWire team had the opportunity to speak with Bruno Urbain, co-founder and studio manager of Fishing Cactus, a company that creates compelling and high quality games tailored towards digital distribution platforms such as iPhone, XBLA, WiiWare, PSN, DsiWare. We spoke with Bruno about how the company was formed out of the shadows of 10tacle Belgium, and the increasingly popular digital distribution market for games.

GamesBizWire (GBW): Tell us a little about how you came to be part of Fishing Cactus and what your role is within the company.

Bruno Urbain (BU): My name is Bruno Urbain, I’ve been working in the game industry for nearly seven years, mostly as game designer and lead designer. I’m now the studio manager of Fishing Cactus, handling both the business part and top level creative part of projects which are developed inside the studio.

Regarding how I joined the adventure, I’m simply part of the five initial founders of the company and one of the two original creators of the company.

GBW: Take us through the transformation of Fishing Cactus, from the “ashes of 10tacle Belgium” to the independent digital game development studio it is today.

BU: We initially started Fishing Cactus with our baby project Blobbies Wars. Julien Hamaide (now technical director at Fishing Cactus) and I wanted to work 100% on this XBLA project we had in the box for a long time, and we were tired of projects with a four-year production span. We wanted to focus on creative, shorter cycle game productions.

When 10tacle collapsed, we decided to take the risk of creating a completely new studio in Belgium with a focus on digital distribution. We also had a few ideas regarding how to mix both influences from garage development and more structured processes that you find in bigger studios. Following the first weeks of what would become Fishing Cactus, a few other former employees of 10tacle showed interest in boarding the train with us and that’s how Fishing Cactus was created.

GBW: Fishing Cactus aims to create compelling games across different types of handheld consoles and digital distribution platforms. Explain why the studio has focused more on this kind of technology rather than PC or traditional consoles.

BU: Working on digitally distributed games almost always means working on projects with a smaller scope than traditional retail AAA titles. This means several things: having more than one project going on at once, keeping costs down by having a clearer view over the planning/budget, and keeping the overall design and development process more flexible.

This allows us more freedom to alter our development schedule to address any unforeseen situations. It’s also a lot more fun to go from project to project and not be “stuck” for several years on one unique game. This makes the team more creative and focused.

GBW: This market is incredibly competitive, especially with the explosion of iPhone games and applications - what is Fishing Cactus’s edge?

BU: We try to come up with games that are both fun, nice to look at and feature great mechanics. Now that we’ve achieved financial stability, we are starting to develop our own projects and IPs. During our first year of activity however, we focused on porting games we liked to other platforms, like we did with Shift for Armor Games (by the way nominated for the Mochis Awards for the best iPhone flash game port).

As a new company this was also a way to show that we are rock solid development partners. For 2009, we released seven iPhone games while developing our own game engine which is, for a five person team, quite an achievement.

GBW: Being a smaller company based out of Belgium, do you run into any difficulties with regards to maintaining a strong relationship in game development with international technology companies like Microsoft, Apple and Nintendo?

BU: Obviously, communication is so free of boundaries today that it’s not a problem anymore to be in contact with foreign companies of all sizes. On top of that, our company is based in the town of Mons which saw Microsoft, Google and IBM install important structures recently. Unexpectedly, Mons is turning out to be an interesting place to be if you’re in a technology-driven business like us.

That being said, we try to set up solid relationships with local partners to foster the local game development business and have direct face-to-face contact (which is always great).

GBW: The studio values its playtest facilities that are run to help fuel its games at every step of the production process. Can you explain what these playtest facilities are, how exactly they help stimulate the production process of a game and how they are valuable to your clients?

BU: First of all, the good thing with playtests is that you meet the final consumers and you get their direct feedback on several potential issues before actually releasing the game. Problems such as HUD, pace, difficulty curve and learning curve are more easily noticed, but we also tackle how the game is perceived from the players’ point of view. Answering questions like “is the game fun?” or “is the game pretty?” gets much more objective when you get volume on results.

As cultures and gaming habits vary depending on the countries, we need to see the consumers while they are playing to observe how they react to our products. To have successful games you must have worldwide appeal and internationalizing the process is definitely the way to go. Having an overall view of how the game is perceived is definitely a plus for our clients.

While at 10tacle Belgium, I personally managed the playtests lab and I actually saw the positive impact the process had on the final products - making them better, more understandable. When you see how Microsoft and Ubisoft are pushing such processes in their production, it surely helps them make better games.

GBW: Can you explain your game porting service and why Fishing Cactus prides itself on this particular service? Are there any other services besides game porting and game development that the company offers?

GBW: Fishing Cactus’s latest release, Shaun White Snowboarding: Origins, has gotten a lot of positive coverage and reviews. Tell us more about the title and what makes it stand out among the thousands of apps that are currently available.

BU:Shaun White Snowboarding is obviously a well-established IP and the iPhone version has been met with great enthusiasm from both the critics and the audience. The game offers great snowboarding action and production values. Also, we designed the controls to be fun and allow for great tricks. Overall, the game is considered the best of the genre on the iPhone and we’re extremely happy about that!

GBW: What upcoming titles from Fishing Cactus are currently in development that players should keep an eye out for?

GBW: Is there any additional information that you would like to share with our readers?

BU:PLAY OUR GAMES!

More seriously, after a year spent setting up a solid infrastructure, Fishing Cactus is actively working on developing its own IPs and original games. We hope to awe you with our future projects and stay tuned for more information! Visit our blog, website or stay updated through our Twitter account.

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