Temple Run 2 interview

Can you take me through how the first Temple Run was conceived?
We spent around a year working on Max Adventure, and it pretty much was a flop when it launched. A lot changed in the market and ultimately it just wasn't a product that resonated with gamers. We spent a lot of time dissecting the project and thinking about what we could have done differently and what went wrong. One of our biggest conclusions was that the control scheme we used (dual virtual joysticks on the touchscreen) just wasn't a very good fit for mobile and that games using those control schemes are really hard for the casual audience to get used to. So we embarked on a journey to try and find a better control scheme for controlling a character in a 3D world.

After much experimentation we came up with the always-running, swipe to turn, jump, and slide mechanic that is so iconic to Temple Run. It's just such a simple way to control the player, it's almost like you are reaching into the screen and nudging him to do all the things you want him to do. Armed with this new control scheme we set out build a compelling game around it and the first thing that came to mind was running in a maze since there are a lot of sharp right angled turns. The first prototype was very simple. Just a character running on a very plain and blocky path that had turns and never ended. The more we played with it, the more it started looking like some sort of temple wall that you were running on, and that is where the Mayan / Incan ruin theme was born.

Just how much of a shock was its success? 170 million and counting isn't just successful, it's a phenomenon.
We were completely floored, and honestly still are with how successful Temple Run has become. I just find it hard to believe, and it's crazy to think about how many people have played a game that our small studio created! It's something that you dream of, but never really expect to happen to you!

Why do you think the 'endless runner' has found such an audience? There is yourselves of course, but games such as Canabalt and Punch Quest that have also had success.
I think endless runners are such a perfect fit for mobile devices. They are quick pick up and play games that are simple to learn how to play, yet difficult to master - a hallmark of the classic iOS games.

It's a more flexible type of game that you might think isn't it? The games mentioned there are all built around that core idea, but all have different takes on the formula to make them unique.
Absolutely. I think at their core, endless runners are a throwback to the old days of arcade games where the main goal was simply going after your high score and doing better than your previous go. It's a format that fits extremely well with mobile phones and casual gamers that are always on the go with only a few minutes at a time to play games.

What were your aims when building Temple Run 2?
With Temple Run 2 we wanted to build a bigger, better, and more awesome version of the original. We developed the original Temple Run in around 5 months and at the time we had no idea it would be such a huge success. We immediately started working on updates and more content to keep the game fresh and to keep the fans happy. However, eventually we realized that it wasn't going to be possible to expand on the original game in all the ways we wanted to unless we had a fresh start. With Temple Run 2 we complete re-wrote the game from the ground up. This allowed us to create a much richer and vibrant world with gentle curves, hills, and valleys. In addition to really stepping up our game with the visual side of things there was a lot we wanted to do with the game play. We wanted to experiment with new mechanics like the zipline and the mine cart. We also wanted to incorporate a lot of the feedback we were getting from fans. For instance, in the original the different characters you could unlock were purely cosmetic. One of the biggest requests we got was to make the characters unique in some way. In Temple Run 2 each character comes with a special power that the can use.

Given that the App Store allows you the chance to update your games regularly and Temple Run is free-to-play, what advantages do constructing a full-blown sequel have. Is it purely visibility? Or are there more technical reasons for releasing a whole new game?
Our biggest reason for doing the sequel instead of an update is that we just weren't going to be able to make these changes to the original. Under the hood, the game was completely re-written from scratch and it's now in much better shape to allow us to continue adding more to it over time.

Are there any disadvantages to it? Is there any negative impact if your audience is split between two (or three, including Brave) games?
Potentially. The original has been doing extremely well even though it's been out over a year and a half. There is always the risk that it will split our audience, to be honest, we're not quite sure what will happen.

Why did you decide to go free-to-play with Temple Run after it was originally available for 69p?
We originally launched Temple Run at 69p and it was our best launch ever. It got really great reviews and it shot up the charts. However, after a short while it started plummeting in the charts. We already had the in app purchase system in the game and we saw that people we buying some of the items we had for sale. So we decided to try making it free to see if by having more people download the game if we could continue to make the same revenue just off the IAPs instead of having it be a paid app. Almost immediately the game started to take off again and the rest is history.

Do you see free-to-play as the sole future of video games business model, or will there be room for both?
I firmly believe that there is room for both. Not all games lend themselves well to a freemium model. I think as a game developer you always have to focus on making a great first and also figuring out what business model suits your game best.

The free-to-play revolution is clearly in full swing, but it does have its detractors. Some feel that building games around a business model can only have a negative impact on their quality. How do you respond to that?
I think you can definitely impact the quality of your game negatively by focusing too much on the business model. You have to balance the two. We always focus on making a great game first.

And just how do you strike that balance between having a game that's fun to play, but is also going to make you money? Surely being overly aggressive with IAPs is going to put players off?
We actually always balance our games and beta test without having the IAPs in the game. That way we can tune the game to feel fun and the upgrade path reasonable at a normal game playing pace. I'm sure this isn't the best way to maximize your revenue, but we think this way resonates the best with the players.

Just to talk about yourselves for a bit. A husband and wife team is quite unusual for the games industry, what edge does it give you? Any drawbacks?
Natalia and I formed Imangi Studios in 2008. We're both software engineers and we always wanted to start our own company of some sort and work for ourselves. When Apple announced the App Store and that anyone could make apps for the iPhone and distribute them to a worldwide audience, we immediately knew we wanted to give it a try. Natalia and I are pretty risk averse in general, so I don't think we would have ever taken the plunge into starting our own company if we weren't married. Since we're married it was like having a built -in safety net. I quit my job and Natalia kept hers to support us while I got things off the ground. Nine months later she quit her job and joined up full time. The great thing about working together is that in addition to our skills complementing each other well, we are always talking about the business and our games and how to make them better. It's great to always bounce ideas off each other and for us both to be working on something together.

The only drawback I can think of is that sometimes it's hard to find work life balance since we're working together and out of our house. We find ourselves working into the evenings and through the weekend way too often.

Temple Run 2 is on iOS and coming to Android soon. What are the fundamental differences in programming for each OS?
Temple Run 2 was built using the Unity engine, so that will make supporting iOS and Android much easier this time around. The biggest challenge with Android is supporting the huge number of different screen resolutions and different form factors. Testing is also a huge challenge on Android since there are literally hundreds of different devices.

Why no Windows phone version yet? You said in October the original will be reaching the platform, yet no news on this or Temple Run 2. Is that platform trickier to develop for?
The original Temple Run is still in the works for Win8. We don't have a release date yet, but hopefully we'll be able to make an announcement sometime soon. Hopefully we can follow the original with Temple Run 2 on that platform, too. Honestly we'd love to have Temple Run on as many platforms as possible, but we're a small team so it's just a matter of doing what we can and prioritizing.

And what does the future hold for Imangi beyond Temple Run 2?
We still have a lot we want to do with Temple Run and there will more updates coming to the games. At some point we'd also like to work on some completely new games.