Who’s Who: Raccoon Games

Hi! Please tell us about yourself and your team.

Hi! My name is Dima, I am the leader of the Ukrainian Raccoon Games development team, which makes mobile indie games.

Dmitry Kerpov
It all started a little more than a year ago, at the end of August 2014.

I just finished my studies in Toronto, came home to visit my family and friends.

By chance, I met with my school friend Sergey (now he is our tech lead). When I found out that he was developing on iOS, I thought, “Eureka!”. In general, he and I decided to make mobile games and immediately set about recruiting a team.

At first it was difficult to assemble a permanent squad, but we managed. At the moment our team consists of 7 people. We recently released the game Treasure Hunter: uncharted lands.

And what do you mean by “leader”?

I am a project manager. However, he also took part in the project as a game designer. Plus, I am now fully assuming the responsibilities of a business development manager: I am preparing both the team and the project to enter the real business world. Partnerships, media and further development of Raccoon Games as a studio is my main task.

Why did the team engage in mobile development?

To be honest, at first Sergey and I had the idea to develop custom applications, but then we abruptly changed course to mobile games, because it seemed to us that there was more potential, more opportunities for creative self-realization. And it’s games that make it more fun.

Why mobile? Everything is simple here, Sergey already had solid experience in developing for mobile devices at that time.

What difficulties did you encounter when creating a team?

Oh, there were difficulties, especially there were a lot of them at the beginning of development.

A couple of weeks after the first team was assembled, we started having problems with artists, who began to change quite often. It was only by February of this year that we finally decided on our artists – Sasha and Dasha are with us to this day and wonderfully cope with their duties.

I think the main problem here was an insufficient amount of personal motivation. Some guys left for personal reasons, some did not see prospects or were not ambitious enough. In any case, it’s all over and I’m glad that we overcame it all.

Another, not entirely pleasant moment, turned out to be that the developers and I were in the same city, and the artists were in another. At first it was very inconvenient, but we established an effective project management system, and the problem was more or less solved. There were only delays in time. Although I personally went to see artists in another city almost every weekend: we held meetings on a regular basis.

You position the first project as swipe4. What is meant by this?

Swipe4 is the heart of our game. Everyone knows games with gameplay based on match3 mechanics (a la Candy Crush Saga), but we went further, tried to imagine where match3 could evolve. That’s when we got swipe4.

What is it and how does it work? It’s very simple: imagine a rectangle with vertices of the same color, say green, and all you need is to find and destroy this rectangle on the playing field by moving your finger diagonally from one vertex to another. Hence the name swipe4, where swipe is a diagonal movement, and 4 is the four vertices of the rectangle.

In practice, everything turns out right away and the eye adapts to the new gameplay from the first levels, finding the right rectangles. Swipe4 also promotes the development of concentration and attention, I advise you to try. Who needs match3? We have swipe4!

How long was the development going on?

Considering the distance and not full load, it took us a year to develop and prepare the release version.

If there was an opportunity to go back in time, what would you do differently?

A fantastic opportunity. I probably should have used it, but I wouldn’t. I’m glad that everything happened exactly as it happened.

Tell me about the first results.

The release of Treasure Hunter: uncharted lands took place quite recently, so it’s too early to talk about the first results. But there are already stable people playing, there are reviews and personal wishes that we will definitely take into account.

Recently, we held a master class and a presentation of the game, where people had the opportunity to play the game, share their opinions: there were quite a lot of interested people. And what really pleased me was that most of the reviews were positive, people like the visual design and the gameplay itself. They say it’s addictive.

What to expect from the team next?

Progress. We do not stop there and will support, develop and improve Treasure Hunter: uncharted lands with subsequent updates. We are also already thinking about the following projects, even more ambitious and ambitious. Moreover, we have a plan, as well as those interested in the development of our studio.

Thanks for the interview.