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Capy's success and sworcery catchphrase: 'It's getting there'

David Hinkle — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 19:00:00 EST

At the conclusion of his GDC 2013 panel, Still Kicking: The Viability of Paid Apps in the Era of F2P, Capybara Games co-founder and president Nathan Vella offered unique insight into the trials endured by the company. The developers were pushing for creativity and originality in their games, but were beset by problem after problem.

"It's getting there" quickly became the company mantra, a mission statement of sorts and catchphrase that succinctly sums up the Toronto development house's endeavors.

Continue reading Capy's success and sworcery catchphrase: 'It's getting there'

Capy's success and sworcery catchphrase: 'It's getting there' originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 27 Mar 2013 19:00:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Fez programmer Renaud Bedard joins Capy

Alexander Sliwinski — Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:30:00 EST

Capy Games announced earlier this afternoon that Fez programmer Renaud Bedard has joined the team at the Critter Crunch, Clash of Heroes and Super TIME Force developer. Bedard was one half of the Polytron team, with Phil Fish, who put out the critically acclaimed game, Fez. The game's lengthy and volatile development was chronicled in Indie Game: The Movie (on Netflix streaming).

"The remaining employees of the Polytron Corp. would like to say goodbye and thank you to [Bedard] for all the years of amazing work," Fish tweeted out.

Asked for more details on how Bedard came to Capy, studio founder Nathan Vella told us that the company wasn't saying anything beyond the tweets it put out.

Fez programmer Renaud Bedard joins Capy originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 05 Nov 2012 15:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Capy Games wins 'XBLA Award' and guaranteed MS publishing deal for Super T.I.M.E. Force

Ludwig Kietzmann — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:18:00 EST

Capy Games, developer of adorable guzzle-'em-up Critter Crunch and the gorgeous Superbrothers Sword & Sworcery EP, has won the Microsoft-sponsored "XBLA Prize" during the 14th Annual Independent Games Festival Awards, held this evening in San Francisco. The recipients receive a rare digital copy of the now-delisted advergame, Yaris.

No, wait, it says here they get a guaranteed first-party publishing deal via Microsoft's Live service, including Xbox Live Arcade, Windows Phone and Windows ... Computer. In this case, the game headed to XBLA is Super T.I.M.E. Force!

The award comes with a few other bonuses too: Microsoft will provide funding to complete the game if necessary, and augment its development with several first-party support services, including usability, testing, and a guy who never looks up from his Blackberry.

Capy Games wins 'XBLA Award' and guaranteed MS publishing deal for Super T.I.M.E. Force originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 07 Mar 2012 22:18:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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The original plan: Sword and Sworcery in seven months for $110,000

David Hinkle — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:15:00 EST

The best laid plans ...

GDC is a great place for budding developers to learn from other, more seasoned developers. During a postmortem focusing on the success of Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, Capy president and co-founder Nathan Vella admitted the game ended up going over budget and past its planned launch late -- it's more common than you think in game development.

The original plan for Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP was a seven-month development cycle, with a budget of around $110,000. In the end, the game ended up costing "around $200,000" over the course of 18 months. As of today, 350,000 individuals have spun some vinyl.

After his talk, I got some face time with Vella to ask him about a personal curiosity: Twitter integration. Some games have caught flak for it, but the smart implementation and voice of the tweets in Superbrothers -- written in the same narrative style of the game -- caused a new trend in iOS gaming.

"The intention was always to give people the ability to broadcast something they enjoyed about the game," Vella told me. "I love that about the game. I even loved it when people were talking shit about it like crazy. I think the Twitter part of it was important because people loved the dialogue, the way that Craig wrote it, and blast Twitter -- it's important to me and it's important to the project, to know that we made something that somebody wants to put out there. And it was always a choice: you choose to press two buttons to tweet something, if you care about it. I would definitely make that call again."

Finally, when asked by another attendee about a PC port of Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery EP, Vella slyly replied, "No comment on that question."

The original plan: Sword and Sworcery in seven months for $110,000 originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 06 Mar 2012 10:15:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Sword and Sworcery EP: 350K units swold

Alexander Sliwinski — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 14:45:00 EST

iOS title Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP has sold 350,000 units life to date, Capy president Nathan Vella revealed at GDC 2012 today.

The long-form game, which took 18 months to develop, has done incredibly well on the app store, despite having "small amount of birds, no fruit, limited water," which have all become cliche requirements for iOS success.

"Everyone isn't a demographic," Vella noted. "Target a niche due to iOS scale, niches can be huge."

He said two-thirds of all sales were on the iPad universal app and that three quarters of revenue were made on the universal app. He also noted that the title going on discount only accounted for 10 percent of sales, meaning the game had a potential audience that was willing to pay full price for the experience.

Vella feels Sword & Sworcery is a good case that longer experiences can fit on the iOS platform and targeting "everyone" isn't the only way.

Sword and Sworcery EP: 350K units swold originally appeared on Joystiq on Mon, 05 Mar 2012 14:45:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Capy's 'Zombie Tactics' on hold, studio too busy

Alexander Sliwinski — Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:30:00 EST

Capy President Nathan Vella told us at PAX East that the prematurely exposed Zombie Tactics is "on hold."

"It's not on hold because it sucks," Vella explained. "It's on hold because we have other stuff first." Capy is currently prepping for the iOS launches of Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP and the release of Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes HD on XBLA and PSN in mid-April. The studio is also working on other "unannounced projects."

Vella believes the prototype for Zombie Tactics, which he told us has hints of Valkyria Chronicles gameplay peppered in, is great. However, he feels the zombie genre is just a tad saturated at the moment.

Gallery: Zombie Tactics (working title)

Capy's 'Zombie Tactics' on hold, studio too busy originally appeared on Joystiq on Tue, 15 Mar 2011 17:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Indie Fund assists with Monaco, Qube, and Shadow Physics

JC Fletcher — Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:20:00 EST

One year in, the Indie Fund is currently providing money for the development of three games. Nathan Vella, Ron Carmel, and Kellee Santiago of the Indie Fund - all established indies themselves - and fundees Andy Schatz (Monaco), Steve Swink (Shadow Physics), and Daniel Da Rocha (Qube) gathered in a panel to discuss the successes and failures of the alternate funding method, which is designed to "put itself out of business as soon as possible," as Vella put it, to promote self-sufficient indies.

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Indie Fund assists with Monaco, Qube, and Shadow Physics originally appeared on Joystiq on Wed, 02 Mar 2011 17:20:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Critter Crunch dev praises Sony's support of indie games

Andrew Yoon — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:30:00 EST

"They support the living sh*t out of it, and they support it really well," Capybara's Nathan Vella told Gamasutra when talking about Sony's free PhyreEngine. "Any of the parts that are inside Phyre that we didn't know how to fix or we had an issue with, they would fix it for us in a day. Overall, I think Sony's doing a lot of right stuff for small independent developers."

Vella's praise echoes similar sentiments from other PSN developers, like Shatter's Mario Wynands. In addition to free development tools, Vella noted other benefits by partnering with Sony. Critter Crunch was promoted heavily on the PlayStation Network via the PlayStation.Blog, Pulse and banners on the PlayStation Store. Most importantly, though, Sony "treated us like we weren't a small nobody developer from Toronto."

In spite of Sony's best intentions, though, Vella notes that sales aren't quite where they should be on the PSN. "It's still a fraction of what XBLA is doing, and we know that," he admitted. "But that's okay for us because they let us do what we wanted to do." Apparently what they want to do now is work on a zombie game.

Critter Crunch dev praises Sony's support of indie games originally appeared on Joystiq on Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:30:00 EST. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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