As South Africans, we love to celebrate our local successes; whether it's sport, entertainment or technology. However, game development is still a relatively niche profession in the country compared to other fields.

But it's always exciting when local development studios excel, such as QCF Design and their well-received Desktop Dungeons (read our interview here). But another great example is mobile developer Tasty Poison Games.

The Cape Town-based studio has gone from strength to strength, with its latest game, Pocket RPG, being a critical and commercial success on the Apple App Store. The role-playing title turned enough heads to be nominated for best mobile game by Gamespot, ultimately losing out to the superb Sword & Sorcery.

Pocket RPG can best be described as a dungeon crawler; with an accessible control scheme, randomly generated levels and crazy combos. True to the "dungeon crawler" tag, players choose one of three distinct characters at first, finding loot and levelling up as you progress.

The key to success

Upon first playing the game, I couldn't help but see the Diablo influence, so I put this to Tasty Poison's Steve McIvor.

"Yep Diablo was definitely in the mix, Torchlight was also inspirational from the art side with a bit of Gauntlet thrown in for good measure," McIvor said. In fact, the team drew inspiration from almost every RPG they played.

The formula for Pocket RPG's success was to simply make it fun, McIvor elaborates.

"Not worrying about the commercial aspect so much, but concentrate on the players experience... the success comes from that."

Tasty Poison Games also had a few reasons for choosing mobile development over consoles.

"We chose mobile in particular, Apple mobile development, for the freedom it has given us as a smaller independent studio. I have worked in the past making PC and console games and can tell you that the team size and hurdles one needs to jump through to get your game to market is a massive undertaking," McIvor continues. 

McIvor also cited the development period as a reason to go mobile, with an average AAA title takes up to five years to make, while 6-12 months is considered a long time for mobile games.

Of course, in an ironic twist, users with South African iTunes accounts aren't able to purchase the title.

It's not the only example of South Africans getting the short-end of the stick, with the Film and Publications Board also making life tough for Microsoft's Xbox Live service.

"I really can't get much into it since it makes me so mad. All the games TPG has produced, we can't even download in the country we developed it from."

A refreshing experience

But developing games in South Africa has been an interesting experience for McIvor, originally from Canada.

"Being here is a real eye opener for me just to see how dedicated SA developers are, where I took things for granted in the past.  Not just my guys in-house, but developers all over SA are very dedicated to their craft.

"That said, it is refreshing to see us competing on the same level as developers from overseas and getting some attention for it. Everyone here is pretty chuffed about the reviews we have gotten on all our games, especially Pocket RPG."

For those without an iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, you're in luck. McIvor confirmed that Pocket RPG would be coming to selected Android devices, including the Xperia Play.

McIvor also had some advice for aspiring local developers wanting to get a foot into the industry, recommending that they take courses in programming, art and animation.

"Most important from my perspective is making games even if they are pen and paper games.  There are lots of free to use programs that anyone aspiring to get into the industry can use.  Also there are regular meetups of developers that anyone can attend."

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