Review Fix Exclusive: Inside ‘Magic and Pawns’

Review Fix chats with Hang Ye, Game Producer and Jeffery Mo, Lead Artist for “Magic Pawns,” who discuss how the game came to be and what gamers should expect from the wild match-three tower defense hybrid.

Review Fix: What games inspired this one?

Hang Ye: I’ve played many social games and found that they were mainly in two genres. One is Match-3 and another one is tower defense. “Plants Vs Zombies” and “Candy Crush” are my favorites. When I worked with the team on game design, we studied over 30 games and found above two greatly enjoyable and addictive! So why don’t we combine them together?

Jeffery Mo: On art design perspective, we are kind of on our own. We decided on the main theme “Fairy tale” first. Then based on the theme, we came up with the color palate and character designs.

Review Fix: What has development been like?

Ye: Not going to lie, developing a game is very stressful. I’m very lucky to have a supportive team to go through this journey. From sketching the game flow to fine tuning the balancing, we had encountered many ups and downs. For example, since Facebook is blocked in China, engineers have to spend extra time to integrate the SDK while game designers have to study how to use the features in the most user-friendly way. Fortunately, after several bug-fixes, the SDK works.

Review Fix: How does it feel to be featured by Apple?

Ye: What a surprise. It’s a huge encouragement to our team. We really want to thank Apple Editors and App Store manager from China who give us this valuable opportunity. Although we did not get featured by our target market app stores, which are North America ones, we still felt grateful for what we got.

And it is a good heads-up for us as well because we are working on a new project targeting the North America. “Magic & Pawns” provides a good direction for us and it saves us tons of iteration time.

Mo: WE LOVE APPLE. Hahaha, it’s very exciting! Especially when you see you are one of the “Best new games”.

Review Fix: With all the competition on the mobile market, how difficult was it for you guys to try and make something that stood out?

Ye: Trends always change. If your game simply copies what’s hit in the market, it’s never going to work. Magic & Pawns is a pioneer in our company to scout what do users in overseas markets like, what do they want and how much they are willing to pay for a game. It’s not an easy task for a developer based in China but it’s worthy of our effort.

Review Fix: Bottom line, why must someone play this game?

Mo: It’s made in China, Hahaha. If you want to know why China becomes the next big spender in the market, maybe it’s a good chance to see the quality of a game developer yourself.

Ye: This game is fun. It’s unlike other match-3 game.

Review Fix: How do you want this game to be remembered?

Ye: I’d rather you remember Yes Game studio. Expect something cool and fun from us.

Mo: I would like them to remember it’s a game with its own style. “This looks cool!” “Not bad! Pretty fun.”

Review Fix: What are your goals for this game?

Ye: We’d like to collect users’ feedback from this game. We’d love to listen to their comments, advices and suggestions. My goal is to make my next game better based on the user feedbacks.

Mo: My goal is simple. I want to train my team to be more sensitive towards character designs and UI design.

Review Fix: What’s next?

Ye: A PVP game is coming! It’s named “League of Kitties” temporarily. Stay tuned!