Interview with iPhone game developer Seung Jee Baek of Leaders Association, Inc.

• Developer name: Seung Jee Baek
• Company Website
• Company Name:Leaders Association, Inc
• Apps at the App Store:2
• Location: Seoul, Korea

About Dev:

Tell us a little about you, and your current company.

I currently lead the Majestic Interactive Entertainment division at Leaders Association Inc.  I am also co-positioned as a technical director.  Leaders Association was found in 2003.  The company originally began as a management consulting company, but now it mainly focuses on gaming industry.  We currently have three teams composing Majestic Division including a new platform team, mobile game developent team, and online game development team.  Until last year, our main focus was on developing MMO games on PC platform.  The new platform teams’ current focus is on iPhone and iPod Touch platform.

About your background: What did you do before taking up iPhone development?

After graduating with a degree in computer engineering, I first joined an on-line game development company as a client programmer back in 1999.  As my career took off, I also acquired extensive experience in 3D engine development.  Beside my work, I am also making an effort to continue my learning by taking classes in the evening to get a master degree.

About Work

What apps have you developed so far? Tell us about your apps/games in brief.

So far, I have two games out on App Store.  My first project is called ‘Urban Ducklings’ which was launched in July.  ‘Urban Duckling’s’ has adopted the popular road crossing game type concept.  I tried to maximize the utilization of iPhone features such as an accelerometer.  Basically, you clear each stage by safely guiding the ducklings across busy highways while avoiding getting hit by a car.  After clearing all fifty stages, ducklings and mommy duck reunites with a daddy duck living in a city.  In my second project, besides making an interesting game, I also wanted to increase the awareness on current social and medical affairs.

We took a dove into swine flu and came up with a title called, ‘Swine Flu – The Ground Zero Chronicles.’  Since we wanted to expose the key elements about swine flu, we included a scenario mode where a player becomes the field researcher for WHO.  The player starts at the presumed ground zero site of swine flu breakout.  As you clear each mission, you become closer to discovering a working vaccine.  To increase the reality of the scenario, we tried to make the story in accord with the actual scientific and historical facts.  Besides enjoying a fun and uniquely designed game, a player will be much better informed about swine flu after clearing the story mode. The game includes two different modes and three different play systems.

How long have you been developing for the iPhone platform? Tell us about your overall experience developing for a platform owned by Apple.

Gosh, time does fly!  It has been already six months.  My development team is very new to apple platform.  Initially, I tried to familiarize myself to Objective-C, but quickly I started looking for a way to save me some time.  I ended up purchasing a game engine especially designed for iPhone platform and that save me lots of time.

Any exciting stuff you are working on? Give our readers a hint of what to expect from you next.

Other than bringing in extensive updates on our past releases, we are currently developing two new titles.  One of the titles is too early in the stage to reveal any information.  Another title is scheduled to be released in October.  It is a rhythm action game.  We tried to differ ourselves from predecessors by developing new features such as virtual instrument play.  Unlike the other rhythm action games currently available on App store, a player does a live performance.  I must apologize, but telling you more will certainly get me in trouble.  We have also partnered up with the famous pop artists to include familiar music in our song inventories.

Do you develop for other platforms? How do you compare the iPhone development platform with other platforms?

I am accustomed developing contents for PC platform.  Before, I did not worry too much about the performance of graphic card, memory size, or CPU.  My main focus was to present the most realistic graphic quality to gamers.  Another thing was, my game has been geographically targeting primarily Asian countries.  After switching to iPhone development platform, I began making great effort on optimization.  Initially my games did not run on iPhone because resource was too big.  I ended up redoing majority of works.  Prolonged loading time was also a critical issue for me, and thankfully I recently solved that issue.  Although App store attracts users from everywhere around the world, I am yet to familiarize myself with the users from North America or Europe.  This will take sometime and I will have to make continuous effort.

Tell us something about how users are responding to your apps. What’s the most flattering comment or the weirdest you’ve received?

We have been getting lots of pleasant comments.  These comments are the source of my teams’ enduring effort to develop better games.  It does not matter if the comment is good or bad.  I welcome any criticism from my peer developers out there.

About the App Store

Name some apps/games you consider are cool, excluding the ones you’ve developed. What makes these apps/games stand out?

So far, I am most impressed by ‘Cartoon Wars.’  I must admit that I am biased since I am a big fan of castle defense game genre.  I especially liked its sketch book style graphic design concept.

Any message to your fellow developers?

While App store presents great opportunity for all developers around the world, but the competition is becoming increasingly fierce.  In order to rise above the present competition and have your own success story, we must think hard about users’ needs.  I strongly believe that one of the proven ways is to develop a tailored game for iPhone platform utilizing unique hardware features such as accelerometer.  I would like to keep myself optimistic by reflecting on what Confucius said.  In the Analects of Confucius, there is a phrase “To know is not as good as liking it and liking it is not as good as enjoying it.”  As long as one is passionate about developing game and persistent, that person will be one step closer to achieving her or his glory.

Thank you Seung Jee Baek for your time.