Threes
immediately captivated the people who started playing it, with folks bemoaning
the lost hours and tired eyes they got in pursuit of ever-higher scores. But,
over the last few days, any buzz surrounding Asher Vollmer’s second mobile game has been but a
whisper compared to the roaring whirlwind surrounding Flappy Bird, which
doesn’t exist anymore. It’s been a weird week for the 24-year-old game
designer.
https://kotaku.com/tips-for-playing-threes-the-new-mobile-game-everyones-1522388747
I reached out to Vollmer
because it just struck me as really odd, in a cosmic way, how people
started talking about Threes and Eliss Infinity during the same week that
Flappy Bird captured the public imagination.
“It was really fortuitous that the
Flappy drama happened during our release week,” Volmer told me as we chatted
online. “It made people think critically about the value of a well-executed
game. And I’m not saying Flappy isn’t well executed, but when you look at it —
it feels familiar and simple.”
“If a game doesn’t look like it was made with love, it looks like a waste of time because clearly the developer didn’t spend much time on it either.”
“When people try to figure out Flappy‘s success (which is what most people were doing in its early
days) everyone just sort of landed on ‘luck,'” he continued. “And then Threes and Eliss came out and people said ‘Oh, these games DESERVE to be
successful. Look at all the love that went into them.”
I don’t know about the ‘deserve’ thing, but I know that I
always feel better working on (and playing) games that you can tell had heart
and soul poured into them. If a game doesn’t look like it was made with love,
it looks like a waste of time because
clearly the developer didn’t spend much time on it either. And when you release
a game to the public that’s basically what you’re asking them to do: please
give up your time and interact with this thing. It feels dishonest to ask them
to spend more time on your game than you did.”
Does he feel like the lack of communication from Nguyen about how much
time/love/effort went into Flappy Bird
allowed people to be harsh on the game? “I don’t feel like Nguyen is to blame for
anything. Flappy Bird isn’t deceitful in the slightest. Its presentation makes
all of its values clear: this is a cheap, simple game. It is free so you
have to look at some ads while you play. I think that’s what got people into a
tizzy: it’s so cheap, but it’s so popular. It’s the same reason people get mad
at reality television.”
So, where’s the ‘love’ in Threes? “All the love in Threes
went into making sure the game was… valuable,” Vollmer said. “On the game
design side: I spent my time trying to figure out the best mechanics that would
continue to challenge people and didn’t have any glaring holes or derivative
strategies. Once I plugged up those holes: suddenly getting a high score
becomes valuable. It means something to excel in the game. On the art side: we
spent a year trying to figure out how to squeeze personality into this game
that wants to be a cold hard mechanical system.”
“[Flappy Bird] is so cheap, but it’s so popular. It’s the same reason people get mad at reality television.”
“Threes came
into existence by accident,” Vollmer said. The game idea popped into his head while he was trying to do something other than make video games. “I was
still at That Game Company and I was worried that games were becoming my entire
life. So I sat down one night after work and opened a word document with the
hope of writing a short story. I wrote a few sentences. And then I stared at
the screen. And didn’t write anything for a while. But then I started playing
with the arrow keys and moving the cursor around the document. And I thought to
myself, ‘Hey, I bet I could make a game that uses only the arrow keys.’ And
then I insta-closed Word and opened up Unity.
Ten hours later (around 9 a.m.) I had the first prototype of
Threes.” (It’s pictured above.)
“There’s also a fun little fighting game that I was working
on called HUP HUP where you played old timey gentlemen squares. My friends
still want me to finish that… so I might.”
When I asked Vollmer about any games that he, consciously or
not, riffed on while making Threes, he told me that another game with numbers
was influential. “Drop7 was, without a doubt, the biggest inspiration for
Threes. It’s an iPhone game that I played for (no exaggeration) two years
straight.”
“Every day it would get me through my workout on the
elliptical,” Vollmer continued. “There were two things I liked about it: (1)
the controls were simple enough that I didn’t have to be precise and (2) I felt
like I was getting a little better every day. And when I was working on Threes
it occurred to me that I could strive for the same things.”
“I feel like the design for Threes went through three major
design goals. And each one narrowed down what the game needed to be:
1) How do I make a game with just the arrow keys
2) How do I make a game that’s perfect for mobile
3) How do I make a game you can play forever
I think Drop7…that’s
the main game I drew inspiration from. Threes ended up feeling like Triple Town,
but at no point did I consciously intend that. Triple Town has a similar sense of progression: it gets
exponentially harder to move up the ranks. It’s a little harder to make a house
than a tree. It’s a lot harder to make a mansion than a house, etc. It’s the
same with making 96s, 192s, 368s in Threes.”
“My goal isn’t to mess with people’s lives. It’s just an unhappy byproduct.”
Vollmer says that
he’s been hearing one kind of feedback over and over again: “I
love this game, it’s so addicting!” “It drives me nuts,” he confessed. “My
goal is to make people excited to play and to stimulate people’s brains. ‘Addicting’
has all these negative connotations of stealing people’s time. My goal isn’t to
mess with people’s lives. It’s just an unhappy byproduct.”
“Currently it’s been mostly upsides! It’s sort of strange
because I’ve watched Nguyen get so much hate for succeeding [with Flappy Bird]. It hurts every time I hear
about all the death threats he’s been receiving.
Meanwhile I get an ‘I love your game!’ tweet every hour
or so and that’s kind of it. The main downside is that I haven’t been able to get any
work done! It’s taken a week to figure out how to filter out all the noise
(tweets, articles, analytics) and focus on my life. And I’m not convinced I’ve figured it out yet.”
