First and foremost allow me to introduce myself; I am Olga Sokolova, Producer at Creat Studios, Inc. As some of you may know, Creat, along with our partner, TikGames, has recently released a few games on the PlayStation Network: Mahjong Tales: Ancient Wisdom, Magic Ball and Cuboid. All three titles are adaptations of classic games, and developing these games was fun for all of us. I was the producer on Magic Ball and Cuboid.

Classic video games are close to everyone’s heart here at Creat. We wanted to bring new life to these great games that may have been forgotten over time. We all get nostalgic from time to time, remembering the “good old days” of games. However, for the most part, the games that we think back to were solely focused on gameplay. The visual appeal just wasn’t there.  Back then it was really the gameplay that made the game. Now we want it all - amazing gameplay with fantastic visuals. With our games, you can have it all [smiles], but trust me, it wasn’t easy.

We were very excited to revamp these classic PC games, but at the same time, it was very nerve racking as we didn’t want to lose any essential qualities of these well known games. We toiled endlessly to make sure that the games were, well, in a word, spectacular.

So how did we do it? Well, you will have to talk to Stan here at Creat or Howard at Tik about Mahjong. As for Magic Ball and Cuboid, those I can shed some light on. We took the original games and gutted them, saw what worked, what didn’t, and took note. We essentially had to start from scratch - all new code, building from the ground up.

 Some of the levels from the original games we liked and re-worked, adding amazing graphics and changing a bit of the gameplay here and there. The others we created here in house. That’s right, folks - a good chunk (in fact, all the ones in the upcoming Cuboid Booster Pack) of those crazy difficult, almost impossible to solve puzzles were created here by some of our fantastic level designers such as, Mikhail Kharlamov.

Magic Ball has similar game mechanics as the original game. The power ups and levels for the first two episodes are closely tied to the original game. The third episode, that will be out shortly, was significantly redesigned. The art and sound was produced specifically for the PS3. We even used more “real” physics, increased the difficulty to give the game more of a challenge, and added some sneaky bonus levels to break up the gameplay a bit and give you the chance to rack up more points. Let’s not forget the multiplayer support, the online scoreboard and all those trophies!

Our art department had their work cut out for them as well. Those mystical and fun cartoony environments in Cuboid and Magic Ball respectively were both fun and difficult to create and implement.

As we all know, the environment of the game isn’t solely the visual - you need great sound, too. All of our games have a pretty unique soundtrack. Mahjong Tales had custom music support from the beginning, and since so many of you wanted it, we are releasing free patches shortly that will allow you to customize your music in Magic Ball and Cuboid as well.

The PlayStation Network/PS3 was really the best outlet for our games as it provided us with amazing graphics opportunities. The team came up with some wonderful ideas and it was incredible to see them come to life. That said, I am a firm believer that a great deal of the games’ success is due to the online scoreboards. When you are just playing to beat your own score it doesn’t provide that much motivation, but when you add a little bit of global competition to the mix, that is where things get interesting! 

The multiplayer feature for Magic Ball was a challenge for us but we did it and I think it is one of the best aspects of the game. You really get to interact with friends, or make new friends, and at the same time play an awesome game. What could be better?