The 2010 IGF Student Winners have been announced and 10 different titles landed in the spotlight. At the festival in March, the 10 will compete for an overall Best Student Game Prize, but to get to this point they definitely had to be special. We’ve dug through them all and contacted their developers in a series of interviews called The Future of Gaming. Because if anyone is going to take over the industry, it’s these bright minds.

A combination of students from the Utrecht School of the Arts and USC created the amazingly baffling title Paper Cakes. The gameplay revolves around a sketched character on a virtual piece of paper who moves around a simple level to find and eat mounds and mounds of cakes (paper cakes). Things get tricky once you start folding the paper in half to create new paths and flipping the paper over entirely to reveal more of the level. I was able to reach three of the Dutch students to talk about the project. You can currently snag the game from Wacom’s website here. You’ll need to install an additional interface, but it’s worth it to try out this gem.

DIYgamer: The game turned out great, congratulations on the IGF result!

Bas Teunisse: Thank you! We are very glad the way it turned out, and we are obviously very excited.

DIY: Can you introduce yourselves and your positions on the project?

Bas: My name is Bas Teunisse. Lead Level designer of Paper cakes.

Machiel van Hooren: I’m Machiel van Hooren, Lead Programmer of Paper Cakes. I study Game Design and Development at the Utrecht School of the Arts. Currently I’m in my graduation year.

Lex van den Berg: My name is Lex van den Berg, Lead Artist and Game Designer of Paper Cakes. I too study Game design and development at the Utrecht School of the Arts. And I am currently working on my graduation project.

DIY: How did you all come together to work on this project?

Bas: The game Paper Cakes is part of a larger group project at school (Utrecht School of the Arts). In our graduation year we have to do two projects. One of which is the group project, that is centered on working for an external client. In our case, that was Wacom Europe. Our project, however, was a special case. Not only did we work for an external client, we also had the opportunity to work with 3 American students from USC.

DIY: What was it like working with others thousands of miles away?

Bas: Working together with American students opens up a whole new set of doors. It’s a very exciting and inspiring project. It took a bit of work to get a good workflow going, but as soon as we figured some things out (such as meetings and content sharing), the whole thing worked out perfectly.

Machiel: The 9 hour time difference made communication with our American teammates difficult sometimes. When we start working at around 9:30 in the morning, it’s 00:30 for the Americans, and when we go home at around 17:00, it’s 8:00 for them. We planned regular meetings through Skype to keep each other informed. We used email for the rest.

Lex: It’s also really important we all met in real life. The first two weeks of the 6 month project the Americans visited us and we did a lot of brainstorming and group bonding together. I think us meeting contributed to the fact our collaboration worked out so well.

DIY: What other notable projects had you guys worked on before getting to this point?

Bas: Paper Cakes is the first of a set of 4 applications and games designed and built specifically for the Wacom platform. Our second game Going Bananas (a world rotation based puzzle game centered on a space monkey trying to save an astronaut) hasn’t been released yet, but it too is part of the same project, just like Zztring and Zznare (both based around making music with your tablet).

Machiel: If you are referring to past projects, I’ve worked on Swords & Soldiers as an intern. Swords & Soldiers is a game for WiiWare made by Ronimo Games. Ronimo Games was founded by a group of students from our school who graduated a few years ago. While still in school they made “De Blob” which also got them nominated for an IGF award. De Blob was later sold to THQ which developed it into a title for the Wii.

Lex: Since I am (like the rest) still a student, I haven’t worked on many titles yet. I have been working at Flavour, an “advergame” company in Amsterdam (www.flavour.nl), for 2 years, where I worked on a hand full of online games. And with my own company TAB Design, we’re working hard on an online tactical MO RPG, called Domination.

DIY: Where did the initial concept come from? Were there any other interesting ideas that got scrapped?

Bas: The assignment of our project was to design games and apps for Wacoms new Pen & Touch tablet. The addition of the touch functionality to the tablet gave us the idea to use a scrolling gesture as a folding gesture. It was designed around having the feeling of actually holding a piece of paper in your hand while playing the game.

Machiel: We did a big brainstorming session at the beginning of the project which resulted in around ten different concepts. From these concepts, we selected those which we though had potential. We presented our ideas to Wacom and Paper Cakes got selected, among others, to be developed further. There were plenty of ideas for Paper Cakes which did not make it into the final game. For example, one idea was to put half-ladders into the game. You could only use the ladder if you folded the paper and combined the ladder with another half. In the end, we decided to keep things simple and half-ladders got scrapped.

DIY: What other games and developers helped inspire you guys along the way?

Machiel: I like games which employ the principle of “easy to learn, hard to master”. For example, games like Braid and Crayon Physics are like that. They are easy to get into, with simple intuitive controls, yet they can be very challenging when you progress a bit further into the game. Our game was inspired by the same principle.

Lex: As an artist I am always attracted to simple art styles, and Doodle, our main character, actually started out as a one of my quick doodles. And from there the whole art style developed.

DIY: As a student team, what were the most difficult elements you still had to learn to create the finished product?

Bas: As the lead level designer I was in charge of the pacing and design of the levels and such. It was a challenge to make sure the pacing was just right and the game didn’t become too hard too fast. One of the ways we made sure of that was testing the game frequently, and adjusting the game accordingly after having examined the results of the test sessions.

Machiel: I actually never worked in Flash (As3) before we started this project. Learning a new language while working on a project with a deadline can be a pain, but in the end it all worked out fine.

Lex: In terms of production, I had done it all before. Working for a flash developer for 2 years, tends to help. And being a graphical artist I had worked with Photoshop and such before. I think for me the new experiences came after the project was finished. For me it had to do with the success of Paper Cakes and thus all the interviews and PR stuff we had to deal with.

DIY: As a player, the game is extremely challenging, especially after the new worlds introduce new game mechanics. What were your considerations in adjusting the difficulty of the different levels?

Bas: We chose to separate the four puzzle mechanics into specific worlds. This way we could make sure the player understands the first game mechanic before introducing a new one. We also decided to design each world with a separate difficulty curve as well as the whole game having its own difficulty curve. This way we could control the level of difficulty towards the end of each world and really challenge the player before giving him a new toy and lowering the difficulty to make sure the player has the time to learn the new mechanic.

Machiel: As a developer, it’s easy to make assumptions about the difficulty of your game, but more often than not your assumptions will be wrong. This was also the case with Paper Cakes. When we user-tested our first playable release, the first levels turned out to be way too difficult for a first-time player. Because of this the first levels were adjusted to be much easier and to explain more about the game.

Lex: We actually changed the first couple of levels a few times, and added the tutorial levels only half way through the project. Like Machiel said, when you think your game is easy, it isn’t. When you work so committed and so long on a game, you get to know the tricks and everything is easy. Especially when you also designed the levels.

DIY: (This question arose before knowing that Wacom had directly commissioned the project, but their answers are still interesting) Using the Bamboo Dock, I wish I had a tablet to play the game with. What made you decide to use such a framework for releasing the game? It seems like it would work well on other platforms, such as the iPhone or even WiiWare. Have you considered porting it to any other forms?

Machiel: Our assignment was to make Bamboo Minis for the Bamboo Dock, so we could not freely decide which platform to use. We have thought about porting the game to the iPhone or maybe even the new iPad (which would be awesome for Paper Cakes). However, none of us have the time to do it because we will all be too busy working on our graduation project.

Lex: I think if the creating of specific bamboo mini apps for the new bamboo pen and touch wasn’t our assignment, we wouldn’t have made Paper Cakes. So looking at it like that, I am glad the assignment was as it was. Looking back on the project, (and if we had the time) I would really like to make a iPhone or DsiWare port. Especially on the DS I see a lot of options for the second screen!

DIY: What’s next for all of you? Do you plan to collaborate again?

Bas: Next thing on the agenda for us (Dutch students), is our graduation projects and with that the writing of a thesis. This project we mainly have to work by ourselves. However, I definitely wouldn’t mind working with the other students again.

Machiel: The ideas each of us have for their graduation projects are very different so we probably won’t be working together on those. After that we will hopefully be graduated and we’ll all be looking for jobs.

Lex: Like stated above we’re all working on our personal graduation projects so a collaboration doesn’t seem likely in the near future. But if the option ever presents it self, I wouldn’t hesitate working with the HKU and USC guys again!

DIY: Are you guys going to make it out to San Francisco for IGF?

Bas: Yes, we are very glad that we will be travelling to San Fransisco to the GDC and attending the IGF.

Machiel: We will have a booth at the IGF where Paper Cakes can be played. Paper Cakes and our other games will also be playable at the Wacom stand. One of us will be present at any time at each of these stands.

DIY: What do you think of the other student titles that made the cut this year?

Bas: All of the nominated games are excellent, and excel in their own way. Very exciting stuff.

Machiel: The other student nominees seem to be very diverse in style and gameplay. We have played most of them and they are all very good games.

DIY: What advice would you give someone considering pursuing an education in game design?

Bas: Make sure you like what you’re going to do, and make sure you’re good at it. Designing and developing games is fun, but it’s hard work. Make sure you have fun doing it. And don’t be afraid of some long nights [smiley face].

Machiel: The only real way to learn about making games is by actually making games. You don’t need an education to get started. If you don’t have the technical skills to make a game from scratch you could join a modding community and help create a mod for your favorite game. There are plenty of resources online for anyone who wants to learn about game development. It’s much easier to get into a game development education if you already know something about game development. At the Utrecht School of the Arts, hundreds of students register for the Game Design and Development program each year, but only a few of those get selected.

Lex: Don’t think it’s all fun and games [smiley face]. Studying Game Design isn’t just playing games all day long, actually you should be happy to get a free hour to play one. But if your creative and good at “thinking outside (and inside) the box” go for it! Making games, like Bas said, is a lot of fun, but I think it’s a passion. So beware, if you like playing games, that doesn’t necessarily mean you like making them!

DIY: Is there anything else you’d like to add?

All: We would like to thank DIYGamer for the great opportunity and interview.

Thanks to the Dutch side of the Paper Cakes team for their answers. Once again, you can download the game from the Wacom Mini site.

Full Series: The Future of Gaming
*Ulitsa Dimitrova
*Puddle
*Devil’s Tuning Fork
*Boryokudan Rue
*Continuity
*Dreamside Maroon
*Igneous
*Paper Cakes
*Puzzle Bloom
*Spectre