A curious arcade dungeon crawler named The Pinball Wizard made a splash on Apple Arcade when it launched in fall 2019. Its compelling gameplay that combines pinball mechanics and 3D dungeons fit perfectly on the Apple ecosystem and its various devices, but when the company's exclusivity agreement expired, Frosty Pop wanted to see if it could replicate that success elsewhere.
The Pinball Wizard has been available on all Apple devices for three years before it was introduced to other platforms in late October. The experience creating a game for Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV gave Frosty Pop a solid understanding of making multi-platform titles. This helped propel the project to new heights on additional platforms, but the transition wouldn't come without obstacles. Game Rant spoke to Frosty Pop founder Faisal Sethi about the development of The Pinball Wizard for Switch and Steam, as well as the transformation process.
Challenges of Porting The Pinball Wizard
As The Pinball Wizard was built specifically for Apple devices, so core issues with porting the game had to do with how it would feel on new platforms. While the company was simultaneously making ports for Steam and Switch, the latter came more naturally. Steam is a very open platform that allows different kinds of devices with various display parameters, but Switch had a very similar nature to its Apple handhelds. Fortunately, both platforms supported leaderboards, which made The Pinball Wizard's boards transferrable - although some adjustments were made to fit the resolutions better.
Sethi said Switch controls allowed for perhaps better integration of the game's features. On iOS devices, power-up activation used a touch-sensitive button on the screen, but on Switch Frosty Pop could dedicate a physical joy-con button. The visual cues, informing the player of a ready-to-use power-up, were left on-screen but in a new form. Animations also had to reflect the new controls, so newly built graphics on Switch indicate which button to press, making it easy for both newcomers and those migrating from Apple devices.
"Many of the shop assets [...] had to be submitted in an old, unused form of JPG. We had to use a legacy function in Photoshop to export them correctly."
Although Switch was a great match for The Pinball Wizard in terms of controls and feel, developing for the platform wasn't without issue. Nintendo's eShop has some problems to deal with, for example. Frosty Pop was used to delivering store assets in modern, versatile, and high-fidelity formats, while Sethi said Nintendo uses an old version of JPEG that is no longer widely adopted. This meant assets had to be recreated specifically for the platforms, including things like screenshots and banners.
Finding New Players for The Pinball Wizard
Performance on different platforms has not been a major issue with The Pinball Wizard, according to Sethi, which allowed Frosty Pop to rely on its existing players to give feedback. The work it had done on the initial Apple version seemed to carry over well to other platforms, which has also made progression easier. However, Sethi said working with a multi-platform title is still more work, and balancing two new content management systems on top of the original was certainly a challenge at first.
However, the steepest hill to climb for The Pinball Wizard on new platforms seems to be marketing. Apple has all that covered for its exclusive titles, and the marketplace is not as saturated as platforms like Steam. At the time of The Pinball Wizard's release in its first wave of exclusives, there were only 70 or so titles to compete against. Even now there are just over 200 games on Apple Arcade. Sethi said that acquiring new customers is hard work, and one of the toughest predicaments for an independent game developer.
"While it’s tougher to manage a multi-platform title, we’re thankful to all our players who take the time to help us refine The Pinball Wizard."
While Frosty Pop was working on the ports, it also introduced some new features for the game. In addition to smaller UI updates, the game has got two new game modes after the Apple Arcade launch. These might attract players to the new ports, especially those that fell in love with the original. There are two new dungeons too, and an endless daily dungeon, allowing players to acquire more loot and improve their characters outside the core game. According to Sethi, the main game concludes now nicely, but there's still a possibility of a continuation in one form or another.
The Pinball Wizard is available now on Apple Arcade, Steam, and Switch.