Professional game developer and his artist wife made their first game with TutoTOONS, let’s see how it turned out! Meet Andrew Antykov, author of fun educational game “Word Catcher: City“ that helps kids and English beginners learn their first city-related words.
Word Catcher: City game has 8 different levels with topics like buildings, professions, street, transport, sport and park. Every level has 15 different word riddles (that’s 120 in total!), featuring beautiful images as hints and challenging the player to compose correct words from scattered letters.
TutoTOONS: Congratulations on making your first game with our game builder! What do you do besides game creation?
Andrew: First of all, thank you very much for your congratulations and for the invitation to the interview.
Actually, mobile games creation is the biggest hobby in my life. I’ve been working in game industry for 3 years, and I really enjoy it. I also like traveling, riding my motorbike, singing and playing music. In fact, I have professional music education.
Word Cather: City is not the first game that you created in your life. What were your previous game projects like?
My recent projects are Epic Racers, Who is Mining? and Tap the Frog.
Nice! So, you’re a professional game designer. What did you thought when you first heard about TutoTOONS?
I thought that TutoTOONS is a great engine and I see a really big potential in this game builder. I’ve read online that it won in some startup competition. I also have a special thanks to Iurii Znak for the invitation to work in the TutoTOONS team.
Iurii must be happy reading this :) How did you choose to make a word puzzle game? What was the inspiration source for your game?
I am an English learner myself, so I decided to help other English beginners and kids to learn new words faster. The letter riddles are a good way to learn new words by playing. The inspiration sources for me were Lingua Leo and 4 Pics 1 Word.
I personally prefer another kind of casual games - arcades, towers defenses, and other challenging and skillful games.How did you choose what words you will add to Word Catcher: City game?
I tried to put the most common words in the city area. With these words people may orient in the city more successfully.
From scratch to final game version, how much time did it take to make the whole game?
It took us about 2 months. A lot of this time was spent for trying to make animations and for marketing materials. Another special thanks goes to our friend Katie for helping with such amount of content.
Word Catcher: City features beautifully designed graphics. Did you make them yourself?
Thank you, you are right, it really is a beautifully designed art. My wife Irina did it and you can see her other works below. We noticed that not many games use flat art, so we’ve decided to make it like an experiment.
Irina’s other artwork:
Any funny stories form game creation process? What was the most interesting? What was the most challenging?
It was the creative process, we really enjoyed it. We overcame all the challenges very easily. Creation of so many images was probably the most challenging thing for Irina.
Share a few game creation tips with other game designers and artists. Things that you learned? Things that you think are the most important in game creation?
You should be inspired by what you do and enjoy the process. The most important is to never give up and think positive. And also you should make an eye-catching app icon. I’ve learned to be patient. I hope that TutoTOONS engine will be improved soon (and I have some thoughts about it).
Are you planning to make more games with TutoTOONS?
Yes, of course, I think it could be profitable for me and for TutoTOONS. We are planning to make the 2nd part of Word Catcher. Also, we are looking forward to our next project, an interactive story.
Thank you so much for answering our questions, we look forward to seeing your future games. Anything else you’d like to add?
Thank you very much and enjoy playing our game!
Time to play and guess some words. Grab your phones and tablets, and get Word Catcher: City now!
App Store: https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1018251090
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=air.com.tutotoons.app.wordcatchercity.free
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B011R2EHT4/