‘Appy Days: Pussy Flip

Last week I had the pleasure of exploring Kwalee’s studio; a fledgling smartphone developer/publisher founded by industry luminary David Darling CBE – of Codemasters fame. Kwalee is one of a multitude of talented studios which are clustered around the streets of Leamington; a concentrated pool of talent that has birthed the moniker ‘Silicon Spa’. I was kindly invited into their offices in Central Leamington, where the amiable staff were more than happy to humour my incoherent questioning.

Pussy Flip is essentially a repackaging of the classic strategy board game Othello (or reversi), in a vibrant fur coat. Its gameplay is instinctive, and revolves around sandwiching your opponent’s cats between your own, causing the flipping of their duplicitous felines to your own assigned colour. The victor is the player whom controls the majority of the board when all available squares have been occupied. It’s a simple concept then, but one that has a certain scope for different strategies.

In terms of aesthetics, Pussy Flip draws on bright palette that evokes a certain youthful charm; as James Horn, the Head of Art at Kwalee explains: “We wanted a game which was fairly gender neutral, which can appeal to young, and old… and something that’s not threatening. I think graphically it succeeded in that way… although the name hasn’t helped in doing that”. Those last few words delivered with a knowing wry smile – as if to acknowledge the title’s provocative connotations.

Pussy Flip adheres to the guiding philosophy at Kwalee: to design games that are inherently social experiences, that anyone can instinctively pick up and play. Incidentally, James tells me it’s one of the principle reasons David Darling founded the company: “he was very taken by turn-based games… where I can have a go and send it to my friends, and they’re like ‘ooh I’ll have a go as well’. That’s the philosophy behind a lot of our games”.

As such, the game is a solely multiplayer affair, in a similar vein to DrawSomething; you log in via email or FaceBook and can jump into a game with friends, or search for random players. As James Munroe, Team Leader and Programmer for PussyFlip explains: “The game’s all about spreading and bringing new players in. We try to design the games to be implicitly viral”. It’ a model that’s perfectly suited to the platform and one that’s becoming ever more prevalent.

In truth, PussyFlip is hardly going to set the world alight, but that was never its intention. Pussyflip was as much about establishing a server infrastructure for later, more elaborate games, as it was about displaying the team’s proficiency at fulfilling a limited remit. This is clearly a talented group of individuals whom – from what I garnered during my brief interactions – have a real passion for their work, and a belief in David’s vision. I’ve got a real feline we’ll be seeing a lot more from Kwalee in the coming years.