It’s been an extended wait, however Outfit7 has revealed My Speaking Tom Associates 2, a brand new cellular recreation that can carry the Speaking Tom & Associates crew again in a brand new cellular recreation.
Outfit7 is launching the single-player recreation this July as a sequel to My Speaking Tom Associates, which debuted in 2020. Each video games are associated to Speaking Associates, the unique hit title that launched Tom the speaking cat to the world in 2012. The sport will probably be coming in July, and it already has one million individuals who have pre-registered.
This recreation gathers Tom’s pals in a neighborhood group. Gamers can bounce into a completely reimagined world and hang around with Speaking Tom, Angela, Hank, Becca and Ben. This extremely anticipated sequel ramps up the friendship vibes with personalised homes for every character, contemporary new methods for them to precise themselves, and a ton of mini-games and hangouts to discover, mentioned Ante Odic, CEO of Outfit7, in an unique interview with GamesBeat.
“The original was a really a hit game and one of our flagship apps,” Odic mentioned. “It was a new concept because it was a different game from what we had been doing until then. It is a concept we really believed in and the reaction from the audience and market was really, really good.”
Plus, the characters are absolutely voiced – talking, joking, and expressing themselves with actual voices that carry much more character and appeal to each interplay. And to high it off, early birds who be part of the enjoyable inside the first 14 days will unlock a particular present: Tom’s slick new Rizzler Outfit — as a solution to kick issues off in fashion.
Welcome to the Neighborhood
My Speaking Tom Associates 2 takes place in a complete neighborhood.
On the coronary heart of My Speaking Tom Associates 2 lies a full of life new neighborhood the place each character’s house displays their distinctive character – from Tom’s rockstar loft to Angela’s artsy studio, and from Hank’s cozy critter hideout to Becca’s tech hub and Ben’s inventor’s storage.
Gamers can discover the neighborhood and go to native spots just like the meals retailer, boutique, well being clinic, and greenhouse – every bursting with enjoyable and inventive actions. A dynamic day-night cycle provides contemporary moods and magical moments to find, making the neighborhood really feel really alive.
Mini-Video games, Max Enjoyable
My Speaking Tom Associates 2 is coming in July.
Whether or not gamers are within the temper for motion, creativity, or simply one thing quirky, My Speaking Tom Associates 2 delivers with a giant bunch of contemporary mini-games. You may interact in street-style spray portray and paper airplane flights, or play soccer shootouts, kite crafting, high-speed races, and even mowing mayhem. It’s all seamlessly woven into the sport world.
Speaking characters with a humorousness
For the primary time within the sequence, the characters communicate with actual voices, including a complete new dimension to how they specific themselves. Gamers can hear Tom, Angela, Hank, Ben, and Becca crack jokes, react to moments, and convey much more character to the display. This function provides a contemporary layer of appeal and humor, making the world really feel extra alive and each interplay extra private.
Bus journeys to new worlds
Past the neighborhood, gamers can catch a trip on the brand new bus system to the Water Park – a splashy, slide-packed vacation spot stuffed with surprises. And that’s only the start – extra bus journeys and new worlds are already on the best way.
Taking friendships to new heights
My Speaking Tom Associates 2 builds on fan favorites like larger worlds, deeper bonds, and plenty of extra methods to attach. The characters are bursting with character and appeal, feeling extra relatable than ever. This sequel serves up an excellent richer, extra heartfelt expertise, mixing enjoyable gameplay with real moments. It’s the following step within the Speaking Tom & Associates journey, made to please gamers of all ages.
To have fun the worldwide launch, gamers who be part of the sport inside the first 14 days will obtain an unique present: the trendy Rizzler outfit for Tom. It’s the proper solution to begin your journey in fashion.
Throughout its lengthy journey, the corporate discovered find out how to do dwell ops and updates and discovered how customers work together with these sorts of video games and new applied sciences, he mentioned.
“With our passion for these great characters and brand, we are putting energy into this sequel,” he mentioned. “So we are very excited to see how it’s going to go. It’s a lot of new type of content.”
Odic mentioned the brand new recreation has extra range of content material than the sport from 2020, and there are some capabilities that the sport can pull off higher now. The setting will probably be outdoors, because the characters will probably be residing in a neighborhood fairly than only a single home.
“We will have individual houses for each of them. They will be individual places where they will be able to express their uniqueness, characteristics, hobbies, interests, and they’re basically different personalities that they have as characters,” Odic mentioned.
In these homes, customers will be capable to work together with them. All of the characters can take part a home and do stuff collectively. And there will probably be new mini video games that join with the world in a extra intuitive manner, extra seamless, he mentioned.
“It’s going to be new kinds of mini games and experiences for users. Then the characters will be talking for the first time, not just text speech. They’re going to have their own voices, and they will be able to react and comment and and have fun with each other and also with the user and us,” Odic mentioned. “It was always super important that the characters are not just some kind of entity in the game representing what the users are doing. They are actual characters with needs that are interacting with the environment and with the user itself. And now basically we are adding a whole new communication channel that can put that on a whole new level, where they can react to things around them. They can react to each other in a funny way, and they can also react in one more additional way with the user.”
That enhances the connection that gamers may have with the characters and convey them to life.
A brand new route for the sequel
Ante Odic is CEO of Outfit7.
Within the first recreation, gamers may take characters to a set of shops the place you simply should buy gadgets for these characters. However now they are going to be taking characters to the entire new further components of the world the place there will probably be new stuff to discover, they usually can work together with characters.
“We are really broadening the kind of memorable experiences that we want to give to our users to explore together with these characters,” Odic mentioned.
A cautious strategy on AI
Whereas the characters are deeper and extra enjoyable, they’re not but going to have generative AI constructed into them.
“They are going to be more lifelike and be fun, but we are exploring using AI for this purpose. We did some tests in the past, and we found that it’s still kind of clunky,” Odic mentioned.
Given the dangers of characters going sideways, the corporate determined to skip full AI for the characters, he mentioned. That’s not so nice for a youngsters’ recreation.
“We keep them in character and control how it all works together,” he mentioned.
A recreation improvement journey
Outfit7 labored on My Speaking Tom Associates 2 for 2 years.
The sport will probably be cellular on the iOS App Retailer and the Google Play retailer. Odic mentioned the sport took about 18 months to 2 years to make. A small staff labored on quite a lot of prototypes, after which they feell in love with the thought of making particular person homes for every character. After that, the staff went into full manufacturing. At varied groups, there have been 20, 30 and even 50 individuals engaged on the sport.
In the course of the improvement, the corporate began transforming particulars of the model and the totally different characters. What are their particulars and traits?
“My Talking Tom Friends 2 is the first product that, on this scale, is going to show and represent all of these new things and this rework,” Odic mentioned. “We are building a more cohesive strategy of all of these products together, how they’re going together, how they’re working together, how they are supporting each other.”
At Outfit7, there are a complete of 400 individuals working on the firm. Many are a part of the dwell operations groups engaged on current video games, primarily six of the most important hits to this point. There are a few different groups engaged on different unannounced titles which might be coming, Odic mentioned. Some will proceed to work on My Speaking Tom Associates 2 as new updates get began.
Of the gameplay, Odic, mentioned, “We are immersing you in this world with these characters for you to just explore this high quality content in a casual way. It is light hearted. It is just fun, something to relax with.”
The altering trade
My Speaking Tom Associates 2 is the sequel to a 2020 recreation.
Odic acknowledged that the entire recreation trade is far more complicated. There may be plenty of complexity with the addition of publishing companions, distribution companions — not simply improvement studios. There are promoting companions, exterior improvement corporations and extra. It’s additionally a saturated market with extra mature competitors.
“It’s a much harder market and industry for now to reach the same level of success as before, but it is not the first time this has happened in gaming, and also it happens from time to time in different industries,” Odic mentioned.
He acknowledged some dangerous can come out of it, like studio closings and layoffs. However there’s additionally some good that may come, with a resetting of prices and new alternatives for smaller corporations. Odic doesn’t assume this can be a time to retreat, or to “exploit” an previous franchise fairly than “explore” a brand new one.
“What can happen in these harder times is that people kind of close up and squeeze and they go more into exploitation than into exploration, because exploration is short term riskier. But for the long term, it is better to do exploration. My concern is that if everybody goes into exploitation and put less efforts into exploring, then new ideas, new games, new individuals, new developers, new innovative ideas, are going to have a harder time to reach audiences,” Odic mentioned.
Throughout this time, corporations can reevaluate what gamers actually need from the video games of the longer term, Odic mentioned. In that manner, the powerful instances will help the trade get up, assist it discover “happy accidents,” and return to progress.
“It is a difficult situation, sure. But it is on all of us to do our best so that those good things happen. We have a lot of things that are happening. We have more things that we have identified as business opportunities, and we have resources to do all of that. So for us, we are actually in a good situation. We can see these trends from the industry, of course, as well, but we are actually keeping our ecosystem of users pretty stable, and we are profitable. We have still a very strong performance.”
Odic mentioned it isn’t clear but what the end result of the antitrust case between Epic Video games and Apple will probably be. Epic Video games has been allowed to get Fortnite again on the app retailer after 4.5 years of authorized maneuvers, however it isn’t clear what it means for every developer within the trade.
“To be honest, we need to keep our eyes open and see where it is going to go and in what way. We definitely need to take opportunities as they come. But it’s hard for me just to predict,” he mentioned.
Whereas Outfit7 has at all times centered on world video games, Odic mentioned there are territories of the world which might be additionally changing into extra necessary. He goals to have his firm able to serve content material to any area of the world the place the expansion is occurring.
“We are trying always to make sure that we are present in all markets, and it’s the same now,” he mentioned. “It’s a super exciting time. We are really focusing now on these games and other games that we are doing, and super excited about the launch.”