Olo Loco provides the traditional shuffleboard recreation a playful contact
London-based studio Sennep specializes in designing and creating digital products for Google, Barclays and the Guardian. However, in their spare time, the team behind the studio has also carved out a niche for themselves to develop a range of innovative and engaging digital games.
Olo was developed with game maker Rogue Games and launched in 2012 as a digital version of traditional air hockey, curling and shuffleboard gameplay. The studio has teamed up again with Rogue Games for the sequel to Olo Loco, with a new set of eccentric Olomojis, a new soundtrack, and improved game modes.
Here, Sennep co-founder and creative director Matt Rice discusses the challenges of rethinking the original Olo format, creating the game's playful aesthetic, and the value of pursuing passion projects in general.
Creative Review: Can you tell us a little about how the original Olo game came about?
Matt Sennep: When we started Sennep in 2003, we committed to working on at least one self-initiated project per year. In the 17 years since then, the passion projects at Sennep have been diverse and broad. They are driven by our curiosity and love for visual expression and new technology.
Our coded experiments, also known as "Sennep Seeds", are smaller in scope. The original Olo game grew out of one of those "seeds" – an experiment with a 2D physics engine and HTML5. By flicking discs across an iPad screen and having excited chats as a team, we came across game mechanics we all enjoyed.
A casual mix of air hockey, shuffleboard and curling was born and named Olo (to reflect the simplicity of the game and the design of the playing field). We published the game as a browser-based web app and within a few weeks had 50,000 downloads, some positive reviews and, above all, a specific “proof of concept”.
That feedback gave us the confidence to invest in the development and construction of our first iOS game and our first salable product. Introduced as the App Store Editor in 2012, Olo has continued to be a firm favorite on the App Store for the past eight years, having played tens of millions of times. We couldn't have imagined that any of these things would happen on the back of a technical (coded) doodle.
CR: Why did you decide to start Olo Loco as a sequel and how does it differ from the original version?
MS: The original game got neglected over time as we turned to new things and that made us a bit sad. When the publisher, Rogue Games, contacted us with the idea of breathing new life into Olo, we knew there was room for improvement and it was time to rethink certain aspects of the game.
We want to stay true to the original, but add a new flavor. We knew the online experience needed updating and rethinking and that was the stepping stone for most updates. We made the online mode asynchronous so that players can play a round even when the opponent is not online. With this fundamental change, we've been looking for ways that players can communicate with each other. This led to the idea of leaving the opponent with little mockery or expressions of emotion about their last shot.
One of the joys of the game is that players can go from impending victory to devastating defeat in one go, and with that comes feelings of luck or despair. With this in mind, we introduced the Olomoji family so that players can express these emotions and sharpen their competitive advantage in the new and redesigned online mode.
CR: Talk to us about the overall aesthetics of the game and its key design elements.
MS: Olo's aesthetic is minimal and clean to match the simplicity of the gameplay. However, the challenge with this pared-down approach, especially with games, is the perception that it has no character or is not visually compelling. To counter this, we wanted the game to have its own character. That's why we worked with illustrator and animator Ben Pearce to bring the Olomoji family to life.
These characters are there to bring about an upbeat and slightly easy going personality. They add humor and disrespectful fun through their expressions and reactions, and represent common emotions that players feel in the game: anger, sadness, frustration, surprise, happiness, distress, joy, and disgust.
While the tone of the original felt like a subtle, low key jazz bar, we wanted the sequel to feel more like a runaway street carnival. A key element in setting the tone is the soundtrack. That's why we worked with longtime staff at Coda to Coda to write the music and provide all of the sound effects.
We also introduced a lot more visual, haptic, and audible feedback on the interaction. Everything reacts to the interaction of the players: The moving of the Olos, the collisions, the thefts and the scoring bring the otherwise minimal game board to life with explosions of confetti, color pulses and animations.
CR: What do you think is the value of freeing up time on passion projects like Olo in general?
MS: We know from experience that exciting, self-initiated R&D projects are very motivating for designers and developers. At a time when design studios need to stand out more than ever, these projects help us hone our skills and invite us to try new things and take more creative risks.
Unrestricted exploration and experimentation allows more freedom and more chances of chance – discoveries along the way have more time to develop, to blossom and to influence the result. When you control the schedule and budget, you don't have to compromise – nice-to-haves can become must-haves instead of being left behind. After all, even the smallest details can be essential to a great experience.
If these projects are financially successful, that is a huge bonus. However, creativity and learning are just as important as financial rewards. We believe that when fun and joy are part of the manufacturing process, they are expressed in the end product. The great thing about working in the digital space is that the product is always in the works and you can't refine and perfect the experience until you get real live user feedback. We look forward to it the most.
Olo Loco is available on the App Store and Google Play. sennepgames.com