Game Cognition’s most recent creation is an entirely new beast with familiar faces [sponsored]

Chances are, if you own an iPhone, you’ve played a mobile creature collector, city builder, or fighting game. The chances of you playing a game that combines all three, however, are very slim indeed, and that’s exactly what Game Cognition has achieved with its latest iPhone game, Island of Mu.

Island of Mu aims to do much more than simply cram three successful genres into one game though. It's shaking the foundations of each genre to create something entirely unique. From the RPG-style puzzle combat system, to the Source, there’s something new for fans of each genre.

Game Cognition Product Manager, Eugénie Homayony, discussed these new features with Pocket Gamer, as well as the development process behind the Source system and Game Cognition's plans for new features and future platforms.

Island of Mu combines three successful genres into one game. From the collector, to the city builder, to the fighter - every type of player will find what they are looking for in our game.

The type of creatures you can collect are more unusual than your traditional collecting game. Because they’re oneiric creatures, each one of them is unique.

The game engine, represented in the game as the Source, offers an entirely new way to play that can’t be found in today’s games. For example, if you leave your creature for too long without taking care of it, it will stop producing gold, which will also have a negative effect on the surrounding environment.

People play social games because they know that they can’t really lose. We wanted to bring something more to our game by making it much more challenging.

My favourite part of the game is the battle world. I’ve played lots of different puzzle combat games but I always felt that something was missing. In a typical match-three battle you’re attacking an opponent that doesn’t attack back, or in games where they do, beating them is a simple case of tapping and hitting.

Our puzzle combat system has everything you can find in a traditional RPG battle but combined with a match 3 puzzle. Every move must be well thought out because your opponent has all the same options at their disposal that you do.

During every turn you’ll be forced to make a tactical decision, such as choosing between recharging your magic spell, attacking the player directly, or even stealing your opponent’s attacks so that they can’t be used against you - but always keep in mind that your opponent can do the same.

We have a lot of ideas and new features that we’re planning on implementing in the next few months. We’ve built a game with a lot of open windows and we plan to add features that will keep up with the story of the game.

Our main goal at the moment is to release a PVP system so that players can play against their friends.

When developing a game, coming up with a great idea isn’t the difficult part - it’s getting the idea into your game before someone else comes up with it. As developers, we’re incredibly passionate and strongly believe in our game and, as a result, have been constantly tweaking and improving every aspect of our game during development.

The downside to this is that we’ve had to start over on certain features after months of development. But that’s what made the game what it is today, and that’s how we believe that you implement a great idea. If you want to make a successful game you have to do whatever it takes - even if that means starting over.

The Source is a great example of this. The first system we developed was completely different and it wasn’t until we were half way through development that we realized we had a gameplay problem. We modified everything and ended up inventing the Source, which has made our game a lot more playable and fun.

Our highest priority is to release the game on iPad. We’re really proud of the graphics and we would like for the players to see our creatures on a much bigger screen.

We do have plans to release an Android version but, unfortunately, we don’t have a release date at this time.

You can download Island of Mu on the App Store for free now [download].

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