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Sponsored Feature: Turbo Camels Circus Extreme

Get the hump (in a good way) with tips, cheats and historical titbits from the team

Sponsored Feature: Turbo Camels Circus Extreme

It's not often that you can say that your favourite game of the year features bouncing dromedaries.

But RealArcade's Turbo Camels: Circus Extreme is one of the most original and fun titles of 2006, earning a nomination for Best Mobile Game in the upcoming Mobile Choice awards, as well as helping RealArcade be nominated for Best Developer in the Mobile Entertainment awards.

Developed by Finland-based studio Mr. Goodliving, it stars a springy camel called Baldwin, who has to bounce his way round dozens of levels collecting objects, rebounding off other animals, and executing a suitably knock-kneed landing to complete the stage. Read our review to see why we loved it.

Turbo Camels original mobile racerThe game was actually the sequel to the original Turbo Camels game, which was a racer. But why camels in the first place? We asked lead game designer Harri Granholm.

"The noble dual-humped beast is the national animal of Finland, so it was a natural choice for us," he says.

He's lying, of course. We all know that it's really the gecko. But the truth comes from an internal debate at Mr. Goodliving about how to make a fun mobile racing game, and a cheeky wager with a rival Finnish developer.

"It's perhaps best not to go into details, but it involved some slightly incorrect comments about racing games, and this one commercial film on the internet with camels in it," says Granholm. Like he says, don't ask.

Turbo Camels was a decent enough racing game, but far from the bouncy lunacy of Turbo Camels: Circus Extreme. Granholm says that the only things to survive in the sequel are the characters and the general attitude and humour.

"We wanted to make something completely different," says Sami Koistinen, producer of Circus Extreme. "It was quite clear from early on that Turbo Camels had much more to offer than the original camel racer. So we got to work and brainstormed lots of goofy ideas. One was a stunt simulation in the spirit of Evel Knievel. Camels jumping over lines of buses (or elephants) was a funny idea, but it lacked that important game element."

Circus Charlie videogame imageGranholm says that Mr. Goodliving also took inspiration from classic games like Circus Charlie and Kikstart II. But the eureka moment came when someone thought of camel pinball.

"Mr. Goodliving has actually done tons of pinball games, so pretty much our whole studio is competent in pinball," Granholm explains. "What if we could combine that know-how with camels? The rest is history."

There was a bit more thinking to do though. The idea of a circus theme came up quite early in the development process, as it seemed to fit the crazy ideas that the Mr. Goodliving team was coming up with. And, after all, a cannon makes for "the perfect camel pinball plunger".

The result is Turbo Camels: Circus Extreme, a frankly loopy game that's actually one of the most addictive one-thumb mobile games of the year. But what do the creators think is the best feature of the game? Granholm says it's controlling the camel itself.

"It took us numerous iterations and testing sessions with different control systems and physics code to get it right," he says. "You can do some pretty advanced stuff with the camel once you've really learned to utilise the controls and physics. Yet it is not too complicated for new players. I think we managed to keep the learning curve gentle enough."

Of course, the best thing about talking to the inventors of Circus Extreme is the chance to get some tips. How can Pocket Gamer readers do better in the game?

"First accomplish the mission as fast as you can, and then use all the extra time to collect more points by bouncing on objects," says Koistinen. "That's the proven strategy to beat the high scores."

Meanwhile, Granholm suggests relaxing, pointing out that there's no hurry, and on nearly every level it's possible to find a place where you can safely keep bouncing while plotting your next move. He does have some, ahem, less sportsmanlike advice too.

Turbo Camels Cirucs Extreme Fame-o-Meter screen"I can tell you that there are many Metroid fans on the team," he says. "And there might be a cheat code that just might have something to do with a certain planet on Metroid Prime 2 that shared a name with a lab in Metroid Prime. But nobody likes to cheat of course, so remember not to type it in when in Circus Extreme's Fame-O-Meter screen."

So what about the future? Will Baldwin and Gunther ever ride again? The omens are good according to Koistinen, who says the company has several ideas for games along the same genre as Circus Extreme – action-puzzle-platformer. Or, as he's taken to calling it, 'puzzleformer'.

One last question. Was Baldwin always going to be a camel, or could he have ended up as a different animal? Granholm says not. "Nothing can beat camels," he says. "Penguins come pretty close, but I now know I'm a camel man in my heart. We all are."

Get Turbo Camels: Circus Extreme from your operator, or find out more at the Mr. Goodliving website.

Stuart Dredge
Stuart Dredge
Stuart is a freelance journalist and blogger who's been getting paid to write stuff since 1998. In that time, he's focused on topics ranging from Sega's Dreamcast console to robots. That's what you call versatility. (Or a short attention span.)