Quick Hit Update Interview

Quick Hit Football is slowly but surely growing in community, with thousands of online users and, according to a recent news piece, over a million games played.  To celebrate, the team launched a new update with a Skill System and various other improvements.  We talked once again to director of design Brandon Justice about what this new update brings.

 

A million games played.  Wow, how do you guys feel about reaching such a massive feat in a short amount of time?

We’re really excited!  Picking the right partners certainly was a key part to our strategy and both Candystand and Addicting Games have been great in terms of driving players to the game.  The, add to that the online ads we’ve been pushing and suddenly we’re looking at a million games of Quick Hit Football in 2 months!

 

What do you think it is that attracted such a big audience to the Quick Hit universe?  Was it a certain factor or everything in general?

Honestly, I think it was two things in particular – “free” and “football.”  There aren’t a lot of high-quality games out there for free, so by removing the barrier that credit cards or the need for a console create, we have been able to reach a big part of the market.  Secondly – is football.   We’ve said it before, but Madden is a great football game – certainly the greatest in the genre, but it only sells about 6-8 million copies annually.  There are 22 million people playing fantasy football and stats say closer to 40 million people watch the NFL each week. So, there is a big market of football fans who want something to play other than hard-core console games.  I think we are their answer.

 

Tell us about this new update.  How will the new skill system come into play?

The new update is a big deal for us!  Part of our excitement in being a “live” game is the ability to update more frequently and really listen to our community for features they want. This first update has a lot of new features and tweaks – most notably our new skills system.  This system adds more depth and strategy to the game by giving Coaches the ability to boost players’ performance on key plays.  As you continue to ‘train up’ your players they unlock new skills along the way.

 

Your announcement states that there are over 120 skills in all in this new system.  How did you manage to diversify this system to have so many unique choices available?

Yes – good point.  I should clarify this.  There are actually 32 new skills, but each skill has four levels of complexity, which in total creates more than 120 possible ‘power ups’ for your players.

 

What is your favorite skill thus far, or do you have one?

That’s a good question.  I built my team to be a defensive powerhouse, so I’m a fan of defensive skills like the Sledge Hammer, which helps my safety stop running backs dead in their tracks or the Nose for the Ball, which helps my linebackers find the ball carrier and make a crushing hit.

 

Are the skills fairly balanced in game?  Or do you think some people might perceive them as "cheats" in some way?

One of the goals for the skills system was to make sure that each key skill had a “foil” on the other side. Since each skill is tied to a key match-up in the game, such as run blocking or tackling, the system actually followed some of the basic rules that govern the game itself, making the balancing act you speak of a bit less tricky than you might think. There’s always a danger that people might find the system unfair, but given the level of balance on which the system is based and the fact that the system is available to both Coaches, we hope that folks see it as it as intended: a unique layer of strategy that allows them to emphasize strategy on a particular play beyond traditional play-calling.

 

There are also new coaches coming.  Is there an official announcement as to who as of yet?

The newest Coaches added were announced in November and you covered it at GamePlayBook – Levy, Schottenheimer, Edwards and Glanville.  We don’t have any other ones on the radar just yet, but we are always talking to interesting pro candidates who we think would make good opponents for our players.

Tell us about some of these new plays coming to the game.  Is there a preference to pass plays, running plays, or a mixture?

It’s a pretty healthy mix. There were a handful of aspects to the initial playbook that we wanted to enhance a bit, so this was a good chance for us to round things out. We’ve added a ton of new defense, from bump-and-run coverage to complex blitzing schemes, and on offense, you’ll see more deep passes, a handful of plays for the fullback, and more. The response has been pretty positive since the release, so we’re definitely excited to continue expanding our Coaches’ strategic options as we continue to update the product.

 

How will the new play-tagging feature come into use?

Well, as the playbook continues to expand, it can be tricky to find the perfect play when the clock is counting down. As such, we wanted to give folks an easy way to find their “go-to” plays. We banged our heads together and came up with the ability to tag plays as “favorites.” We felt like it was a simple, familiar way to let Coaches identify and quickly access their bread and butter picks in the heat of the action. It essentially works like bookmarking a webpage, and once a play has been marked, it’s a two-button click to process to trim the playbook down from dozens of options to a smaller playbook tailored to a Coach’s individual style. Additionally, we’ve added the ability to filter in your Most Recent and Most Successful plays, which makes finding new candidates for your personal favorite set that much easier. We’re still getting feedback, but so far, folks have been stoked to have shortcuts, especially in those crucial last-second drives.

 

Finally, what do you expect for Quick Hit in 2010?  Do you think it'll be your team's best year to date?  Are there any surprises you can hint us in on?

2010 is going to be a really exciting year for us because it will be our first full season of football.  We didn’t officially launch until October this year and felt we missed out on some of the most exciting time of the season (August/September) so this year, we’ll be doing a lot of work in the ‘off-season’ to get ready for a blockbuster 2010 season.  We’ll be rolling out some ecommerce systems in the early part of the year, following through with our model around microtransactions, which I think will add some interesting new elements to the game.  We are also looking at new platforms for the game in  2010 – social platforms, mobile platforms.   Hopefully, we’ll have some new player and/or Coach news to announce at PAX East too!  So, stay tuned!

 

Thanks, Brandon.  We look forward to another year of Quick Hit fun.

Check out the Quick Hit website and register today!