The Malaysian-Peru indie studio, 7th Beat Games took an unexpected turn to launch their new game, A Dance of Fire and Ice without any announcement last January.

Releasing a game out of the blue is a risky move but it worked for the new battle royale game, Apex Legends developed by Titanfall series creator, Respawn Entertainment.

Despite the simplicity of this musical game, A Dance of Fire and Ice garnered a lot of attention, especially in China and Korea. This game’s irresistible beat has its own following in Korea’s gaming scene and even caught the attention of professional League of Legends esports athlete, Faker.  

How does the short one-button rhythm game about two aligning planets become a hit? I talked to Hafiz Azman, one of the creators behind this mini-symphony about their first Steam release, his musical influences, and challenges he faced during the game’s development.

From a side project to important lessons on Steam release

A Dance of Fire and Ice is developed side-by-side with another 7th Beat Games’ upcoming one-button musical game, Rhythm Doctor, which is still in the works and expected to be released this year after several delays.

The first official release of the game on Steam turns out to be a valuable lesson for Hafiz and the team as it helped them to prepare for Rhythm Doctor’s anticipated release. “We learned a lot from Steam release. Mostly it was learning about how it’s like to release a game on Steam.” 

“For example, all the little things like having to wait for your game build to be approved on Steam or to wait for your trailer to be processed. There’s a lot of things that you wouldn’t know without going through the process and now that we’ve gone through a process, we can plan a lot better for our release of Rhythm Doctor,” he said.

If you take a quick look at the reviews and comments on itch.io and Steam, you will see the game is showered with high praises for its great concept and novel gameplay. “We have not prepared a plan to market the game at all,” Hafiz surprised with the reception.

“The way we manage to spread the game first is released a free demo through Kongregate and itch.io. People who like playing it bought the game and that’s how it goes.” 

Tough but meaningful musical play

In my review of A Dance of Fire and Ice, this game is fairly simple as you follow the beat and synchronize the two planets together using one button but it can be quite challenging because once you miss a note, you have to start right from the top.

When I asked about putting a difficulty settings as appeared in Patapon, Cytus and other rhythm games to make the game less unforgiving, it turned out I’m not the only one who requested for it. However, Hafiz stood with his own reason why he withheld the difficulty tweak and it was based on his observation of mind-bending endless runner game made by a fellow Malaysian.

He expressed, “We’re thinking of that and a lot of people were asking for it. So far, we did not put a difficulty meter (in A Dance of Fire and Ice) because I was influenced by one of Shawn Beck’s game called Velocibox. In the game, it did not have any checkpoints. You only have one life, he actually added checkpoints because the publisher asked him to do later on. But when I played it back, I felt it kind of ruined the game because there was less sense of danger and risk.”

Hafiz understands that some people may find his game to be frustrating to play, “For A Dance of Fire and Ice, this is the specific kind of game we are making and it is unforgiving with only one life. This means it would not be appealing for some people. But for people who like that kind of game, it will work well. So, it is okay if we do not appeal to everyone.”

While the rhythmic gameplay might be tough to follow, the choice of the songs in the game are beautifully curated and what makes the game unique is that all of these sweet beats are made in house by Hafiz and Jade Kim, a musician from Berklee College of Music. The songs are created based on the gameplay that they wanted to show without resorting to only one genre of the music.

“It is based on the stuff I listen to without specific genre to follow. With both games (A Dance of Fire and Ice and Rhythm Doctor), I like to try out different genres like a little bit of EDM, jazz style and so on,” Hafiz told.

No limits

During the development of A Dance of Fire and Ice, Hafiz reached out to several veteran game developers to ask for advice. One of the given feedback was discouraging as the mysterious veteran said, “Unfortunately, I think I found the gameplay is far too simplistic for your game to be a hit. I hope I’m wrong! But if I were you, I will ship the game as soon as possible and focus on something new that has more potential. Please don’t take this personally. I’m seriously trying to help you succeed and I think the best way to do that is to start coming up ideas for your next project.”

In the end, they released the game and received tremendous success. Not only on Steam, A Dance of Fire and Ice was able to beat Minecraft and became the top paid mobile game in Google Play Store Korea.

Finally #1 paid game, selling above minecraft, an 8 year old game, in Korea specifically, on the Play store!! Life will never be as good. Thanks @issac_choy for the pic and thanks korea for liking our game~ pic.twitter.com/NZcYg0olR8

— Hafiz Azman (@7thbeat) March 6, 2019

He revealed that there will be a new level to be added every month in the game, starting from March. The developer is also working on the custom level editor, which players can customise their own level after receiving many requests from the players. According to Hafiz, he opined the level editor will help to prolong the length of the game.

A Dance of Fire and Ice is now available to play on PC (Steam and itch.io) and Google Play Store.