Indie Spotlight – Back2Back with a perfect fusion of challenges and teamwork
- Back2Back is the first co-op mobile game designed for two players, allowing players to immerse themselves in an endless race.
- The game lets you swap roles at any time and climb the leaderboard by defeating other duos.
- Antoine Habert, the co-founder of Chouic and Two Frogs, shared interesting insights into the game’s inspiration, how they balanced roles, vision, and more.
Two Frogs has launched Back2Back on both Android and iOS, delivering a couch co-op arcade racing game, designed exclusively for two players. Set in a ruthless, robot-infested universe, the game challenges you and your partner’s teamwork and reflexes. With unique Switch mechanics and gyroscope controls, this well-crafted title provides thrilling adventure gameplay.
Featured Column – Indie Spotlight
GamingonPhone’s Indie Spotlight shines a light on budding small studios and developers, offering recognition and visibility within the indie space. In this segment, we provide essential overviews along with insights and thoughts from developers. If you’re an indie studio, feel free to reach out with your queries at editor@gamingonphone.com.
Game Overview
Back2Back, developed by a French remote-working indie studio, is a co-op racing game that invites you to a robot-infested universe. You and your partner must navigate dangerous situations to go as far as possible to achieve the highest scores. As the developers mentioned, this ever-evolving game is perfect for anyone who enjoys a couple of games and wants to bond while having fun and enjoying quality time with a partner or friend.
This isn’t your typical ‘It Takes Two‘ experience, but for mobile gamers, this can be a wholesome experience.
This indie gem offers the best opportunity to test your synchronization with one another. The key to success lies in your partnership. One of you can drive, while the other partner provides cover by shooting down the robots. The game features a unique feature called the Switch, which allows you to swap roles between driver and shooter, enhancing your chances of survival and helping you navigate tense moments.
Featuring a variety of interesting vehicles, such as Auto, unique visuals and artwork, a lot of obstacles to overcome, and gyroscope controls, this beautiful game offers an immersive and dynamic adventure experience for modern gamers.
Why you should play Back2Back
- This game offers one of the first-ever couch co-op gameplay experiences on mobile devices.
- It features Switch mechanics, gyroscope controls, various challenging obstacles, and more.
- A fun couple game experience that tests your communication and coordination with your partner.
- Aesthetic cartoony artwork-type graphics and thrilling adventures to explore.
From concept to creation: Developer Insights
In a conversation with GamingonPhone, Mr. Antoine Habert, the co-founder of Chouic and Two Frogs, a French, remote-working, indie studio, shared valuable details about Back2Back. He discussed the game’s development challenges, its inspiration, the studio’s approach to balancing roles, and much more.
Mr. Habert explained the role of one of the developers of the game, Mr. William, stating he is “mainly focused on implementing new features.” He added that Mr. William joined the project early as the second developer, during which he and the initial developer had to handle additional responsibilities, such as graphic design, UI, and more until others joined the team.
Describing Back2Back, he referred to it as a cooperative, asymmetrical, infinite runner shooter, adding, “It’s kind of its own niche thing, a bland of multiple existing genres.”
The inspiration behind Back2Back
We began the conversion by discussing the inspiration behind creating the game as an exclusively two-player cooperative game. Mr. Habert emphasized their strong belief that the two-player co-op genre lacks interesting titles.
“When some games appear, they become hits (looking at It Takes Two, obviously), but even though there are some on PC and console, it’s pretty much non-existent on mobile,” he explained. He thinks this is due to the challenges involved in developing such games.
“But that’s a shame,” he added, “because it feels great to think that couples or best friends all over the world would enjoy such games.“
Developmental challenges the studio faced to create a communication and synchronization-based game
When I asked about the team’s developmental challenges in creating a game that relies on seamless communication and synchronization between two players, he responded, “A lot of them! Most importantly, the choice of the technology.“
He explained that since it is a mobile game, the team had “to anticipate and manage bad network conditions,” while still ensuring a great gaming experience. He described the importance of keeping players synchronized, noting, “We had to spend quite some time experimenting and optimizing to get there.“
Their approach to balancing the driver and shooter roles
Discussing how they balanced both roles in the game, he explained that the team went through multiple iterations to polish the experience. He revealed, “We settled on the speed of the car as the only increasing difficulty. Everything else is tied around it.”
Mr. Habert noted, “Waves of robots become increasingly difficult to eliminate as the car goes faster,” adding that they didn’t need to add more robot enemies or make them stronger.
He highlighted that the team ensured that both you and your partner always have something to do, but are never overwhelmed for too long. “Finally, the switch mechanic allows us to stay engaged and focused,” he concluded.
The vision of the game is to strengthen relationships between players
“We made sure the game isn’t frustrating because it would lead to blaming each other,” Mr. Habert described. He shared that they fine-tuned the mechanics in a way, so you and your partner can progress further by communicating and cooperating.
“Both players have their role to play, so trusting each other is mandatory in Back 2 Back,” he added.
Cooperative games’ role in the current mobile gaming landscape
According to him, social is a big aspect of mobile games. However, he noted, “it’s often just a side of the base game, for the end game, or an option, rarely the core of the game.” He said that it’s either this or it’s a port of a PC/console game.
He expressed his belief that mobile has a lot of potential to offer to the co-op genre, which I also agree with. Concluding the discussion, he remarked, “Can’t wait to see more amazing co-op games in the upcoming years.“
Final Verdict from the Editor
Available for free, Back2Back is a fun and engaging co-op racing game designed exclusively for two players. It offers an unforgettable duo gaming experience. I found the game enjoyable and engaging, and if you play with your partner instead of your friend, it tends to be more entertaining.
The game truly tests your cooperation and reflexes with your partner, and as the devs mentioned, it is the perfect way to test your synchronization. With its uniquely charming visuals, exciting gameplay, variety of vehicles, robot enemies, and more, Back2Back is a must-play title for couples who love to game together.
If you want to experience this co-op game with your partner, you can download it from the Google Play Store or the App Store.
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