Quick Route

Factsheet

Developer:
HIL
Based in Hong Kong

Founding date:
November 21, 2012

Website:
hil-hk.com/quickroute

Press / Business Contact:
info@hil-hk.com

Social:
Facebook Page

Address:
Suites 3009-12, Shui On Centre,
6-8 Harbour Road, Wanchai,
Hong Kong

Phone:
+8 525 808 8597

Company Info

Based in Hong Kong, HIL is an experienced developer of GPS devices software. Hundreds of thousands GPS navigators worldwide are shipped with firmware developed in HIL. HIL put a lot of efforts into routing algorithms, and recently entered mobile game market with Quick Route — a puzzle that turns the routing problem inside out. That is, challenges users to solve it by themselves instead of relying on the GPS.

Quick Route

In Quick Route a player has to connect bubbles using the shortest possible line. But it’s easier said than done: there are billions of alternatives and only one is right. Put into a beautiful and calm underwater world, this puzzle makes for a very pleasant pastime, when you are in a traffic jam or on the way home on public transport.

Quick Route shows one of the hardest computational problems: to find the shortest and fastest way between several points. The puzzle makes you look for uncommon solutions and new points of view. A challenging problem is combined with a simple gameplay and meditative design.

Quick Route is built on the Travelling Salesman Problem. The amount of possible ways grows pretty fast: there are 3.6 millions of them for 10 points, and almost 500 millions for 12. With rather few points like 66 the problem can't be solved with just searching variants even with modern computers in less than billions of years. On the other hand human brain is able to produce solutions of high quality in a short time. Quick Route provides iPhone users with a challenging opportunity to put their brains on a test.

Quick Route makes you think. The natural intuition will give you a hand in the very beginning. But you'll probably meet multiplicity already on the levels of 5-7 points. Our intuition is based on an everyday experience of hunting for a shortest and fastest path, e.g., from the home to the office. That was actually an origin for Quick Route authors: "Our company works a lot with GPS navigation technologies and among others with routing algorithms. Their goal is to find the shortest or the fastest path from point A to point B <...> Usually it is a GPS navigator that tells us how to plan a trip but in Quick Route we decided to "put the cart before the horse" and to make the users themselves responsible for this task," - says Michael, the game project manager. A player needs something beyond "an everyday intuition" to solve the higher levels. There are only few routes that worth trying on elementary ones. But the amount of possible solutions on the next levels grows considerably. A lot of tested earlier false routes should be kept simultaneously on one's mind not to be trapped in repetitions. More than this you have to think up your own methods to reject false paths without a check. Quick Route takes a psychological flexibility: sometimes you'll need to decline the path that looks like a right one to find the ideal solution. The only way in the case is to look at the problem in a different way and invent a completely new route.

Quick Route is not like top puzzles on the App Store at all. There is no any charming character to attract and entertain you. Neither colossal block constructions will be destroyed, nor any box or pig will explode in a slight movement. There is no rich interactions with game physics. Instead of all the stuff Quick Route presents a player with a problem and graphical environment that helps him/her to fully concentrate on solving the thing. Quick Route is more like hardcore mechanical puzzle as entanglement ones or Rubik's cube. In such a puzzles a player will be pleased not with the game's rich feedback but with solving a complicated problem and overcoming obstacles.

And that's not the last. Quick Route is not just looking for the right solutions. It's a setting that makes your mood. The puzzle is plunged into a calm and pacifying underwater world. The game's surrounding is assigned to make you feel shut in a calm and safe place. Complicated problems can't be dealt in a vanity and flurry; they require an inner tranquility and deep concentration. Michael emphasizes: "The game requires a real concentration. That dictated our decision on a setting for the game: it should be beautiful and calm, so that the player can focus on the task and only the task."

Quick Route was created for lovers of intricate puzzles. A fancier of a quite rest and an aesthete, an art lover and the one who prefers a process not a result will have fun as well. Quick Route helps you to calm down, shake off the fuss in a crowdy subway, and to hide from a yelling boss in the office. Game sessions can be long and short, and it will do for an everyday short brakes and for a long and meditative rest as well.

Features:

• A puzzle based on one of the world’s hardest computational problems
• Over 100 challenging levels
• A beautiful underwater world
• A completely calm, relaxed atmosphere

A Story Behind

We are not a games studio and Quick Route is our first game project. Our company works a lot with GPS navigation technologies and among others with routing algorithms. Their goal is to find the shortest or the fastest path from point A to point B using the road network. Usually it is a GPS navigator that tells us how to plan a trip but in Quick Route we decided to "put the cart before the horse" and to make the users themselves responsible for this task.

It was very interesting to prove once again that the human brain is an efficient tool to solve such problems and that it is capable to find the best solution among millions of alternatives. However the problem turned out to be quite hard and we felt that puzzle lovers should absolutely appreciate it.

The first introductory levels just test your eyes. The player is prompted to estimate and compare distances between points. On these levels there are only few reasonable variants to verify. But as the game goes farther, the number of points to connect grows, and on higher levels it is necessary to keep in memory dozens of tested paths.

To make it even harder we generated levels that have several very close solutions. Sometimes they differ as less as 0.1% of distance and the player needs to be able to refuse completely a false decision and to invent completely different path.

So the game requires a real concentration. That dictated our decision on a setting for the game: it should be beautiful and calm, so that the player can focus on the task and only the task.

Team & Repeating Collaborators

Mikhail Koroteev
Project Manager, Level Design

Pavel Kostryakov
Designer

Dmitriy Vasilik, Alexander Rigachnyy
Developers

Vitalia Garmonova, Vera Vasicheva, Ekaterina Titova
Testers, Level Design

Contact

Mikhail Koroteev
mk@hil-hk.com