RuneScape Mobile: A Hands-on Experience at RuneFest

For those of you who don’t know, RuneFest is the annual celebration of all things RuneScape. This includes the legendary Old School RuneScape and its brother, RuneScape.

Playing the Early Access

Around 75,000 players have already had access to the closed beta, and I have good news for you. RuneScape is going into early access in the near future, and a lot has changed. I don’t mean they’ve meddled with the what makes RuneScape great, instead, they have worked to make your mobile experience even better.

The most notable change to RuneScape includes a brand new, re-designed user interface. The Backpack scroll bar is gone, and the icons now hug the boundaries of whatever device you are playing on. The layout of the combat buttons have been improved, so you have less clutter in the way while fighting.

I could tell you about how each button has moved or how some menus have been adjusted, but take my word on this. They have adjusted the UI for us mobile gamers, and we won’t have to wait too long before Early Access.

An Interview with Jason Milena

I was lucky enough to get time with Jason, Milena, a Jagex employee who is in charge of getting Runescape onto mobile. Below is a small transcript of the conversation we had about RuneScape making its way onto our mobile devices.

What
aspect of RuneScape needed the most tweaking from the Closed Beta to Early
Access?

“That
would be the user interfaces. Bringing a game that was successful on PC is
not as easy as you might think. Players interact with the two devices in
entirely different ways, so it only makes sense for the user interfaces to
accommodate a different type of interaction. The biggest problem we have
faced is how do we make interactable items obvious to the players? The PC has a
mouse which allows for different cursor types for these interactable items.
Conveying this to users on mobile is an entirely different challenge.”

Were you
worried that the mobile version of RuneScape could lose its magic?

“In short, no. But that’s because we have been there and done that with Old School Runescape. I joined the team when Old School RuneScape was in Beta, so I am new to Jagex. But when you play any one of the many MMORPGs, each one has their own feeling. RuneScape has a feeling like no other MMORPG out there, so it was vital we get that feeling across to mobile.”

Any last
words for the readers?

“Yes, I
want to say be patient. The game is entering Early Access soon and we always
listen to the feedback from the community. So, come grab a membership and tell
us what you think!”

If you
would like to find out more about RuneScape coming to mobile, then you can
check out the official site.