iPhone/Web 2.0

Today I have Reto Senn with me, from bitforge, who worked on Orbital, a truly innovative and addicting game that my girlfriend and I [and friends] just can’t stop playing. In fact, just the other day I got the 13th highest score in the world of 159 on Gravity Mode. I also find it to be an incredible game for showing off your iPhone. It’s incredibly fast to learn, but quite deep. In the two player mode, both players play opposite each other across a table which makes it ideally suitable for a mobile device instead of a computer.

I know that when I first saw Orbital, I thought of it as a knock-off of Puzzle Bobble (a.k.a. Bust-A-Move), but once I got it, I discovered that it’s much more than that. Each shot will create a ball that expands until it reaches either the edge of the screen or another ball and if you hit a ball 3 times, it explodes giving you a point. What were your inspirations for Orbital?

First of all, congrats on your score in Gravity Mode, i have yet to break the 100 points barrier. Did you know that Dane Cook is 8th with 171 Points? People are really addicted, the average playing time of all players is somewhere around 5 hours, with some people maxing out at 100 hours. That’s the amount of time people usually spend with role-playing games…

Anyway, to get to your question:
Adrian, the guy who programmed Orbital, and Andreas, who acted as Producer,
were addicted to a flash game called Gimme Friction Baby. Very simple, very basic. They just couldn’t stop playing, i gave it a shot and was addicted as well. The game felt like a raw gem. But man, was it tough. We wanted to provide something that everyone would play – so we experimented a lot, we tried many different things but in the end what really worked well were gravity and multiplayer. So we stuck to them and left out the experimental stuff.

Initially, we also wanted to have a pinball feeling… a lot of action going on. We knew we wanted to have voice-overs, but no one here speaks English without an accent – so we had to go with a text-to-speech engine. And we wanted the robot to be a bit sarcastic, like we are.

And we included online high scores and facebook so people start to challenge each other. Some experiments also went into the direction of Bust-a-Move, now that you mention it.

Graphically, we wanted to do something impressive, that really wowed people. We knew it will be something space themed, and we needed to show the gravity. That’s how the grid came into being.

Many players notice its very simple scoring mechanism. On the first game of Gravity Mode, a player’s first score is usually 5… while somewhat disheartening, it also gives the player a challenge … “I can do better than that!” and they have to play again. Were there other considerations for a more complex scoring mechanism or why did you choose this?

During the experiments we had other scoring systems – but they just didn’t add to the fun. As soon as you are in the 10,000s or millions, your score becomes a fuzzy number in your head. We like it the way it currently is – you can really compare your scores and you know how good (or bad) you are at the game. We saw tweets from people who were happy about a high score of 2. It really motivates people – they think they can do better than that. And if they take their time, they will.

Orbital is in the category of the “one button” games for the iPhone. No matter where you tap, it simply fires the ball in the direction of the turret. Was your idea that the game should be a game of timing or did you just think that would be the simplest way to interact with the game? Also, did you experiment earlier with other ways to control the play?

We were developing mobile games and there was this wave of timing based one thumb games. They really work well on classic mobile phones (as they usually have crappy input for games). The game should be playable with just one hand free so you could play it almost anytime, anywhere. Accelerometer based games for example just don’t work when you’re in a bus or train.

Also we wanted to keep game-play sessions in short bursts of about 3 minutes so you could take out the game, play a round and put it back. The simple controls also help the game feel so deceptively innocent and simple.

There was a mode where the shot would fly where you tap but it broke the game as you could play it almost infinitely. Many people were asking us for such a mode though so we are currently working on it and i think we’ve found a way to make it work so the game stays challenging and short.

What are your future plans for Orbital?

As mentioned there will be a new game mode coming, it will address most of the requests we had from the community. You will be able to control your shot and you will have progressive scoring – but even though in theory it should be easier, we’re going to mess with your mind so you will get greedy and lose.

OpenFeint is something we’re currently investigating. Achievements were in our initial list of features and maybe we’re going to add them. Anti-chievements for extra-bad gaming was also something we considered, but i don’t think people are ready for this yet Online multiplayer is also something we’re currently thinking about, but we need to think about how we want to do it.

Do you have ideas for other similarly minimalistic, yet addictive games for the iPhone?

We are currently working on an unannounced title that will not be self-published, and we’re working on publishing high-quality games from other developers. We are currently evaluating new concepts, but for now we keep on improving Orbital.

I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but I learned about your game during a presentation at 360|iDev, an independent iPhone developer conference. David Whatley, developer of GeoDefense, presented Orbital as an example of bad PR from a very fun and polished title… and recommended that we all buy it. Going on that, how did you try to spread the word about your game and what worked well and what didn’t go so well? What are your future plans to get the word out?

We knew that just putting the game on the appstore just won’t cut it (anymore). We knew we had to spread the word, so we created two videos, a gameplay preview and a launch trailer, a launch press release and wrote to all the blogs we knew. We had a person dedicated to doing this as we knew this is vital. We managed to get glowing pre- and reviews from most blogs, but we weren’t able to sink into the awareness of the masses. We were featured on the front page of the App Store, in the 3rd position. That’s some of the best advertising you can get. But as soon as the featuring was gone, sales ditched. Except for Japan. There it was always staying not on the top, but in the awareness of people. As soon as we did our recent sale, Orbital skyrocketed back to #2 in Puzzle games.

One big mistake we made though is that we didn’t have a free version available at launch. We should have done that. The free version should be out this week (it was rejected due to the use of an iPhone icon for the buy button), and there will also be an update to the game as mentioned before. In order to really spread the word on it we are working with TriplePoint, the PR Agency which David Whatley recommended. We will be able to tell in two or three weeks if this works out – we hope it does of course.

I just noticed today that you also have a flash demo of Orbital on your website. I see it’s not perfectly the same as the iPhone version, but very close. Are you using the same codebase for both versions or is the Flash version a complete port?

When we started working on the flash version we weren’t sure if it will be possible to recreate the iPhone game visually. What you see now, the gameplay and physics are the same, visuals are almost the same but there are some things missing or slighly different in the flash version.

The code is a port of the iPhone code – it’s the same code (or parts of it), just written in ActionScript instead of C++. Of course, there’s no OpenGL or OpenAL in Flash, so Sound an Graphics had to be completely rewritten. It was actually pretty easy for us to do the port, as the iPhone code is already highly portable. Since this month we’re licensed PSP and DSi developers, so stay tuned

Well, I wish you the best of luck! Thank you very much for your time and I think I’ll have to go back to trying to beat the top score now… If you want to try to beat my high score, you can get Orbital on the App Store.

I’ve recently been playing Uniwar [App Store], an exciting new turn-based strategy game for the iPhone. I must admit that I haven’t played such a game since Capture the Flag by Carr Software on DOS. In this game genre, you get different units which you can move around the board until they run out of moves and then you end your turn and wait for your opponent to move their units. Today I have Alex Kral with me to answer a few questions about their game.

Why did you decide to make Uniwar and what other games were your inspiration?

We decided to make UniWar originally to promote our online mobile portal called Xpressed. The game turned out to be so good that we decided to make it its own product.

How large is your team and how long did it take to develop?

It took about 1.5 years to develop. About 8 people have worked on it.

That’s a lot of time! Are you also considering porting it to other platforms?

Yes. In the next two to three months, it should get released for most other phones on the major operator decks.

What were your biggest challenges creating such a game and how did you overcome then?

The biggest challenge is the sheer complexity of this game. Having the best suite of tools in the industry (the Xpress Suite) and some very talented programmers was key to succeeding.

How does the online multiplayer game work? Do you need to keep the app running while you wait for your opponents to make their moves? Also, is it possible to invite a friend to play against you, so that you don’t get worried about being the n00b to get pounced by the wizards on the server?

You can invite your friends to play online with (team matches) or against you. Each game is setup with a certain duration per turn that varies between 10 minutes and 3 days. You do not need to keep the app running but simply log in and check out whether it is your turn in any of the matches.

What are your plans for future projects?

Make UniWar even better and add a lot of really cool new features.

To my readers, I’ll give a tip that If you get this game, be sure to start with the campaign mode, so that you can have an easy introduction to the play mechanism. Thank you very much for the interview and I wish you success with your game!

Today I’m with Mika Letki of ThousandApps.com. First, some Internet history. In 2005, Alex Tew had the original concept of the Million Dollar Homepage where websites would pay $100 to buy a 10×10 icon on a website thus paying $1 per pixel. At the end of the project, he would have a million dollars. Believe it or not, it worked and today Alex is a millionaire. As soon as I heard the domain name of this new project, ThousandApps.com, I immediately had the same idea: The Million Dollar Homepage, but with iPhone app icons. Brilliant!

What inspired you to build this website?

Of course I was inspired by the Million Dollar Homepage. I have to admit I didn’t know about Alex Tew’s story before, but last week a friend of mine told me about it and I immediately started to think how to make something similar, but different.

I called my friend Danilo Yasuno of DYS: Translations because he always has interesting ideas and as soon as I told him “Hey, I want to create something like the Million Dollar Homepage,” he replied “Ok, so create a blank page and fill it with a million iPhone icons. Call it Million Apps or something like that. Oh wait, there are not a million icons yet, so maybe a thousand.”

On Sunday www.thousandapps.com was online and I started to contact potential customers, i.e. iPhone developers.

What has been the general response to it?

Sounds like people are loving it. I got dozens of emails in two days and some of the most strategic places for the icons have already been sold. Some people see Thousand Apps as a really good advertising opportunity, others like a freak piece of art, and to feel like they’re joining this “community”.

I expected people would be interested, but I didn’t know it could happen so soon. I’ve never received more than 20 emails in a day before. I’m having fun.

How much does a space cost and when does it expire?

Each space cost 10€ (around US$13) which is a link to its App Store page. It won’t expire. All the icons will be there FOREVER, just like The Milion Dollar Homepage. I’ll take care of this website with Danilo.

So, that means if all spaces are sold, you will have made 10.000€ ($13,000), not bad! How many spaces have you sold so far?

10.000 € wouldn’t be bad since I’m planning to get married soon. I sold 20 icons in one day and a person booked 5 places for his upcoming apps. I had to invent a “SOLD” icon for this reason.

Sounds like a good start indeed. Thanks for the interview and I wish you the best!

Thank you Chuck, congratulations for the good place you’ve chosen for your app and I wish you all the best as well. [Editor's note: check the very bottom left corner of the Thousand Apps page.]

Today, I’m proud to have John Wilker and Tom Ortega with me about the 360|iDev conference taking place in San Jose on Mar 2-4. They boast it to be the largest iPhone conference in the world, so I thought I had to investigate a bit more and I ended up being accepted as a speaker. So, without further ado, let’s get started.

What gave you the idea to start 360|iDev?

John: We want to do conferences we’d attend, that’s what lead us to 360|Flex for Adobe Flex developers, and now both of us are dabbling (hoping to one day have a conference tool) in iPhone Dev, so we had a light bulb moment that there wasn’t really an event for iPhone devs. Apple’s conference is HUGE and across all their tools and platforms, why not offer iPhone devs their own community?

Tom: I really want to be one of the cool kids and program on this wonderful new device. Seriously though, we started 360|Flex, our other show, so there could be a better place to learn how to program in Flex. We saw the same need for iPhone development and thus here we are, planning a new conference.

Why attend iDev instead of WWDC?

Tom: 2 huge reasons:

Cost – If you buy a ticket to our show early, it’s only $200 USD. Even if you wait til the end, the price caps at $499 USD. That price includes most if not all your food for the 3 days of the conference. That and we have a group hotel rate of $129 a night near the conference center.

Content – If all you care about is the iPhone/iPod Touch, then this is the show for you. It is 100% about that and nothing else. It won’t be a matter of “Is there anything of interest for me today?” but rather more of “There’s too much goodness for me today. Which one do I go for?”

John: WWDC is Apple’s main stage, and a great event (I presume, having never attended), but all main stage events, focus on all products and platforms. An iPhone developer may have little interest in other technologies, yet they’re there, as are those people who use them. An attendee at our Flex Conference pointed out that Adobe MAX (similar to WWDC) is 4000+ people, but the guy next to you at lunch, might be an Illustrator designer, or a PDF person, or who knows what, but at 360|Flex, the whole table will be peers in Flex development. That’s the goal with 360|iDev, to give the iPhone developer community a place to come together, swap stories, tricks, lessons learned, etc.

What is your target audience? Is your conference geared more toward developers or businessmen?

John: Developers. We say that our events are by developers, for developers. That’s not to say there won’t be business folks, they’re a large part of any developer community really. They pay the bills usually, they’re clients, owners, idea folks, etc. We hope to bring both groups together in a way that has benefit to both, indie devs can find clients or full time work. Business people can find developers.

Tom: Traditionally, we do get more developers. Most of the sessions are technical in nature. However, we do have a business side of iPhone App development. That is aimed 100% at the businessmen, so there will be topics for both crowds.

On that note, if someone is interested in speaking, which track needs the most contributions? Is there any particular topic that you’re surprised no one has taken up yet?

John: Game dev. For as much noise as Apple has been making about the games on the iPhone, I thought there’d be a lot of people interested in sharing what they’ve learned about developing games for the iPhone.

Tom: Currently, the gambit is wide open. The topic I was most interested
in learning about was Open GL ES. I was suprised no one had offered to speak on that, but just today we got a submission on that topic.

Great, I’ve been struggling lately with learning OpenGL ES, so I’ll definitely attend that talk! So, besides the conference, what else does San Jose have to offer that might attract people to attend?

John: The Winchester Mystery House is a fun time. It’s about an hour or less from San Francisco, so that’s always a huge plus! Plus all the startups in the area, you can’t get in but you can drive by. Heck Apple is there!

Tom: It’s Silicon Valley! If you love the iPhone and are trying to develop for it, you’re probably a nerd. The headquarters of Apple, Intel, nVidia, AMD, Google, Yahoo, and, of course, eBay are all here. For me, there’s something cool about being able to see all those companies. Take a gander at where the magic happens. I’ve been known to serve as a tour guide late at night, during a In-N-Out burger run. If you’ve never had an In-N-Out double-double cheeseburger, that’s reason enough to come.

Ah yes, I’ve heard about the famous In-N-Out burgers, but being an east coast boy, I never had the chance to try them out for myself. So enough about food… for those of us flying in, will 360|iDev be in the middle of nowhere or are there public transportation options available?

John: We hate the middle of nowhere! We aim for hub cities or at least one along a major travel path. From San Jose airport, there’s a shuttle bus that drops off across the street from the hotel, and from the hotel to the conference, there’s light rail. The Hotel is half a mile (Editor’s note for non-Americans: that would be a kilometer) or one stop from the conference.

Tom: That same light rail will take you to downtown. The conference is at eBay’s HQ, which is in an office park area. However, downtown is only a few miles away.

Besides iDev, what are some other conferences you run?

John: We’ve been doing 360|Flex for 2 years now, 7 events in all, including Europe. We really try to focus on making the event a big success with our attendees before even thinking about splitting our attention. Each event is very different as we work to refine what worked and what didn’t, etc. If anyone is curious about our reputation, etc do a google search for 360|Flex (or 360flex, flex 360, we seem to have an easily confused name, LOL) to see what our attendees are saying.

Thank you very much for the interview and I look forward to seeing you there!

John: For sure! Can’t wait to see everyone in San Jose!

Tom: Thanks for the interview. It’s been really fun!

Today I am with Jonas Witt from Metaquark, the company behind Berlin Trip Planner (German: Fahr-Info Berlin), an iPhone app which recently had to remove their maps, because the BVG (Berlin transport company) complained they were under copyright. Thus, while the app is still incredibly useful and much more useful than BVG’s own mobile site, it has now become much less useful without the maps.

Why did you decide to make the Berlin Trip Planner?

I was pretty clueless what to do with my iPhone developer privileges up until about two weeks before the App Store launch back in July. The idea to write a trip planner application was inspired by Johannes Plunien, author of the brilliant MVV Dashboard Widget (which covers Munich public transport), when we exchanged some AppFresh-related support mails just about at that time. I rushed to get the application accepted in time for the App Store launch, and that worked out pretty well. You can read more about the whole process on my blog entry, The App Store Experience.

Why did you decide to make it free?

I decided to make the application free since I wanted people just to use it and enjoy it, and nobody had the slightest idea how App Store pricing would be perceived and I thought it wouldn’t generate a lot of revenue anyway, given that it’s intended for a very limited audience. The zero price tag lead to a lot of impulse “buys” which gave me a good reputation, since most people loved the application. The small amount of time I invested in that application has more than paid for itself since.

Can you elaborate on what exactly the BVG complained about? Were they just complaining about the copyright of the maps or did they want you to remove the maps altogether?

The copyright notice on their website bvg.de (where the PDF map is from) states that you are allowed to use the website’s content for personal and non-commercial use only. Shipping the PDF with my application is no personal use, and I didn’t ask for permission to do so, so they made me remove the maps from the application.

I have also read that the BVG is trying to remove your app from the App Store altogether. Is this true or just a rumor?

That’s a rumor. [Editor's note: I later discovered this was an English mistranslation/overexaggeration of a heise.de article and has since been corrected (heise is basically the German equivalent of slashdot).]

I read recently that they are working on their own application that would work across all platforms. Do you think they are going to develop their own iPhone app or not do anything with the iPhone altogether?

I can only guess here, but that “will work on all platforms” bit makes me think it will be a Java application, which couldn’t run on the iPhone since it doesn’t support Java. I’m not sure if they’re gonna make a separate iPhone application, but I don’t expect either application to become available soon.

What are your future iPhone plans?

I’m currently doing contract work on several iPhone applications, there are Mac projects that need to be continued (AppFresh), and university demands my attention from time to time, so there aren’t any concrete plans right now. It’s definitely a fun platform to write applications on, though, so Fahr-Info won’t be my last.

Thank you for the interview and I hope the BVG soon comes to their senses!

I am honored to continue my developer interview series with Erica Sadun who is probably best known among iPhone developers for her much needed article against the NDA. She is also the author of The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook: Building Applications with the iPhone SDK (Developer’s Library) which was published in book form in the USA on Oct 23 and will be released in Germany on Nov 28.

What was your inspiration for writing this book? What sets it apart from other iPhone books?

I always try to write the book that I would have wanted to read. I’m a huge fan of re-usable code snippets that really show how one single concept can be executed. And that’s what I hope I brought to this book, things to make developers more productive right away.

When did you start learning the iPhone SDK? Were you also part of the jailbroken developer community?

I was involved in the Jailbreak development arena, from the first days of NightWatch’s ARM compiler. My first apps “do Shell” and “tapp” allows users to run command-line utilities from the iPhone GUI.

Interesting, so you’ve really been in there from the start! How did you see the official release of the iPhone SDK change the dynamics of iPhone development?

The official SDK did a lot to formalize the libraries and get them into a form that was ready for a wider audience of developers; earlier firmware was still very raw. I’m a big SDK fan, and yet at the same time I get frustrated by the limitations Apple has chosen to set on what devs can and cannot do.

What was your most successful iPhone app? How have you seen your apps have an effect on your personal branding?

There have been a lot (and I mean a lot! dozens!) of apps. It’s hard to put my finger on just one.

Well, I personally think Converter Pro (20-Dec-2009, editor’s note: no longer available) is the most useful, although Moo can be quite fun. I also notice that all of your apps are free. What role do you see free apps playing in the App Store?

For now, free apps relieve me of at least some of the bother of dealing with unhappy customers. I’m seriously not trying to make a statement here. I just don’t have time to build a proper business and give people the support they deserve. With free software, when someone complains you can just suggest that they demand a full refund.

Nice answer. Personally, I’ve only had one refund and it was nice because Apple dealt with it and I wasn’t even involved in the process. So, besides giving away software, what else can we expect to see from you soon relating to the iPhone?

I’m writing over at Ars Technica now as well as my ongoing O’Reilly Inside iPhone commitment.

Thank you very much for your time and interesting interview. I can’t wait to get a copy of your book when it arrives in Germany!

As a continuation of my interview series with leading iPhone developers, I have with me Christina, the developer of Fuzzle from Candy Cane Apps in Estonia.

I’ve played a lot of puzzle games, but have never quite seen anything like Fuzzle before. What other puzzle-type games have you regularly played and which were your inspirations for Fuzzle?

I’m glad you like it . The concept of moving colored balls to get five in a row isn’t actually new, just not too well known. I came up with the idea of adding rainbow balls and bombs, and also added the levels + timer to try to make the game exciting, so that it starts easy (at least on easy difficulty) but gets slowly harder and thus doesn’t go on forever. I think a lot of players want a quick game for iPhone, which they can for example play on the tube/bus. So we tried to cater for them, as well as people looking for a longer, slower game by adding the different modes.

I like most of these kind of puzzle games that come mostly from Japan, such as some games by the Japanese company that invented SuDoku. I’m working on another game now that’s based on one of these. I also tend to prefer multi-player games, as gaming can otherwise tend to be somewhat anti-social. I even have some ideas about adding a two-player mode to Fuzzle, but I can’t promise anything there yet.

Why did you decide to develop it for iPhone? Have you developed on other platforms before? If so, how does developing for the iPhone compare to what you’ve developed before?

The iPhone for me represents the first platform where I can make a simple game and be provided a platform to be exposed to potentially millions of customers, and thus can sell it cheap and hopefully still make a bit of money out of it. I think its a revolution for small game developers. And it is the perfect platform for these kind of puzzle games like Fuzzle.

I previously only developed on Windows. Apple has a nice setup for iPhone development so it wasn’t hard to adjust. We faced some challenges, but on the whole it was a good experience. I find the touch screen the most interesting thing – it provides challenges for some games, but also provides an opportunity for new game ideas and possibilities.

In the latest Touch Arcade article mentioning Fuzzle, they note that “Mikael Suvi” was formerly listed as the seller and some therefore speculate that you were simply the girlfriend of the developer used for the Fuzzle YouTube video. However, my girlfriend is also a programmer, thus I know it is possible to be a good programmer and attractive. In any case, we were wondering, what is Mikael’s role in Candy Cane Apps?

Yeah, Mikael owns the company and he’s a Mac expert. So I designed the gameplay and programmed it in C++, while he dealt with most of the Mac/iPhone issues and wrote the Objective-C code. We tried to keep most of it in C++ though so it should be easier to port to other platforms in the future. We also have another guy who designed the cute graphics.

Being a female iPhone developer isn’t unusual, as we all know of Erica Sadun (author of The iPhone Developer’s Cookbook) and Eliza Block (developer of 2across, which made $2000 per day for the first month). What is the state of women computer programmers in Estonia? Also, do you know many other female iPhone developers?

In Estonia computer programmers are highly sought after – we have a very small population and some big tech companies like Skype are employing many programmers, so it’s an attractive career path for many people, thus I think you’ll find more women computer programmers here than in most countries. I don’t know any other female iPhone developers – the iPhone only just officially arrived in this country a month ago actually.

My girlfriend regularly plays Galcon, Spore and Wurdle on my iPhone. What is your impression of the female iPhone gaming market?

Well, we have had a lot of feedback from women and even some reviews like this one – … so there seems to be a few of us out there.

As we all know, the freedom to change prices is making the App Store an interesting “experiment” in the free market. What was your reason for making Fuzzle free for a limited time? Does this strategy appear to work well?

Well, the reason we made Fuzzle for free for a limited time was to generate publicity and get a lot of users playing and talking about it – if we hadn’t done this, Fuzzle might never have been noticed among the 1000′s of applications in the App Store. I think it did quite well in this regard – we had over 100,000 downloads in just three days, and a lot of reviews in blogs etc. And now we have recently released a Fuzzle Lite version which hopefully also gives a lot of users a taste of the game.

One thing that happened when we switched to paid is that Fuzzle jumped to the number one selling paid app, until Apple removed it from the top a couple of hours later. I think there’s still some things Apple needs to sort out here, because a lot of applications have done this switch, and while ours was removed from the top almost instantly, some others – both prior to, and after, our switch – were allowed to remain at the top for days. So it’s a bit like a lottery. The apps that make the front page – the top apps, the what’s hot and what’s new etc – can receive 10-100x as many purchases as the rest, and the current system for putting apps on the front of the App Store is untransparent, and largely up to Apple’s whims.

So we’re talking to Apple to try and clarify this issue – we felt that what happened with Fuzzle was quite arbitrary and unfair of Apple initially, but now we’re just focusing on our next release, which we hope you will enjoy as much as Fuzzle.

Thank you for your time. Now that I’ve finished posting this interview, I can get back to playing Fuzzle some more!

Today in my series of interviews with iPhone developers, I have with me Phil Hassey of the acclaimed Galcon for iPhone. At first I was skeptical when I read that Galcon is “an awesome high-paced multi-player galactic … arcade action Risk with planets!” When I read that it now has a colorblind mode, that was enough to push me over the edge to purchase it. But actually, it does live up to the hype! In fact, it’s the only game I’ve ever got for my iPhone which I actually can’t stop playing. It’s that addicting. Oh, and my girlfriend is addicted too, even though she told me yesterday “it’s not my type of game”. So, it’s a pleasure to have you for an interview.

I see on your homepage you mention that your inspiration comes from Risk. Did any other games inspire you?

Well, actually, I’ve never played Risk. Many folks have compared it to Risk Galcon is a remake of the game “Galactic Conquest” which was a MS-DOS based game put out in 1987.

I see that you also have desktop versions out for Linux, Windows and Mac. I must say that I was surprised to find the interface and gameplay better on the iPhone! But, now I’m curious, did you write the game for each OS independently? Did you already have Galcon written in Objective-C? How difficult was it to port to the iPhone? What were the specific challenges in developing for the iPhone in contrast with desktop game development?

The desktop versions of Galcon are written mostly in python and partly in C. The iPhone edition is a C port of the desktop version of Galcon. I only used Objective-C for a few of the iPhone related things (such as reading the accelerometer data). I suppose the largest challenge in porting it to the iPhone is that the developer documentation doesn’t have a “Search” box as far as I can tell. So sometimes it took me a while to find what I was looking for.

What has been the general reaction from people who already have the desktop version of Galcon to the iPhone version?

They like it Now they have one more way to play Galcon all the time!

I noticed that there’s always people online for multiplayer play. To my knowledge that’s not true for any other iPhone game that I know. Most new games have the problem that people aren’t patient enough to wait for others to come online. How were you able to get enough people to play online to keep it going?

I think people play on-line because the game works so well as a multi-player game. The MP experience gives you so much more than just the single player. I haven’t really done anything but make the game, to be honest.

I would guess the average iPhone gamer has heard of Galcon, but not the average iPhone owner. What have you done to promote Galcon and what response have you received?

Yeah, uh, nothing. But the response has been great I posted a couple youtube videos. I’m going to try to do some more marketing type activities over time. I probably need to ask my marketing friends for some tips.

What are your future plans for improving Galcon on the iPhone?

My primary goal is to increase the MP user base so that around 100+ people are playing all the time. At that size, I can add better user match-up features so players can compete against folks with similar skill levels.

I see that you have another game called Watermelons which is, according to the description, “the ultimate fruit rescue mission game.” Could you tell us how you came up with that idea? Also, do you have more games in the works?

I was chatting with some friends and we thought it would just be a funny idea. It’s actually available as a flash game as well … I just ported it to the iPhone for fun.

I haven’t started on any new games yet, but I’m thinking about it. I’ll probably start later this week or next week on my next game.

Thanks for the interesting interview. I wish you the best with Galcon and hopefully my girlfriend and I can stop playing it and get back to work sometime soon!

Thanks!

iPhone Galcon reviews:

• Tilt Gamer
• Slide to Play
• All About the Games

I’m starting a series of interviews with iPhone developers of the most interesting apps on the iPhone. You can also read my interview with the developer of Metasquares. I strive to cover the most worthy apps that aren’t getting coverage from other sources. If you’re an iPhone developer and have an interesting application, let me know and if I like it, I’d be happy to give you an interview.

Today I’m interviewing BoB from Terminal Core Games about his new game BloXoR which I feel has a “Sokoban meets accelerometer” feel to it, but with a fresh twist. I bought this a few days ago and have been quite happy with it. I’m currently only up to level 16, but I’m getting there…

How did you get the idea for the game and what was your inspiration?

Well, I don’t think I’ve ever played the actual game of “Sokoban,” but I’ve played many “block pushing” puzzle games and other tile-based puzzles going all the way back to The Adventures of Lolo series on the NES. One of my more recent favorites has been Vexed for the Palm, which is also out now on the iPhone. (Although, I wish they would give us the classic block graphic set; I don’t care for the circles.) I’ve played Vexed for years on my palm smartphone.

When the iPhone 3G and the iPhone SDK was announced, and I decided to try and create a game for it, Vexed was the first thing to come to mind. Now, I’m not the kind of person to just re-implement something, I want to create my own things. So I started thinking about a new, unique puzzle block game. One choice was easy—the new iPhone had an accelerometer. New interfaces mean new game mechanics. But, sliding a block or two around a box sounds an awful lot like Labyrinth, and I knew there would already be people out there creating Labyrinth clones. Plus, I wanted something new. So, some how or another that lead to the idea of sliding around multiple blocks at the same time. The idea of bringing together specific blocks and the name BloXoR kind of came to me at the same time—the three blocks (or Blox) would be an [o], [X], and [o]—a BloXoR! From there it was just a matter of coding up the sliding physics, and trying out some levels. With all my past puzzle experience, it was a no-brainer that there would have to be many types of Blox for variety. Holes, breakable walls, bombs to blow them up, bridges to cross holes—It’s important to have a balance of hazards and helpers.

Funny that you didn’t call the name BlOXOr then, but I guess that looks even stranger. In any case, I’m really glad you took the time to make something original. Seeing all the copycats in the App Store leaves something to be desired. Unfortunately though, I see you have relatively few reviews, although the majority are 5 stars. How are you marketing your game to compete against the other 700 games in the App Store? Do you find it difficult and does it seem like the larger game companies have an unfair advantage in this regard?

First, I do have relatively few reviews, and it’s kind of a bummer, because it really gives the impression of disinterest in BloXoR. There’s really nothing I can do about it but hope that more people who downloaded the game and liked it put in a review.

As for marketing and exposure, I’ll be honest; I’ve found it somewhat difficult. I’ve had a couple reviews of BloXoR posted: one at Pocket Gaming and another at Finger Gaming. The one from Pocket Gamer was most exciting, because it was completely a surprise. I found it through google (I google BloXoR about 20 times a day!). And it was a glowing review, to boot! I immediately updated my App description to point it out. Matt’s review on FingerGaming is a little less stellar, but he made a video of my game play [mp4] which is really cool, thanks Matt!

Beyond that, I’ve had a very hard time getting exposure. Of the other half dozen sites I’ve contacted about reviewing BloXoR, none have come through. In fact, two of them asked for demo copies that I sent them money for, and still no reviews up from either of them. And sadly, I’ve had no exposure on any sort of big game site like IGN or Joystiq. I think this is where the “App Store open to all Devs” thing may really fall down. Big sites are just going to write about the same companies and games they already do—like for Super Monkey Ball or Spore Origins. Not that those games don’t deserve coverage.

Of course, this is assuming the reason isn’t just that my game isn’t worth reviewing. But my gut and the feedback I have gotten is that BloXoR is a good game. I also think that honestly part of the problem is that BloXoR is unique. So, people have to discover it, and not just go, “Hey have you tried the port of Pac-Man?” Or, “Have you tried the Texas Hold’em game, yet?”

The other thing that has bummed me out is the App Store itself. Your app gets pushed to the bottom of the list so fast that only the most dedicated iTunes store shopper is going to make it to page 100 to see BloXoR. Case in point, my biggest spike in sales was when I made a small update to BloXoR. When App updates go through, the App is bumped back to the top of the list on iTunes. It’s really a flawed system because it promotes devs putting in meaningless updates to bump their apps to the top of the list. It’s hard to blame them, though. If Apple doesn’t improve the system, I can’t imagine how bad it will be, say, a year from now when there will be literally 1000s of games on there.

Well, actually I do know what it will be like; an App will have to get ALL of its exposure from outside of iTunes. It kind of starts to bring into question the validity of Apples 30% cut of all profits when they really aren’t doing much more than hosting your app.

It probably sounds like I’m bashing Apple a lot here. Bottom line is, I got a game “published” that is being delivered to the masses, and people all over the world, literally, are playing it—that’s pretty cool. Thanks Apple.

Yeah, I think pretty much all iPhone developers have a love-hate relationship with Apple right now. While it’s great that we can have a worldwide platform for distribution, don’t have to worry about payment processing, etc., it would be nice if Apple were more open. Also, you have fiascos like Apple rejecting a podcast catching app, because it “duplicates functionality in iTunes” and we all know about the F***ing NDA, but I digress. So, back to BloXoR, how do you see it evolving in the future? With most games I could see updates being welcome, but with puzzle games, how much can you really improve besides adding more levels?

I have multiple plans laid out for BloXoR. BloXoR 2 is a given. I have plenty of more ideas for new levels (I have a lot of fun making the levels), as well as ideas for new types of Blox.

Also, I’m considering developing a BloXoR level creator and releasing it for free. It would come with a few sample levels, so it would also work as a free demo to the real game. I’m also kicking around the idea of putting in functionality to submit the user-created levels. The plan would be to release a BloXoR with all user generated levels. I would probably make it into a contest—something along the lines of the best 30 levels get put into the game, and the submitting users would get their name on the level of course, but also something like a $10 iTunes gift certificate. What do you think?

I think it’s a great idea! However, if I were you, I would try to get a lite version out quickly for free, so people can play, say the first 5-10 levels to get a desire for more. I think the problem with original games on the App Store is that people are too afraid of spending money on junk without being able to try it out. Later I would just build the level generator into the paid version, so it would give paying customers the ability to create new levels. But enough about BloXoR, what about other original games?

I also have plans for many other games. I’m actually coming close to finishing and submitting one, now.

Great! When you have a new game, let me know and the least I can do is tweet about it. What have you developed for other platforms before? Why did you decide to switch to iPhone development?

Well, I’m a software guy by trade and by hobby. I’ve been coding since I was 10 (I’m 33) and have been writing games the whole time. I have silly little dice games and Pac-man like games that I wrote on the Atari 800, back when Atari was the dominant hardware maker, and not just a washed-up software house. (They’re really not Atari in anything more than name, now.) More recently, I’ve dabbled in creating Flash games. The problem was how do I get them out there to people? How do I make (any) money off of them? Not that I make games to make money. But, man, that’s the goal, right? Doing what you love for a living, not just in the couple hours a week that you eek out. Anyway, the App Store with all its faults provided the most important thing—it gave a clear path to publishing and selling a game. So, I took the plunge. It’s already paid off—people around the world are playing and (most, hopefully) enjoying a game that I created.

I agree that it’s very exciting to see where this platform is going. I’ll be looking to find the gems among all the copycats and clones out there. Thank you very much for your time!

It was my pleasure. Happy gaming!

Today I have with me John Ray from Metatools with his game which is sweeping the iPhone: Metasquares. For those of you not familiar with the game, here is part of the official description:

Take turns placing pieces on the board while trying to get all 4 corners of a square. Squares can be formed at any angle and are worth more points the bigger they are. beat the computer by scoring 150 points first and having at least a 15 point margin of victory.

In the App Store in Germany, his app only has 5 star ratings. I’d have to agree with them that it’s a great game as I listed it on my own Favorite games for iPhone! I first remember playing it in 1997 on AOL. What I find so interesting about it is that it’s a board game that would be very difficult to play without a computer calculating the score.

Where did you get the inspiration for Metasquares?

I wish I could take credit for the concept. In fact, the game is the brainchild of puzzle master Scott Kim of Heaven and Earth fame. You are quite correct though in that computers make the game possible. However, there has never been a one player version before so we had to create the computer AI from scratch. We also created an AI test application that allowed us to simulate hundreds of thousands of games to balance each levels AI against the next.

On what platforms has your game run and what audience has it received?

We originally launched back in 1996 on AOL and were seeing hundreds of thousands of games being played per month. The game proved popular beyond our projections.

Why did you leave AOL?

Shortly after we launched the game, AOL switched from a per hour charge in which we shared revenue to an all you can eat plan. Since users no longer had to pay to play, we couldn’t keep the game going. Keep in mind that in its initial incarnation, MetaSquares was a multiplayer application that allowed users to play against each other and chat on the AOL service.

Why did you decide to port your game to the iPhone?

As soon as we heard about the open nature of iPhone development, we began porting for the device. In fact, we initially launched an iPhone web app that did quite a bit of traffic since it is on the Apple site. [Editor's note: this is a great way to try out the game to see if it would be worth buying.] The web app was a sort of a proof of concept in that it allowed us to see how good the game would play and how well it would be received.

What were your biggest difficulties reprogramming the game and getting it into the App Store?

I’d say the biggest issue we faced with the programming was getting used to the iPhone and its tools and then being able to tailor them to our needs. At MetaTools we place a very high emphasis on visual quality and we wanted to make sure the game looked its best. The iPhone turned out to be a wonderful device from that perspective. In terms of getting into the App store, it was actually quite straightforward once Apple set all of our permissions correctly on the development portal.

One thing I would like to see is multiplayer games, at the very least to be able to play someone next to me. What are your plans for multiplayer games?

Glad you asked. Actually our 1.0.1 version which we should be submitting soon will feature a “hot potato” two player mode where two players can play against each other on the same device. That version should also include German, French, Spanish and Japanese language versions as well. We are also hard at work on building true multiplayer functionality that will allow players to play against each other over the internet using their Wi-Fi connections.

Are you planning to make other apps for the iPhone?

Indeed. We’re already looking at a couple other titles, probably in the same board/puzzle category. We are even looking into branching out into other categories of products as well such as utilities and productivity applications.

Thank you for your time and I wish you the greatest success on your projects!