Vivid Games talks through its plans for more iPhone and more Samurai Puzzle Battle

Everyone loves their iPhone or iPod touch, but the smooth metal and glass form isn't its most important aspect. Nope, instead it's the ease with which you can create a game or utility and then make it available for download via the App Store.

This ease of release been especially important for the hundreds of small game developers, who had been previously been building their business making work-for-hire mobile games. One such example is Polish outfit Vivid Games, so we caught up with CEO Remigiusz Koscielny to get his opinion on the App Store and how it's changing the way he's approaching the game development business.

Remigiusz Koscielny: We started making small PC games, but shortly after that – around 2003 – we decided to jump into mobile market. Since then it's been our main hardware platform, although we've also developed side projects for the GBA and DS. Another recent shift is we used to be focused on work for hire projects, but now we've decided to invest in our own intellectual property.

Well, no doubt, the App Store has been the brightest star of 2008. I think the iPhone platform is a place where a good game in-and-off itself can shine enough for players to buy it, without the need for big brands or to be released by a big publisher.

When we look at the App Store deck, there are many small but fun games developed by unknown studios, or even individuals. For sure, this is something different to the mobile operators decks, where almost all of the top ten or top 20 games are branded games from big publishers. It's very hard to break into that market with new IP.

In the new year, the battle will continue. Better and better games will appear on the App Store, however our philosophy is to produce highly anticipated, fun and quality games. I think this will be a successful solution for the App Store. Currently, we're planning to release at least three more iPhone games, besides Alien Blobs and Samurai Puzzle Battle, which are already available.

I don't think Android will compete directly with iPhone, simply because user install base is far behind iPhone and that won't change dramatically over the next year. However, Android is very good opportunity for developers because it has good production environment, and it has its own store, where developers can sell their games directly, without passing through aggregators or publishers.

We plan to make a strong footprint on Android. Expect to see our flagship games being available on Android shortly after the mobile and iPhone releases.

Your most famous game is Samurai Puzzle Battle, so what future plans do you have for it?

We are already discussing a Nintendo DS port, and we will also try to get it released on Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network later next year. The good news for fans is these ports will have a lot of new features, including epic campaign with over 80 different missions, achievements, new units and events – and, of course, high definition graphics for the consoles.

And, when we've finished these, we'll probably look to release a 2.0 version for iPhone with all of these new features included.