First iPod game developers reveal Apple's top-secret strategy
They couldn't even play their OWN games on an iPod until the launch...
The developers behind the launch-ready games for Apple's iPod have been talking about why they think the device is great for gaming, and revealing how Apple maintained the utmost secrecy leading up to iPod's gaming debut earlier this month.
"The first time I was able to play the game on the iPod was at the Apple event," PopCap Games CEO Dave Roberts told Macworld. "We co-ordinated with Apple engineering," continued the developer of Bejewelled and Zuma for the iPod.
Roberts is backed up by Steve Smith, president of Fresh Games, the studio that contributed Cubis to the initial line-up.
The developers also say that while porting their games to iPod presented a challenge, it wasn't overly difficult.
"It was different in terms of using the click wheel as an input device rather than a dialpad," PopCap's Dennis Ryan admitted. "In terms of technical challenges, it's things we've dealt with before, like a small screen size and different memory requirements."
Are there more iPod games on the way? It seems Apple has the developers well-trained enough to not confirm anything, although they'd all like to bring more games to the device.
To nudge them in the right direction, OS News has suggested 10 requests for classic games that it thinks would work well with iPod's scroll-wheel. The games are:
1. Lunar Lander
2. Puzzle Bobble
3. Tempest
4. Marble Madness / Neverball
5. Asteroids
6. Gyruss / Tube Panic
7. Chess
8. Video Poker
9. Bomberman
10. Any driving game ("It has a WHEEL for God's sake...")
For more on iPod games, check out our brand spanking new dedicated iPod section.
