Mobigame on Trucker's Delight Ep1 and its thoughts about sexy Ep2
Caught between fans and the rock of Apple approvals
An internet phenomenon when it was released - thanks to its NSFW video - the Trucker's Delight track from French band Flairs fairly demanded to be made into a game.
Using colourful 8-bit graphics and inspired by Sega's classic OutRun amongst others, it added sexist and scatological twists, with Jack the trucker trying to chase down the hot blonde in the red corvette, with climatic results.
It was made by Jérémie Périn, someone well known to French mobile developer Mobigame as he'd created four music tracks for its puzzler Edge.
Where rubber meets roadWhen the Trucker's Delight video was released however, Mobigame was in the midst of a prolonged copyright battle over the word Edge, which resulted in its game being pulled by Apple from the App Store.
It's since won that battle with Edge reinstated, hitting the #1 spot on charts around the world, but you wouldn't have thought taking on another controversial development project was then the most obvious next step.
Mobigame's David Papazian was clear in his desire to make a Trucker's Delight game however.
"The idea was obvious," he states.
"The first part of the video reminds you of OutRun, Chase HQ and 18 Wheeler, while the second part reminds you of Street Fighter, Rampage and Street of Rage, and the last part... maybe Flight Simulator?
"We've also included other nods. For example the menus are inspired by Delphine's Moto Racer."
What's next?The initial racer part of the game was the most straightforward to convert into a game, both in terms of gameplay as well as not crossing any lines in terms of Apple's shifting approvals policy.
"The longer the video goes on, the more trashy it becomes," Papazian agrees.
"Regarding Apple policy, we kept to the fun part of the game in episode 1 of Trucker's Delight. The result is good old school racing with high scores. We use Twitter, Facebook and emails to make a social game.
"We're not sure we can do the same with other parts though.
"We're still thinking about what gameplay we should use, because we don't want to disappoint fans of the video, and we don't want to take a risk with Apple's policy. We're looking at iPhone apps such the South Park game to see what's the limit."
Of course, episode 2's appearance will also depend on how popular first release is.
"It's only been out a couple of days, so it's too early to tell. We haven't broken even yet," Papazian says.
Trucker's Delight Episode 1 is out now, priced $2.99, €2.39 or £1.79.