Indie Dev Insight: Streaming Colour

When I first got interested in writing games abut 18 months a go my first choice for inspiration was to hit Twitter. Like the internet if you don't really know what you are looking for the choices, options and information overload is overwhelming.

Soon though you get drawn to those who repeatedly have something useful to say on regular occasions and have an affinity to on your development.  Owen Goss is one of those who I started following in the early days.  I don't recall why specifically but I think it was the fact that a number of people I was following were all following him.


Owen formed Streaming Colour  in 2008 for the purposes of creating fun, non-violent, and creative video games. Prior to founding Streaming Colour, Owen worked in the console games industry for 5 years at such companies as Electronic Arts Canada and Propaganda Games, developing for platforms like the PSP, Xbox 360 and PS3. In 2008 Owen decided to head out on his own and form his own company with the goal of making the kinds of games that he enjoys playing the most.

Most recently he launched the perplexing yet highly addictive game Finger Tied for iPad. Recently he took some time out to share his thoughts on a few of my questions.


What got you into writing games?

I've been programming since my early teens, but I grew up in an artistic household. I really wanted a career that would allow me to combine my love of art with my love of programming. Game development provides daily challenges at the intersection of art and technology. I love it.

More specifically, at university I got a degree in computer science and then got a job building enterprise Flash websites after graduation. A couple of years working there gave me the experience to get a job as a lead programmer at EA in 2004 building game UIs in Flash. I worked on console games for 4.5 years as a lead UI programmer and senior gameplay programmer. I left the console industry in 2008 and I've been doing the indie thing ever since.

What's good and bad about what you do?

The good: doing a job that I love; being my own boss; creating something out of nothing; getting to make whatever I want; and being part of an amazing indie community.

The bad: slogging through the parts of making games that are both really hard and aren't fun; dealing with self-doubt when you're working on something by yourself over long periods of time; and dealing with all the parts of running a business that isn't making games.

How many people are involved in writing games at Streaming Colour.  What roles do they take on?

Streaming Colour is just me. On most of my games I've been responsible for: game design, programming, art, sound design, project management, PR, marketing, accounting, and anything else that comes up. Though for some games I've hired an artist and/or sound designer. The one thing I always have someone else do is the music. However, I'm currently collaborating on a game with Matt Rix, creator of Trainyard, and this collaborative process is proving to be a lot of fun.

What would you do differently now given what you know from projects completed and experience from the gaming and app market?

With every project you try to learn from your mistakes. One of the biggest challenges in the app market is that it's constantly changing. But in general: try to keep the games small and stay agile. Look for the fun quickly and build on that. Worry less about more features, but instead concentrate on nailing the core of the game. Get feedback from people who can be honest with you earlier than you think you should. Don't build your own engine/tools when an existing engine/tool will do the job.

What tools do you use.  By this I mean software development kits/engines (Cocos2d, Corona, Unity3D etc), audio packages, art packages.

I've used a lot of different tools and engines since I started 4.5 years ago. I'll try to list the ones I've used more than a few times.

Engines:

• custom OpenGL-based engine
• cocos2d
• cocos2d-x
• Unity + Futile

Tools:

• Xcode
• MonoDevelop
• Photoshop
• Inkscape
• TexturePacker
• Audacity
• Garage Band
• Blender
• Git
• A notebook and pen
• twitter

(I only part kid about adding twitter to my list of tools. The community I've met through twitter has been invaluable over the past 4.5 years.)

What made you choose these tools over others?

Mostly familiarity and efficiency of use, but also price. I try to choose the tool that is going to allow me to complete the job as efficiently as possible. Sometimes this means paying for software, but sometimes, you get lucky and the best tool is also cheap/free.

What marketing tactics do you employ?  Forums, twitter, paid PR etc

I've had little success with running my own forums, as its hard to keep spam out. I've never paid for PR, but many swear by good PR firms.

Build relationships with your fans and players. Engage with your players where the players hang out (e.g. TouchArcade forums, etc). Keep making games and finding ways to let your fans know about it. More Games pages, twitter Facebook, mailing lists, websites. Build relationships with the press so they know who you are and what your games are. Go to conferences and meet people face to face. If you have a big enough game and timeline, show at PAX and other gaming events.

Marketing is just as hard as making your game. You need to be thinking about it and acting on it all throughout the process of making your game. If you're done your game and are just starting to thinking about marketing, you waited too long. All that said, this is an area where I've made a lot of mistakes and I'm still learning a lot about how to successfully market my games.

What effect do you think free to play has had upon your game design?

Honestly, I'm not sure yet, but it's something I've been thinking about more and more.

What resources do you swear by for learning new techniques, getting more from the packages you mentioned above, news etc.  e.g Books (specific titles would be appreciated), forums / websites, social media

Many of the tools I use, I learned at jobs before going indie. For things I'm learning for the first time, I like books for some things (e.g. learning a new programming language, math, physics theory), but for others I like forums, online tutorials, and digital documentation (e.g. I've been learning to model in Blender almost exclusively by watching youtube videos and reading their online docs). Having a circle of friends who are smarter than you is also a great way to learn.

There has been a lot in the press recently that app development is going through a gold rush and that the bubble will burst soon.  Do you see it like this?

The app market feels a lot to me like the .com boom felt in the late 90's. It felt at the time like you could do no wrong. All you had to do was create a website and get rich. People seem to have the same feeling about apps: I just need to make an app and I'll get rich. Those of us who have been making apps for a few years know that this isn't the case. Yes, some people are making a lot of money, but most of us, by working hard, are slowly finding a way to eek out a living. My hope is that we'll see more people approaching app/games development as a sustainable way of making a living. Not shooting for instant riches, but trying to build a catalogue of quality apps/games that garner attention and earns their developers a living.

Do you think app games will eventually kill off AAA titles as we know them?

No. I think there will always be room for the Big video games; the blockbuster, mega-budget games. But I think they will be less dominant. People are gaming more and more on the go. Once everyone considers themselves someone who plays games, I think Big games will just become another market in the larger games market.

What does 2013 have in store for Streaming Colour?

Right now I'm working on a new game with Matt Rix (the details are still secret at this point). After that, even more games!

Any additional advice you would give for up and coming indie developers?

Making a living making games is not easy. It will be hard. Sometimes you will hate the game you're making. Sometimes you will want to quit. But, if you really love making games, you will find a way to keep going. I believe the key to long-term success is persistence. Those who eventually find success are the ones who kept going; who kept learning from their mistakes; who kept improving. Sometimes this will mean taking on contract gigs or getting a job to pay your bills. But if you love it enough, you will keep at it.

Download Finger Tied for iPad   If you don't know Finger Tied is a multi-touch puzzle game, only for the iPad. In each Finger Tied puzzle, fill in a shape by moving up to four fingers around on your iPad at the same time. But be careful, lift a finger, or go out of bounds, and it's game over. Finger Tied will test your mental, as well as your finger abilities!

Content Scaling: The magic size

When I was writing games in Corona SDK / Lua I was helped no end by this incredibly helpful article on content scaling.  This worked on the premise of ratios to deal with the different aspect ratios. This is related to my previous post in regarding the iOS screen resolutions.

Without a doubt this concept works and really does for the fragmented screen resolutions of android.  This principle also worked fine for iOS until the iPhone 5 came along.  This got me thinking about this concept not least because I wanted to do as little work as possible when it came to creating background images etc.

If you read the article in Corona they suggest that applying an image of 380 x 570 on a 320 x 480 resolutions provides the appropriate bleed around the safe zone of the screen resolution.  However, this doesn't work when applying to the newer versions of iOS not least the iPhone 5.

So I did a little playing and a minor adjustment and came up with the magic size that seems to work for all and that magic size is ...385 x 570.

Not that different in size you say but look at how this works for the iOS resolutions with simple multiplications.

• 320  x 480    use  385 x 570
• 640  x 960    use  770 x 1140
• 640  x 1136  use  770 x 1140
• 768  x 1024  use  770 x 1140
• 1536 x 2046 use  1540 x 2280

This then works to an exact ratio of 1x, 2x and 4x with only 3 different backgrounds needed.

The principle there is that by declaring a screen size is a “safe zone” — any content outside this area of the background image might be cropped, either on both sides or at the top and bottom, depending on the target screen’s aspect ratio.  So when planning your image you may applying additional grass, trees, stars etc. to make up the area which isn't a playing area for that aspect ratio but will take up screen real estate.

This principal works as of February 2013 and will hopefully be updated when Apple bring out a further X amount of screen resolutions to contend with.

iOS Resolutions - a handy guide

While working on my most recent game I wanted to try and target iOS devices.  I constantly found myself trying to work out the screen resolutions as well as how a background image would differ between the sizes.

What I came up with is the attached positional guide with screens horizontally and vertically aligned so that you see the various challenges ahead in terms of planning your imagery.

I hope it helps.  Its certainly stopped me having to visit half of the internet.

Just click on the image to show at full size.


Check out my related post on content scaling and the magic size for planning your images.

Indie Dev Insight: Imangi Studios

If you haven't heard of Temple Run series then you must have been living under a rock for the last couple of years. Temple Run 2 has broken records for being the fastest game to 50 million downloads and there are certainly no signs of this slowing.

Despite this phenomenal success, Keith Shepherd, one half of Imangi Studios, remains one of the nicest, helpful and down to earth people you should every meet. In my journey to date he has been kind enough to share emails and tweets with advice and continues that support with some invaluable learnings as to how Imangi and the Temple Run series has become such an unstoppable juggernaut.

What got you into writing games?
I got interested in making games as a kid. Mostly because I was playing a lot of video games and I wanted to know how they worked so I could make my own. That led me down the path of learning how to program. I tinkered with it a bit when I was a kid but never really knew enough to make games. It wasn't really until high school when I took my first programming class in Pascal that I really started to learn enough to make games. I tinkered on and off with making games all the way through college, but never really ever finished of released anything. When I graduated from college with a computer science degree I wanted to get into the games industry, but it was the height of the dot com boom and I ended up getting a job with an e-commerce startup instead. It wasn't until Natalia and I founded Imangi that I was able to get back to my childhood dreams of writing games and actually publish my first game.

What's good and bad about what you do?
I love making games. It's such a creative field and is a combination of so many things I love, art, programming, music, sound, game design, storytelling, etc. I truly feel lucky to be able to make games for a living. I guess the only bad thing about what I do is that sometimes it's hard to just sit back and enjoy playing games sometimes because you end up picking them apart to try and analyze what is working and what isn't.

How many people are involved in writing games at Imangi Studios. What roles do they take on? How has this changed with the success of TR?
Well it started out as just Natalia and I. The first person we started working with was an artist, because Natalia and I can't draw at all! Kiril, Natalia, and I made the original Temple Run in about 5 months. Natalia and I did the programming and sound fx, Kiril did the art, and Natalia composed the music. Support became a big challenge for us with the success of Temple Run, we started getting hundreds and sometimes thousands of emails a day. We've always liked being a small company, but that was the first indication that we might need to start working with some additional people. So we ended up getting my brother to help out with support and social media. From there we've still stayed relatively small and really instead of hiring a staff we've mostly leveraged outside contractors and made strategic partnerships where necessary. Temple Run 2 was made by a core team of 5 people, so we're still very small to this day.

What would you do differently now given what you know from projects completed and experience from the gaming and app market?
I think the biggest lesson we've learned over the years is to focus on projects with a reasonable scope for our small team. Whenever we've tried to make level based games with a lot of unique content we've always failed. I think that's mostly just because it's really hard to create a huge volume of content with a small team. So we've found most of our success with quick pick up and play games based on "arcade" style gameplay.

What tools do you use. By this I mean software development kits/engines (Cocos2d, Corona, Unity3D etc), audio packages, art packages.
We've used lots of tools over the years. The original Temple Run was made in our own in house 3d engine that we build over the years. Temple Run 2 was built fully in Unity3d.

What made you choose these tools over others?
The main reason we went with Unity3D is because it supports 3D graphics and because it's cross platform.

What marketing tactics do you employ? Forums, twitter, paid PR etc
There is no silver bullet. We've tried everything we can thing of over the years. We used to take more of a grassroots guerrilla marketing approach by posting in all the forums etc. These days we work with a PR firm to help us.

What effect do you think free to play has had upon your game design? Little know that TR was a paid game to start with so did you purposely create IAP when you decided to go free?
I don't think we let the business model define our game design. We always approach the game design first and then after we have something fun we try to figure out the best business model that fits. Even though Temple Run launched as a paid game, we already had all of the upgrades and in game coin currency and the ability to buy more coins with IAP. So it was already a natural fit for freemium. The only thing we changed when going from paid to free was the price.

What resources do you swear by for learning new techniques, getting more from the packages you mentioned above, news etc. e.g Books (specific titles would be appreciated), forums / websites, social media
I mostly learn by tinkering around with things and maybe following a tutorial here and there. Twitter has also been incredibly valuable for me as an indie game developer. There are so many other indie devs on twitter that you can interact with an ask questions. I've gotten so much great advice and learned so much from others that way.

There has been a lot in the press recently that app development is going through a gold rush and that the bubble will burst soon. Do you see it like this? You guys more than most seem to be bucking the trend :)
People have been saying the App Store is a gold rush ever since it opened. I try not to look at it that way, because I think people are being more successful every year and the scale of success just keeps going up too. It's still a tough market though, but I don't think that's really changed. When the App Store first opened there were only 500 apps, and it was still fiercely competitive and hard to make it. Now there are hundreds of thousands of apps and it definitely feels like the market it much more crowded, but in reality there are so many more people with mobile devices now so the market has also grown much larger. The reality is that video games are very much a hit driven market, so it's brutally tough to make it.

Do you think app games will eventually kill off AAA titles as we know them?
I hope not! I love big epic games with tons of content, and I think there are other people that do too. What I think has happened though is that mobile gaming has opened up games to a whole new segment of the market. There are tons of people that never really considered themselves gamers now playing a ton of mobile games. That's great for the industry and I think that there is room for both.

What does 2013 have in store for Imangi Studios?
Well, we have a lot more in store for Temple Run, that's for sure! I'd also like to work on some new games at some point, but right our focus is on Temple Run.

Any additional advice you would give for up and coming indie developers?
Start small, take on projects you know you can complete in a reasonable amount of time, get lots of feedback from others, and make the games you want to play, not the games you think others will want to play.

Download Temple Run 2 for iOS and Android.

Indie Dev Insight: Vlambeer

Vlambeer is a Dutch independent game studio best known for its frantic, arcade-style games such as Super Crate Box. Its because of this game that I first heard of Vlambeer and have been following since due to their quirky aesthetics and addictive gameplay of a classic formula. For those not aware of this company its worth looking out for their forthcoming titles of which I am eagerly awaiting Ridiculous Fishing for iOS.

Rami very kindly took some time out of their very busy schedule to provide some insight into their experiences to date.

What got you into writing games?
We have seperate stories, obviously. Rami started very young - at the age of six, because back then the only game he liked was written in QBASIC and he had to open the editor to compile the game. Jan Willem ran into Game Maker in a magazine halfway through his teens and hasn't really looked back since.

What's good and bad about what you do?
We make small, contained games. Those are more fun to create for us. We're chaotic and impulsive, though, so we might end up working on four things at once and getting overworked.

How many people are involved in writing games at Vlambeer. What roles do they take on?
Vlambeer is two people - a designer and a developer. We're terrible at art & music, so we ask talented friends to help us out with that.

What would you do differently now given what you know from projects completed and experience from the gaming and app market?
Be a bit more careful with our health. Working on four or five projects at once can probably literally kill you.

What tools do you use. By this I mean software development kits/engines (Cocos2d, Corona, Unity3D etc), audio packages, art packages.
Game Maker, FlashDevelop, MS Paint, Photoshop, Visual Studio.

What made you choose these tools over others?
They're what we're comfortable with. That's really all there's to it. We like those programs, so we use them.

What marketing tactics do you employ? Forums, twitter, paid PR etc
We don't like forums - they feel like a closed system. We use Twitter, Facebook and obviously do our press reachout and work.

What effect do you think free to play has had upon your game design?
None.

What resources do you swear by for learning new techniques, getting more from the packages you mentioned above, news etc. e.g Books (specific titles would be appreciated), forums / websites, social media
Practice, really. We sincerely believe you only truly learn through doing things.

There has been a lot in the press recently that app development is going through a gold rush and that the bubble will burst soon. Do you see it like this?
We think the bubble burst years ago. However, the equalizing factor is the expectations for iOS. A small company can make something as cool as a big one.

Do you think app games will eventually kill off AAA titles as we know them?
No. We think there's place for both - we think there is place for dozens of more variations on 'games' as we know them.

What does 2013 have in store for Vlambeer?
We want to make a lot of games! LUFTRAUSERS and Ridiculous Fishing are almost done, but we hope to be spending a lot of this year prototyping, programming and having fun.

Any additional advice you would give for up and coming indie developers?
Make games, be serious about what you do and spend time making sure people play your game.

Check out Super Crate box on iOS and follow Vlambeer on facebook.

Indie Dev Insight: Kuyi Mobile

Kuyi Mobile is an independent game development company based in the Philippines and focused on creating a new breed of mobile games.

I first came across Erick and Kuyi Mobile when part of the Corona SDK community and a feature run on the incredibly popular Streetfood Tycoon game. I know for one that my wife is addicted to this game as its a blend of casual game, vibrant colours and addictive gameplay. I spoke to Erick when having just launched Streetfood Tycoon: World Tour.

What got you into writing games?
I guess it's the same for all game designers/developers--I used to be a passionate gamer (now I have less time!) and play a lot on different consoles/platforms. And being a cartoonist has helped me get into game design/development easily.

What's good and bad about what you do?
There are a lot of good things about being in the game industry but I'm pretty sure everyone has heard it all by now so I'll concentrate on the bad. Two of the bad things that I had to struggle with was work-life balance and staying healthy. It feels great to be able to hack at night and do fantastic things but it takes a toll on one's health. I wouldn't advise sleeping late at night anymore. Whether you're working at home or in an office, be sure to allot time for work and spend the rest doing something else--recreation, exercise, hobby, quality time with family, etc.

How many people are involved in writing games at Kuyi Mobile. What roles do they take on?
I've always been a one-man team since I put up Kuyi Mobile but I outsource all my sounds and music. It's not that I dislike working with other people, it's just that I wanted to start small and take it one step at a time. Just last December, I started forming a team and added one developer and an artist to Kuyi Mobile. Hopefully, we can get a decent office soon and work more seamlessly.

What would you do differently now given what you know from projects completed and experience from the gaming and app market?
If there's anything that's changed, it's my process of choosing my next project. Though the gaming industry has boomed the past few years, competition has also gone up which means we all need to level up and put as much quality into our products as possible. I usually do a lot of market research, brainstorming, prototyping and getting a lot of early feedback for my game ideas before I go full blast on it. Choosing which game project to embark on used to be just a day or two, now it's about a month or more!

What tools do you use. By this I mean software development kits/engines (Cocos2d, Corona, Unity3D etc), audio packages, art packages.
I was actually never dependent on just one tool (discounting XCode, of course). I started out with Cocos2D and now using Corona SDK. I'm currently exploring Unity and possibly use it for my next game project. I believe it all depends on the game that you're working on, what the requirements are and what 3rd party tool can support it. Of course, it gets harder to support and churn out updates if you're using various tools but I don't mind as long as my players/customers get a fantastic gaming experience when they play my titles.

What marketing tactics do you employ? Forums, twitter, paid PR etc
To be honest, I just send out a press release via PRMac and that's it (used to be only US$20, now it costs US$22!). Since I started, the only things I've added to my marketing are my social media channels--Twitter and Facebook. You really can't survive w/out engaging with your players. I try to experiment with a few marketing tools from time to time but I never really stuck with anything consistently. Right now, I'm experimenting with Facebook's mobile ads, figuring out its effectiveness and how it can help me grow my userbase.

What effect do you think free to play has had upon your game design?
F2P is a huge game changer. I used to be your free + paid type of guy but since I got into F2P, the way I look at game design has totally evolved and changed. It pushes developers to be more creative and ingenious and it's not actually bad as long as you keep your game's main goal and mechanics intact. I also spend a lot of time on monetization and virality but I make sure that it doesn't sacrifice my original gameplay. I'm not after my player's money, I'd rather give them a nice and enjoyable gaming experience. Besides, those who really like my games will eventually make a purchase and support me anyway.

What resources do you swear by for learning new techniques, getting more from the packages you mentioned above, news etc. e.g Books (specific titles would be appreciated), forums / websites, social media
What I love about this industry is that everyday, you can always learn a new thing or two. I read a lot of books about game design, entrepreneurship and startups and spend a lot of time on indie and game development sites to learn more about what's new, trending topics and what's coming.

There has been a lot in the press recently that app development is going through a gold rush and that the bubble will burst soon. Do you see it like this?
I'd rather not think about the gold rush and how it will all fail in the end. I prefer to focus on creating more games, growing my userbase and building a nice track record. As long as you have built a good game catalogue and acquired a lot of fans along the way, I believe you'll be able to sustain yourself in any kind of situation.

Do you think app games will eventually kill off AAA titles as we know them?
One great thing about what Apple did is that they provided an arena for indie game developers like us to compete with the big guys so yes, we can definitely compete with Triple A titles but I don't think we'll eventually kill them. There's a lot of room for both and it's become a great ecosystem for developers, content providers and consumers.

What does 2013 have in store for Kuyi Mobile?
New games! :)

Any additional advice you would give for up and coming indie developers?
Start small, aim big! Also, do your homework--come up with new & unique game ideas, research what's out there and ALWAYS focus on quality.

Why not give Streetfood Tycoon: World Tour a go. Its fun, free and as addictive as ever and available on the App store.

Indie Dev Insight: Retro Dreamer

Who ever thought that poo and ice cream would be a good combination but for Retro Dreamer they have had phenomenal success with the Happy Poo and Ice cream drop / jump games which has seen telephone numbers of downloads across the collection.

What has fascinated me about Retro Dreamer's approach is not the technicalities of the games but how the success is driven by a simple uncluttered game design with cross promotion across their collection. I had a chat with Gavin Bowman (@GavinBowman) to get further views on their success to date:

What got you into writing games?
I've always loved playing games. I did some hobby coding when I was a kid but never really stuck at it. I was working on regular software when the casual games and mobile games market were looking exciting, a friend asked if I'd like to make a game with him, and I haven't stopped since.

What's good and bad about what you do?
Flexible hours, creative freedom, and great job satisfaction vs. Never not working, no external structure or direction, unpredictable income.

How many people are involved in writing games at Retro Dreamer. What roles do they take on?
There are two of us, myself and Craig Sharpe. He does the art, I do the code. We try to share everything else out as best we can.

What would you do differently now given what you know from projects completed and experience from the gaming and app market?
Probably design earlier apps with a little more cross platform in mind, but I wouldn't go mental on it. I'd have tried to capitalize on successes with updates instead of prioritizing new apps, and move on more quickly from failures. And I'd have tried to finish more of the projects we abandoned and cut down the scope more on some of the projects we did.

What tools do you use. By this I mean software development kits/engines (Cocos2d, Corona, Unity3D etc), audio packages, art packages.
Xcode & Photoshop primarily. The rest of the Adobe tools definitely factor in too, and we've been using various tools for sprite sheet creation. For our Android games we use Eclipse to build them. We don't use a game engine or SDK, but we will probably be using Unity for some of our new games later this year.

What made you choose these tools over others?
We're mostly still using the only tools that worked or that we had when we got started. We're looking to Unity because mobile hardware is advancing so fast, we can take advantage of that much more easily than expanding on our own code, and I love the idea of getting another layer between myself and hardware variations & platforms.

What marketing tactics do you employ? Forums, twitter, paid PR etc
We've tried a lot over the years, we've posted on forums, sent out emails to press sites. We're active on twitter and we have a Facebook page, but we're not super active with marketing, these days we have a tendency to let the games fend for themselves a little and see what happens from there. It's not smart, but it lets us focus more on the games. We've also had a bunch of help over the years from some of our awesome indie friends. We did pay for a press release once, but it was cheap and probably pointless. We haven't tried paying for PR services, but it's not something we'd rule out for the right game, I've seen them do wonders and marketing is not something either of us are fond of taking charge of.

What effect do you think free to play has had upon your game design?
It's forced us to think a more about engagement and player retention. Which is a good thing, because those are the same factors that drive word of mouth on paid apps anyway! I think some of our earlier games we just picked a concept we thought would look appealing, attached it to an interesting game mechanic, and hoped that people would like it. Now we worry a bit more about how many people will like it, and whether they will come back and play it again.

What resources do you swear by for learning new techniques, getting more from the packages you mentioned above, news etc. e.g Books (specific titles would be appreciated), forums / websites, social media
I don't have any specific resources I use, my twitter or browser reading lists are always packed with great links people have shared recently that I'm never short of something to look into if I get a chance!

There has been a lot in the press recently that app development is going through a gold rush and that the bubble will burst soon. Do you see it like this?
I thought that was back in 2009, didn't that happen already? :). Seriously though, the market has massive potential, and there are still great opportunities. There's almost certainly too many people rushing into it though, it's highly saturated, there are great games coming out every day that none of us will ever hear of. Some of those will have been in development for months or years, some will have had someone's savings poured into them. But wherever there are a big opportunities, there's always going to be a lot of people chasing them. Hopefully someday everyone will go in with their eyes open. The big numbers that you read about in the App Stores are heavily skewed to the top earners, the curve down from #1 to #200 (or even #10) is phenomenally steep, and it doesn't end there!

Do you think app games will eventually kill off AAA titles as we know them?
I think both markets are changing, and will continue to do so, but I don't know where it ends. I just hope whatever happens there is a marketplace where small companies like ourselves can keep trying to make a living from games.

What does 2013 have in store for Retro Dreamer?
More games, more updates! We have a lot of things we're working on, we're excited for the new year. I'd like to hit the onegameamonth.com target, but as long as we're working hard and getting good things made I'm not going to be too depressed if we don't 100% it.

Any additional advice you would give for up and coming indie developers?
Start stuff, finish stuff, get it out to people. It's the only way to improve. And if people go wild for something you make, nurture it and cherish it, because you never know when that will happen again.

Download Retro Dreamer's latest game Happy Poo's Revenge on Google Play which has been written for one game a month.