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WWDC 2010: Brian Akaka of Appular
We last talked to Brian Akaka back at the Voices that Matter conference earlier this year, but both he and his company Appular were also at WWDC a little while ago. They've been busy. Hand of Greed, their first published title, has been released in an HTML5 version, allowing anyone with an iPhone to play it without downloading anything at all. And Appular has decided to publish two more titles: Attack and Destroy is a strategic combat game that has you leading cartoon units against bad guys, and iSlice, just released today, has you cutting of chunks of shapes to try and score as many points as possible. Both games are worth a look, and it sounds like Appular's publishing business is rolling along quite nicely. Follow the link below to see what Akaka had to tell us about creating a game in HTML 5, where these two new games came from, and what his team is looking forward to in iPhone 4 and beyond.
Interview with Brian Akaka of Appular and Hand of Greed
Brian Akaka is an old friend of ours here at TUAW -- he is a veteran of Mac gaming, and was a familiar name in our inbox back when he was working at Freeverse and promoting their Mac software and iPhone apps. A little while back, he stepped away from Freeverse to form his own company, Appular, and since then, he's continuing to work with iPhone developers, both marketing and promoting their apps. Just recently, however, Appular has moved from simply promoting iPhone apps into actually publishing them. Their first title is named Hand of Greed -- it's a game that actually first appeared on the App Store in January, and has now been repackaged and republished by Appular in an effort to give the app some visibility. I got a chance to play the game last week, and then met up and spoke with Akaka this past weekend at the Voices that Matter conference in Seattle. After the link below, find both my impressions of the game, and a quick interview with Appular about why they've decided to not only promote iPhone titles, but publish a few themselves.
Hands on with Hangman RSS HD for iPad
I am fond of fellow TUAW blogger Dave Caolo and friendly with Brian Akaka, and were it not for those associations there is no way I would have tried out Hangman RSS HD for iPad by Finger Arts, because on paper the game just sounded absolutely dire. But Dave had given it a spin at Macworld and found it playable, and Brian Akaka asked very nicely if I would give it an honest try. And what do you know? I liked it. A lot. Hangman RSS HD turns out to be insanely addicting and challenging. It's a standard hangman game played with real time RSS feeds from all over the world. That means you're just about as likely to find a story about horrible events as one that's...family friendly. The first game I played was about a 9-year old Yemini bride. I nearly didn't make it to the second game, but I'm glad that I persevered. Once you understand that the game uses unfiltered, real world topics you'll be able to switch your attention to the word challenges and catching up on the news. There's not a lot to explain about how the game works. Nearly everyone has played Hangman, the game where you get several chances to guess the letters in an obscured word. When you guess too many wrong letters, you lose. Hangman RSS keeps track of your successful solutions and you can challenge yourself to keep getting longer and longer "runs" of wins. There are several levels of game play, where the number of obscured words increases from one to two, to three, and so forth. A small semi-obscured clue appears at the bottom of each puzzle, and you can "dig" into a story to read the original articles directly from the game. The iPad delivery really lends itself to reading the news web pages. Its expansive screen means the tiles and interaction elements really have room to "breathe." The game is a very good match to the iPad. I found myself playing this game for hours. I also (inadvertently) learned how to spell the names of much-mourned Polish leaders. There's a lot of that going on in Hangman RSS. When you play with real news, there's a bitter that goes along with the sweet. It's real but it can be hard. Hangman RSS HD for iPad costs $2.99 at the App Store.
First Apple tablet game announced ... kind of
Unwilling to wait until the rumored Apple tablet thing becomes a reality (probably tomorrow!), iPhone app developer Stand Alone Inc. announced that it's working on a version of its Crosswords iPhone game for the theoretical device's possible 10-inch screen. "We have been anticipating the Apple tablet as the greatest piece of hardware for App developers since iPhone itself," Stand Alone president Bob Gottlieb said in the announcement, "and Crosswords will be even better on the new device." The existence of a game for the tablet shouldn't be taken as confirmation of the tablet itself; though we've had plenty of that. Brian Akaka, of Stand Alone's PR firm Appular, told Joystiq that the game design is speculative. "Stand Alone hasn't received any hardware or specs from Apple," Akaka said. "However, based on the general consensus available publicly, the tablet device is almost guaranteed in our opinion. Thus, the developer has prudently begun work on a new design for the game, in order to take advantage of the expected increase of real estate. The game is being designed to fit a 10-inch screen." So, in the absence of advance info from Apple, Stand Alone has given itself a head start on tablet development -- it hopes. [Via Mac|Life; Kotaku]
