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GDC Online 2010: Booyah's InCrowd, or how to develop an app in four weeks
Booyah first made a big splash on the App Store with the check-in game MyTown, then they stepped over to Facebook to release a game called Nightclub City before returning to Apple's platform a little while back with a title called InCrowd. Most App Store releases are known for their short development times (usually around six months or less), but InCrowd might set a record. As Booyah's Jon Parise explained in his panel at this year's GDC Online conference, Booyah created the app in just four weeks. There were a few reasons for doing this. First and foremost, the app is designed to work in conjunction with Facebook's new Places service, and because of Booyah's success with Nightclub City, Facebook granted them early access to work on and release an app for launch day (just four weeks after development began). While Parise didn't say it directly, his speech gave the impression that Booyah just wanted to try it -- could they really take an idea and turn it into a viable App Store product and brand in just four weeks' time? That, as Parise pointed out, is just about the length of Adobe Photoshop's trial period. In fact, one of their developers downloaded and used the expensive photo editor's trial all within the time of development.
Booyah releases InCrowd for iPhone and iPod touch
Booyah has released an iPhone and iPod touch version of its Facebook game, InCrowd, and it's now available on the App Store. The app, like the very popular MyTown, uses location check-ins to create a game around social networking. But unlike MyTown, this app was originally released as a Facebook game. Booyah originally started InCrowd as its first Facebook venture, but it's now bringing the game back to the iPhone, where it's presumably more comfortable at development. But the Facebook and iPhone versions work together (in fact, you need a Facebook account to play it), so check-ins on either platform can be seen in the app. As for the game itself, it's exactly the kind of thing that's very popular among the huge tween audience for Facebook games -- there's a cartoonish avatar that can interact with friends socially, and checking-in to certain places earns the avatars popularity and status. There's a microtransaction element as well -- interacting uses energy, and if you don't want to wait for a refresh, you can spend 99 cents to get more. Standard social gaming stuff, although Booyah is pretty good at putting it together by now. Booyah remains a company to watch in the social gaming space -- it doesn't seem to have had quite the success it wanted on Facebook, but the company is flexible enough to switch a game like this over to Apple's platform without skipping a beat. We'll have to wait and see whether or not the free app gains MyTown's level of adoption, however.
