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Sword and Sworcery EP: 350K units swold
iOS title Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP has sold 350,000 units life to date, Capy president Nathan Vella revealed at GDC 2012 today.The long-form game, which took 18 months to develop, has done incredibly well on the app store, despite having "small amount of birds, no fruit, limited water," which have all become cliche requirements for iOS success."Everyone isn't a demographic," Vella noted. "Target a niche due to iOS scale, niches can be huge."He said two-thirds of all sales were on the iPad universal app and that three quarters of revenue were made on the universal app. He also noted that the title going on discount only accounted for 10 percent of sales, meaning the game had a potential audience that was willing to pay full price for the experience.Vella feels Sword & Sworcery is a good case that longer experiences can fit on the iOS platform and targeting "everyone" isn't the only way.
Capy posts ideas from its internal game jam, and they all sound pretty good
Given the talent of the folks at Capy Software (who've made the excellent Critter Crunch, Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes, and most of the programming behind Sword and Sworcery), you'd expect them to prototype an interesting game in less time than it takes some to develop a full game. You're partially right -- they made seven.All seven games from Capy's internal game jam are now listed over on the company blog, and to a title they all sound pretty good. The Final Act has the player acting on stage to win a battle, Ferret Wings features Captain Farris the Ferret fighting against Adolph Hamster, and Jetman Adventures (above) is described as "a kind of touch screen Panzer Dragoon/Defender hybrid with Fruit Ninja influence." Yes please!Unfortunately, these are just prototypes developed over the two-day period of a game jam, so they're all unfinished (one turn-based tactical game, for example, didn't get any further than having just one unit), and most likely unplayable by the public. But one of these might plant a seed for Capy's next title, and when that flower blossoms we'll be happy to stick our noses right in it.
Sword and Sworcery LP coming out April 5, iPhone version in a few weeks
Sword & Sworcery is an unqualified hit for the iPad -- as I said when it released, we've been following this one for a while, and it's great to see such a solid indie effort recognized by critics and consumers alike. While the game is out for iPad, the property is far from over. A full LP based on the music of the game, written by musician Jim Guthrie, has been announced for release on April 5, next Tuesday. "The Ballad of the Space Babies" will be available as a vinyl record, or online as a digital download in iTunes or Bandcamp. There's also an iPhone version of the game on the way -- I talked to Nathan Vella of Capy about it, and he told me that work continues apace. The plan all along has been to release it around a month after the iPad release, and Capy is still on that schedule, so we should see an iPhone version (optimized for the smaller platform, of course) about three weeks from now.
