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Threes slides to Android, provides numbers about the numbers
The addictive, number-pushing puzzler Threes is now on Android, following its launch on iOS in February. It's currently 33.3 percent off on the Google Play Store, or $2, and it features all of the minimalistic design and party personalities of the original game. The port was handled by Hidden Variable Studios. Threes creators Greg Wohlwend and Asher Vollmer put together an infographic with some scintillating stats about the game in its first month on iOS, including the following information: Of all players, 47 percent are from the US, while 14 percent hail from China – but in China, only 2 percent of players paid for the game, putting the supposed piracy rate at 93 percent. Each day, Threes fans play a cumulative 11 years, for 327 years in total so far. The current high score is 808,989, held by chu121su12, and the highest tile players have reached is 6,144 (six players have seen it). Less than half of players have seen the 384 tile, while more than 70 percent have reached the tile previous, 192. Check out the full infographic after the break (click to enlarge). Wohlwend and Vollmer launched Threes on iOS first simply because of time and resources – and because of uncertainty about the game's success, Wohlwend told me. "Releasing on multiple platforms would be really overwhelming and take us too much extra time to coordinate," he said. "It seems like we could have in hindsight, but at the time just before release on iOS we were really uncertain about Threes. It could go either way and so we do all we can, when we can. I think this is the case for just about every indie developer out there. When you release a game, you have no real data about if those many months of work will connect with people. So staying in that vacuum, with an unreleased game, and assuming that it's worth it to port it to every platform, can be a huge trap." The team hasn't released information about how many players have gotten their paws on Threes, but given the new port and celebratory infographic, we're guessing Wohlwend and Vollmer's bets paid off. [Image: Greg Wohlwend]
The Joystiq Indie Pitch: Bag It!
Indie developers are the starving artists of the video-game world, often brilliant and innovative, but also misunderstood, underfunded and more prone to writing free-form poetry on their LiveJournals. We at Joystiq believe no one deserves to starve, and many indie developers are entitled to a fridge full of tasty, fulfilling media coverage, right here. This week, Charley Price and David Marino of Hidden Variable point out life's little joys with Bag it!, the grocery-bagging puzzle game that you didn't know could be fun. What's your game called and what's it about?Charley Price: Bag It! is a Tetris-style grocery-bagging puzzle game with a fragility twist.What's the coolest aspect of Bag It!?David Marino: The groceries are the coolest thing about Bag It! They started out as colored blocks and gradually grew to become pirate watermelons and flirtatious baguettes. And who doesn't like crushing aristocratic eggs?CP: One of the coolest things I love about watching people play Bag It! is how the game resonates with different players. Bag It! presents a wide variety of unique modes (from Standard to Multi-Bag to Rampage to Puzzle), which helps the game feel fresh and ensures that there's something in there for everyone.
Portabliss: Bag It! (iOS/Android)
Did you know that you can download handheld games now? That's amazingly convenient! The only inconvenient part of it is finding the right games to buy -- and that's where we come in, with our Portabliss column. In each installment, we'll tell you about a downloadable game on the iPhone, iPad, Android device, DSi, 3DS, PSP, etc. Today: Bag It!. At first I dismissed Bag It! -- a game about safely and quickly filling grocery bags -- because it seemed way too simple. Early levels give you just a few different items, including watermelons, milk, and eggs, and there's not really any problem with arranging them into grocery bags. Make sure the egg cartons don't have three watermelons on top, pretty much. After each level, gravity and physics click on and you have to rotate the phone to help the items settle without squishing one another. But playing on, I found that developer Hidden Variable Studios worked to add variety to the experience in neat ways. First, of course, you start getting more items to try to fit into your bag, like bags of chips and long, thin loaves of bread (all with little happy faces). And then, when you've seemingly mastered the art of arranging groceries so they won't crush each other, you unlock a set of levels about crushing as many items as you can. That is followed with a set of challenging puzzle levels in which you have to rearrange already-placed items without damaging a single one. It's a boastworthy achievement for a game about something as banal as filling grocery bags to be the source of surprise, but Hidden Variable managed to keep the experience fresh. And in honor of that, I'll stop here before I turn that adjective into a food joke. Bag It! is available on iTunes for iPhone for .99, with a separate "HD" version also available for .99. An Android version is on the Android Market for $1.99. We're always looking for new distractions. Want to submit your game for Portabliss consideration? You can reach us at portabliss aat joystiq dawt com.
