08-12-2009, 08:50 PM
An Apple employee was just telling me today of another developer -- I probably shouldn't say who -- whose worse-selling iPhone app sells 500-1000 units a day. A DAY. What the heck?! Granted, it's only 99 cents, but that's still around 375 dollars or more a day after Apple gets its cut. Holy cow.
Makes me wonder if I should look into porting Midnight Mansion to the iPhone. The iPhone has half the resolution of Midnight Mansion's current resolution, so it would probably look just great on the iPhone. And unlike my latest game Insectoid, which requires a 1.2 GHz computer or faster to run (and even then barely makes it), Midnight Mansion's system requirements are much lighter... the game would perform just fine on the iPhone.
I'm not sure what would be involved in porting it... how much work it would be... but I'm starting to wonder about it, having heard of those crazy sales figures. Of course, not all iPhone games are a success -- some have barely made the author $500 in return, but Midnight Mansion could really fill a niche in that market.
The only question is if it makes *sense*, given the controls.... up, down, left, right, jump, and action... how would that translate to the iPhone? I could superimpose a control pad over the screen, but I'm not sure if that would work well. Or have players tilt left/right/up/down to move Jack, and jolt the iPhone up real quick to make him Jump. Maybe tap the screen for action. OR maybe touch the screen to Jack's left or right to make him walk in that direction... he walks/climbs towards your touch. Maybe one of those would work... hard to know without trying it though.
Thoughts?
-Vern
Makes me wonder if I should look into porting Midnight Mansion to the iPhone. The iPhone has half the resolution of Midnight Mansion's current resolution, so it would probably look just great on the iPhone. And unlike my latest game Insectoid, which requires a 1.2 GHz computer or faster to run (and even then barely makes it), Midnight Mansion's system requirements are much lighter... the game would perform just fine on the iPhone.
I'm not sure what would be involved in porting it... how much work it would be... but I'm starting to wonder about it, having heard of those crazy sales figures. Of course, not all iPhone games are a success -- some have barely made the author $500 in return, but Midnight Mansion could really fill a niche in that market.
The only question is if it makes *sense*, given the controls.... up, down, left, right, jump, and action... how would that translate to the iPhone? I could superimpose a control pad over the screen, but I'm not sure if that would work well. Or have players tilt left/right/up/down to move Jack, and jolt the iPhone up real quick to make him Jump. Maybe tap the screen for action. OR maybe touch the screen to Jack's left or right to make him walk in that direction... he walks/climbs towards your touch. Maybe one of those would work... hard to know without trying it though.
Thoughts?
-Vern