Tag: Interviews »

Dive For Treasures was quite the delight when we reviewed it earlier this month, so we decided to find out more about its developer, Eccentricity Games, and the team's plans for the future.

Who is Eccentricity Games?
Founded in 2010, the team is made up of a handful of industry veterans who came from a number of Poland's major game development companies. With the help of a producer, Hubert Bibrowski, based in Canada, the team has steadily grown ever since.

What is Eccentricity Games most famous for?
Besides Dive for Treasures (pictured below), the team has also worked on the Android and Windows Phone 8 versions of Puzzle Craft, along with cutesy title, Roll in the Hole. The team has also dabbled in children's apps such as Yawnie and 4 Kids Colors

What's next on the horizon?
Over to Hubert Bibrowski to explain more here: "Right now we're just coming out of launch mode. Dive for Treasures made the AppStore's New and Noteworthy list in the U.S. marketplace so we are very excited. The feedback was great, we're so happy to hear the game is well received as it was a bit of a gamble. There aren't many games like this out there. Right now we are busy working on an update to the game. The main feedback we received was that people wish the game were longer so I'm happy to announce we will be updating the game with more levels soon. It goes without saying that these updates are going to be distributed free of charge to all existing customers. We'd like to send a big THANK YOU to all the game's fans."

Hubert also explained that there are more titles to come from the developer, too, with the first set to be presented in August. As he put it, "It is going to be a big one too...I'd say it is the biggest and most polished game in the history of our studio," although he's not yet able to reveal all. We'll be sure to press him for more information when the time comes!

Anything else I should know about the developers?
All too happy to help, Hubert answered a few of our questions.

148apps: What was the inspiration behind Dive for Treasures?
Hubert: Not sure...Maybe this thing I drive by every day?

Seriously though, we wanted to make a game focused on exploration, with a unique twist. We didn't want to make another "runner" game, we wanted something fresh. When the submarine idea came up, we knew we had something that was fun and challenging in a new way. Sometimes, I think we gamers forget how nice it is to play something relaxing. We all agreed that there wasn't enough of these types of games in the marketplace so we went ahead and made one.

148apps: You've tackled some very varied titles. Is there a particular genre that the team prefer to work on?
Hubert: We like all sorts of games. Working on smaller projects, as opposed to large AAA titles, gives us room to experiment, explore and take risks. We always make the games that we ourselves would like to play instead of focusing on the flavor of the week that happens to be top on the app store. We really like tower defense games - I have a feeling one of our next titles will fall into that category.

148apps: What are the team's favorite apps or games?
Hubert: We like so many games that no one here can agree on just one title. We play our fair share of Starcraft, Gran Turismo and Left 4 Dead and of course we play a lot of mobile games: Sailboat Championship, Tiny Wings, King of Opera and Bike Baron are some of the office favorites.

Where can I find out more about Eccentricity Games?
We'll be keeping a close eye on the new title set to be released in August, but there are plenty of other sources to learn more. There's the Eccentricity Games website, Twitter account and Facebook page.

Thanks to Hubert and the rest of the team for taking the time to answer our questions. Dive for Treasures is out now, priced at $1.99.

A great robot once asked: "You guys like swarms of things, right?" How right he was to make that assumption. There's just something about overseeing a churning mass of critters that feels oddly right. Or perhaps that's just my inner overlord talking. Regardless, Wobbles, from Play Nimbus, offers up such an experience by letting players guide their aimlessly wandering charges through perilous maps in the name of technological progress. Sort of. We had a chat with Play Nimbus' Nick Mudry (Producer, Creative Director, Marketing) to get the lowdown on these odd little characters.

148Apps: What sort of game is Wobbles, exactly? I can see some definite similarities to Lemmings but it also looks like there's more to it than that.
Nick Mudry (NM): Wobbles is a 2D side-scrolling puzzle platformer where you guide a line of adorable creatures, called Wobbles, across a dangerous landscape. You do this by placing gadgets, such as fire, aqueducts, tunnels, etc, which the Wobbles interact with. For example, the fire lights their butts on fire and they fly into their air (think Mario 64) while the aqueduct allows them to safely land from falls in a pool of water.

Wobbles was inspired by Lemmings back when we were originally conceptualizing what game we actually wanted to make. It came up as "what if you had a ton of Lemmings running across a level and you were just throwing platforms in front of them?" That initial concept exploded into the game we have today. Minutes after we talked about that idea, we were already drawing concepts for the characters, mechanics, etc.

148Apps: About how many different eras are you expecting to include in the final build? Any plans to release more in the future?
NM: We are launching Wobbles with a total of 6 eras: Cavemen, Roman, Medieval, Industrial, Modern, and Future. Each era has 10 levels, which adds up to 60 levels for the initial release. Each era has their own specific gadget, ranging from the fire all the way to one that reverses the Wobbles' gravity. We've had many ideas for different eras and gadgets that we would have liked to do for release, but they have been put aside for now. If Wobbles has a good reception, I'm sure we might work on a few new ones and release them.

148Apps: What made you all decide on the name "Wobbles?"
NM: This is an interesting story. It goes back to the night when we were initially conceptualizing the game. When we first saw the Wobbles' concept and the way it was shaped, we were wondering what to call it. We threw a few ideas out in the air, but at the end of the meeting, we decided to call them "Wobbles" for the time being. It ended up sticking and being an adorable little name for them.

148Apps: Where did the Wobbles' look come from? I think I see a little Alice the Goon in their design.
NM: A lot of the game originated at that meeting many months ago, and so did the Wobbles' look. During our brainstorming of how the game played and what we wanted it to feel like, our amazing artist, Laura, was already drawing concepts for what they should look like. When I turned around, I saw something that I could easily remember and adore and knew that would be the design we'd pick. Funny you mention Alice the Goon as part of their design. While I haven't thought of that until just now, it does have a little bit of the same style. We've noticed the Wobbles also look like a few other characters in games. I won't say exactly which ones, but just picture a Wobble with a space helmet and then think what other characters look similar.

148Apps: Were there any mechanics that you wanted to include but had to cut due to time/balance/other reasons? Anything you're hoping to add later?
NM: Before we went into a full production cycle this summer, we spent a decent amount of time in pre-production preparing. We had many meetings discussing what we should have in the game, and what we shouldn't. This made us know exactly what we'd need to do, and didn't have to cut anything. Surprisingly, things came together pretty well and almost on time. We did cut one feature, the stone bridge, since it was a bit redundant, but we didn't miss it at all. There are things we hope to add later though. We have plenty of features in mind that we thought of during our production that we just didn't have the time to add before release.

Wobbles is expected to wander onto the App Store sometime this month, where the curious and the insidious will be able to get their hands on it for $1.99. We'd like to thank Nick for his time and wish the team over at Play Nimbus luck with their game's release!

With Lums being the latest title to gain an esteemed Editor's Choice award, we took some time to get to know more about its developer, Hyperbolic Magnetism, and find out exactly what makes the team tick.

Who is Hyperbolic Magnetism?
Primarily a team of two in terms of the development side of things, the team is based in Prague, Czech Republic, with Vladimir Hrincar and Jan Split Ilavsky at the helm. Having worked together on creating games since the ZX Spectrum days during Elementary school, the pair continued their working partnership throughout University, which eventually lead them to develop via the App Store. Alongside that, Filip Kuna has also helped them with non-development tasks.

What is Hyperbolic Magnetism most famous for?
The team has worked on particle system simulator, Midnight HD, puzzle game Escapology and arcade smash-em-up, Oh My Heart. I think it's safe to say that Lums is the title that's about to propel the team's fortunes skyward, though.

What's next on the horizon?
The team explained to us that their hope is to deliver more content for Lums, providing they are financially able to: "Our future depends a lot on the success of Lums. If we don't make enough money to cover for the two years long development, we will have to make a compromise."

Besides experimenting with various other prototypes and considering some very cool sounding ideas (a turn based multiplayer endless runner is one such idea that they told us about), the team has also just finished a side project title called I'm the Game. An iPad-only release, it's set to hit the App Store next month, and combines Space Chem and Trainyard. The studio promises that it'll be great for "crazy people who love extremely hard, mind-bending puzzles."

Anything else I should know about the developer?
Always! We had a more in-depth chat with the team to see just where the idea for Lums came from, and more.

148apps: What was the inspiration behind Lums and its unique look?
Hyperbolic Magnetism: When we started to think about Lums for the first time, we wanted to create something with unique graphics. We knew that we could achieve that only by doing something technically challenging. We spent hours and days watching amazing non-gaming videos, trying to get inspiration. We played a few games like Limbo and Twilight Golf, [as well as] read articles about 2D soft shadows implementation. Thus, we decided to make a game with light and shadows. The original idea was to use a grayscale palette only. It had an even more intense atmosphere, but it was hard to distinguish the background from the foreground.

148apps:What challenges did you encounter?
HM: There were many challenges. [Performance wise], we wanted the game to be 60 FPS smooth on iPhone 4, [so] we decided to write our own custom engine…and made it as fast as possible. In the end, it was much more work than just picking up 3rd party engine and working with it, but it was worth it – we would never be able to create such dynamic environment running 60 FPS.

[The] whole control system in Lums is quite innovative and we spent months tweaking it. We'd make something and one month later found that we didn't like it. So we just deleted the whole control system and made another one. Right now the…magic consists of about 10 variables and there is a lot of mathematics. Quite funny considering how simple this thing looks.

Last but not least, the level design was not easy either. Fortunately, we made [an] in-game level editor which allowed us to work anywhere…it was quite normal that some levels were edited more than 1000 times.

148apps: What's your favorite thing about iOS development?
HM We love the fact that you work for the specific devices only. When you make a game which runs without any problem on iPhone 3GS or iPhone 4, you are sure it will run smoothly on all the other iPhones, iPods and iPads out there.

Where can I find out more about Hyperbolic Magnetism?
We'll be keeping a very close eye on the team given the tremendous promise that Lums has demonstrated, but there's plenty of other sources to learn more. There's the developer's website, Twitter account, Facebook page and YouTube channel. Jan, Vladimir and Filip also have their own respective Twitter accounts for the more personal touch.

Lums is out now, priced at $0.99, but surely you've already bought it, right?

Over the past five years, many thousands of developers have tried their luck in creating the next big hit for iOS gamers. While some were there right from the beginning, others have found success in only the last couple of years. I took the time to chat to four relatively recently successful developers to find out exactly why they were so interested in pursuing the App Store route, and how they've found the experience so far.

"First and foremost it was the ease of development and getting things...running quickly, with no development kits and long processes of approval," explained Simon Flesser of Simogo (most famous for the rather exceptionally spooky Year Walk). "That coupled with us being interested in the iPhone as a gaming platform and the different features it provides, touchscreen interaction, motion controls, constant internet connection..."

Barry Meade of Fireproof Studios (makers of BAFTA award winning The Room) had similar views: "As a small team with little resources to draw on, the fact you could self-publish on the App Store was a huge enabler for us...The Room might never have been made if we'd had to rely on a publisher as it was a bit too unusual...they would not have believed in the game like we did." As he pointed out, "the App Store allowed a team from nowhere to make a small game and see big success."

The Room's Fireproof Games is one such team made up of ex-AAA developers, with the studio formed by six ex-lead artists from Criterion Games' Burnout franchise. Similarly, Warhammer Quest's Rodeo Games came from such a background. Formed from executives previously working for the likes of EA, Lionhead, Criterion and Codemasters, Rodeo Games were provided the opportunity to pursue something new, thanks to the App Store.

"Well, we'd been in the AAA games industry for many years and had been talking about how to take steps in setting up our own company. The App Store was just flourishing at the time. It was this awesome, new, bold place for smaller dev teams to put their games in-front of a huge audience. So we crafted a plan with the mindset of making the very best turn based strategy games on iOS, and Rodeo Games was the result," Ben Murch, co-founder, explained.

Neil Rennison of Fighting Fantasy developer, Tin Man Games, enjoyed a similar revelatory moment, after a move to Australia, gave him the chance of starting his own indie development studio, just as the iPhone and the App Store came to fruition: "I was originally running a small games art outsource company in the UK and then...I...moved to Australia with the dreams of starting my own indie and making my own titles instead of working on other people's games."

How different do they all think things would be if the App Store didn't exist, though? "Very! Certain types of business models and certain types of games would probably not exist without the App Store," Simon reckoned. Ben offered similar views, although noted the loss of the "middle tier" of gaming: "The gaming world would be a very different place right now. Just think about how many small companies and jobs have been created just from iOS gaming alone. Before the App Store, there was this surge towards "middle tier" gaming, i.e. titles coming out in the £10 - £20 bracket. I guess that market would have grown more and become an eco-system in itself. However, thanks to the App Store, creators who were interested in that model shifted into the mobile market, effectively crippling the whole "middle tier" gaming sector."

Mention was also made, by Neil, of the fragmentation of the mobile phone operator universe, something that was a significant problem before the advent of the App Store. "Apple's stock would be worth a lot less", noted Barry. All quite rightly pointed out that none of them would be in the position they're in today, if it wasn't for the ease of the App Store.

For the most part, all four of our interviewees were very positive about the App Store's impact. Each citing how it's "paved the way for many small developers", as Simon eloquently put it, and enabled them to try riskier material. As Ben pointed out, "Without the App Store, it would be nigh on impossible to get your strange little game idea in front of....well, thousands of people would be a struggle. Suddenly, anyone can release something that has exposure to HUNDREDS of MILLIONS of potential buyers. Just thinking about that blows my mind."

Financial barriers are also lowered, as Barry explained: "The relative cheapness of mobile games development allows niche ideas to thrive." Neil reinforced that point, citing how the games industry "was slowly becoming a bloated AAA only console game market and traditional game developers were beginning to struggle as the mid-point of the market was getting squeezed. The app revolution helped give developers options and in a way created its own new market in which everyone had the same opportunities from the big publishers to the lone bedroom coder...[it] was a perfect springboard for budding entrepreneurial devs like us."

Simon was slightly more cautious, enjoying the risks that were possible to take, but also citing how it's "paved the way for some very questionable money-grabbing schemes… the market place has been somewhat flooded with low-quality software. It might have lowered the quality bar for what is considered to be a release-able piece software."

That's clearly a thought that runs through each of the developers' minds, given that each recommends changes that make it easier to find good apps and games. Ben would appreciate a better quality Related Apps section and a twist on the Genius section, "Some form of "We recommend these Apps for you based on what you've downloaded already" type thing." Discoverability is a big thing for Barry too, "There should be a lot more ways to format the lists of games when browsing the store. A chart by user rating is very needed for those smaller companies who make great games but get buried by the marketing clout of richer but arguably less skilful publishers."

Higher "quality control" is an important wish for Simon, while Neil would appreciate a way to reply to App Store reviewers.

For the most part, though, all four developers were, understandably, happy with how the App Store is performing, both in terms of business and personal use.

"I think Apple does a marvellous job at finding and promoting good games. It's so nice that they can give small developers, such as us, a big spotlight if they find something that is good...it's almost...unbelievable that something as strange as Year Walk can get the same type of exposure as a mainstream game from a big publisher," beamed Simon.

The "open territory" of the Store was appreciated by Barry, also, "You can upload a game to the store and be published in 150 countries within 24 hours - this is really quite incredible when you compare it with how difficult it was to get a game onto other platforms only a few years ago. It's pretty much a revolution in terms of enabling creativity," with Neil offering similar views.

As a consumer, it's also proved quite the hit with Ben pointing out, "it's that feeling of being able to browse a huge catalogue of games from your sofa, eventually finding something that's right up your street. They have great landing pages in the App Store making it easy to find great games that you may not have heard of previously." Neil appreciated the vast wealth of games, too, "it's enabled me to play games that I haven't played in over 20 years and also experience new innovative game designs from some truly talented people that wouldn't have otherwise had the opportunity to shine."

While it's clear that the App Store isn't perfect, mostly in terms of offering great visibility to the titles that deserve it, these four developers have clearly found it an overwhelmingly useful experience. Each of them, from different backgrounds, have found great and deserved success, highlighting the best of what can come out of the App Store in terms of original efforts.

We're certainly fascinated to see what will come next from these relatively new developers, part of the next generation of exciting game makers.

Thanks to Simon Flesser, Ben Murch, Barry Meade and Neil Rennison for taking the time to answer our questions.

Rocketcat Games' titles have been a unique presence on the App Store. While many pixel art games exist on iOS, theirs have had a special look and feel to them that just hasn't been matched by others.

Also, gnomes. Lots of gnomes.

I spoke to Kepa Auwae, who is in charge of "Planning, Business Stuff, Design" and is the public voice for Rocketcat Games, and was previously a registered nurse before Hook Champ allowed the him and the studio to make games full-time. We discuss why their titles remain so unique, the future of the studio, and just why we don't hear from the other two members of Rocketcat.

148Apps: There are a lot of pixel art games on the App Store, but Rocketcat Games seems to have a voice and style all its own with games that have attracted a loyal fan base. What do you attribute this to?

Kepa Auwae: Our games have a pretty clear voice, probably because there's so few people working on them and everyone contributes. I think it's also easier to build a fan base when you're working on a small niche that others don't really touch. There's not a lot of people making our sorts of games on iOS, with our level of difficulty and scope.

148Apps: Your grappling hook games (Hook Champ, Super QuickHook, and Hook Worlds) are actually only a few titles using the grappling hook mechanic at all on mobile. Is this due to the challenge of using the mechanic well?

Auwae: It turns out that level design was really difficult for our grappling hook games. The placement of every bit of ceiling was important to the flow of the level. It's kind of like designing a level for a platformer, except imagine you control each leg and you'll trip if you don't step on the floor exactly right.

As for how few games use the genre, I think it's mostly just how genres work for videogames. You need a huge hit to really provide incentive to cloners on a big scale.

148Apps: Reminisce back to the time of Hook Champ and its cosmetic IAP. How did the response and reaction from people then compare to the reaction you got for the IAP in Punch Quest? How have your fans responded to your evolution in titles you've released?

Auwae: We get as many complaints about Hook series IAP, still, as we get complaints about Punch Quest IAP. And because the Hook games are out longer, we have a bigger amount of complaints total. It's bizarre, since the Hook IAP was almost entirely cosmetic, hats and such.

That said, we didn't get many complaints about the Punch Quest IAP at all. I think fans knew that we were trying to do things right. Trying to anyway, I'm not happy with how the design in Punch Quest turned out. In the future, I'd like to completely avoid the concept of people paying to skip in-game progression.

148Apps: Your games have largely been core-gamer-friendly genres; do you see your future mobile titles going down this path, if you even have a future on mobile at all?

Auwae: It would make a lot more sense to make casual-friendly games, as the "core-gamer" type of games we make take big amounts of time to work on. This next one we're releasing, our randomly-generated action-adventure game, is getting to the 2-year mark. These are the types of games we're interested in making, even if it doesn't add up from a business standpoint.

Our plan for the future is to release on multiple platforms, especially PC. The big differences are that there's a much bigger audience for such games there, and you can feasibly charge more than $5 per copy. Definitely not leaving mobile, any game that makes sense on iOS will be developed simultaneously for it. As an example, I'm starting work on a project with the Punch Quest developer (Paul "Madgarden" Pridham), and that's being worked on for both PC and iOS so we can make sure the controls and graphics are perfect on both platforms.

148Apps: You, Kepa Auwae, have served largely as the public voice of the company. Who are the other members of Rocketcat, and why do you keep their voices silent? Do they even exist?! Or are they actually gnomes?

Auwae: There's Jeremy Orlando (Programmer) and Brandon Rhodes (Artist). All three of us are incredibly shy. We had to pick which one of us would have to interact with everyone. I'm not better equipped to talk to anyone, it's just that I lost when we drew straws. After a few years I'm now ok at the whole "public voice" thing. Also they're gnomes and I'm really ashamed of that.

Thanks to Kepa Auwae for his time; it's truly appreciated.

Our own David Rabinowitz checked out Scopely/Rocket Jump’s Mini Golf Matchup a couple of months ago, and thought very highly of it. And why shouldn’t he? It’s a great casual game of virtual mini golf with painless online functionality. We’ve since managed to get in touch with Antony Blackett, the Managing Director of Rocket Jump, who agreed to give us some insight as to how their project became the gleeful game of putt-putt that it is.

148Apps: I imagine it was fairly easy to decide to make a mini golf game since virtually everybody loves mini golf, but were there any unexpected challenges in actually creating Mini Golf MatchUp?
Antony Blackett (AB): Mini Golf did seem like the an obvious choice for an asynchronous multiplayer game. We experimented with a few methods of input and only after much discussion and testing did we eventually land on the sling shot method that's in the game today. Another big challenge was finding out how to make each shot satisfying even when the player didn't manage to get the ball in the hole. We wanted to make it feel physical and solid as if it were a little toy inside your phone, and also remain predicable unlike a lot of other physics-based games. Finally, while the idea of making a turn-based mini golf game was intuitive, we quickly discovered that creating a polished multiplayer game is no easy task, especially for a small team.

148Apps: I know touch interfaces, especially in physics-driven games, can be tricky to pull off. Did it give you any trouble? And if so how were you able to get through it?
AB: The hardest part of designing the input system in Mini Golf MatchUp was discovering not only how to communicate things like power and direction to the player, but also figuring out exactly what we did and didn't need to communicate to the player. Our initial approach was a flick system where the ball would inherit the momentum of your finger along the screen, but we found it was difficult for people to grasp the concept. Scopely ran frequent usability tests on players that had never seen the game before. We recorded them playing and ran over the videos many times to get an idea about what players expected to happen. Watching the video recordings gives you clues to what is really going on as people play the game and we closely analyzed these usability tests with the Scopely team to hone in on how best to improve the game.

Specifically with the flick system, we learned that it was easy for the player to make a mistake, but hard for us to know programmatically whether they had made an error. This meant we couldn't reliably show them corresponding help tips and teach them effectively. On the other hand, the sling shot mechanic was a lot clearer to players because we included an arrow that indicates direction, and power appears as soon as they touch the screen.

148Apps: Any juicy bits of gameplay, specific holes, or mechanics that never made it into the final build? Any chance they may make an appearance in the future?
AB: We're currently discussing how we can add even more variety to the gameplay in Mini Golf MatchUp. We have some ideas around more pickups and new power ups to go alongside the mulligan, scoring changes, item collection mechanics and even cooperative gameplay. Potentially, developing new social features like sharing replays of your awesome, unbelievable hole-in-one shots. We might even stumble across completely new ideas along the way that are better. Who knows? It's an organic process, but ultimately it's driven by a detailed analysis of how players are interacting with the game.

148Apps: I love the colorful, yet simplistic, visual style. Was that pretty much what you had in mind from the get-go?
AB: Corie Geerders is an amazing artist and he's never shy of using color. Just look at the other titles he's worked on that exemplify this vibrancy: GripShift, Shatter, Major Mayhem. At Rocket Jump, we find that nailing down a visual style very early in a project helps to unify all the decisions we make in the future. It's much easier to see if a game mechanic, feature or sound effect doesn't match the visual style of the game thereafter. One of the best parts about working with Scopely was that they supported our artistic vision, and they gave us the freedom to explore various approaches so that we could find the most exciting and engaging style for the game.

148Apps: Assuming you're able to talk about it, what's the plan for Rocket Jump's next big project?
AB: We have a few ideas in the back of our minds about what we want to do next. One of the things we'd like to do most, and what our fans would love to see, is a sequel to Major Mayhem. We don't have anything planned out in terms of storyline, gameplay features, or dates, but we have a ton of ideas! We definitely want to push the limits of what mobile games can be like Major Mayhem, Rail Shooters, and Mini Golf MatchUp.

We’d like to thank Antony for taking the time to fill us in on the ins and outs of Mini Golf Matchup. If you’re interested in checking this cartoony game of golf out you can do so right now by grabbing the universal version off the App Store for free.

The folks at Grab Games are a versatile bunch. They're last game, Amoebattle, tasked players with coordinating an army of amoebas to strategically best their opponents. Their latest game, Picsy, is a social photography game. Quite the difference there. I was able to ask the game's Lead Designers, Greig Carlson, Hans Vancol, and Harold Vancol a few questions about their newest title and their answers have me looking forward to Picsy's planned updates.

So, going from a squad-based RTS featuring microorganisms to a social multiplayer photo-sharing game. Was it difficult to "change gears" so drastically?
Not at all! Our game designers are well versed in different game genres. Additionally, we had 2 separate teams working on those two projects

How long did it take for you all to come up with the name "Picsy?"
About 6 weeks. We had several other names but trying to secure a trademark is a huge challenge we didn’t originally foresee

Was it difficult at all to integrate so many photo uploading options (take a photo, choose existing, paste from clipboard)?
Not really. Those are all standard features one would expect in playing a photo game like this. Originally we wanted to include a lot of other options for submitting photos, such as Instagram, but figured we could get to the additional features in future updates. Plus, we didn’t want to give users too much at first as we felt it could become a bit overwhelming.

How exactly are the judges for each round selected? That was one thing I was never entirely clear on.
There is a Single Judge game and a Multi Judge game. In a single judge game, the judge rotates from round to round. In a Multi Judge game, everyone in the game is able to judge the photo submissions.

Were there any features that you wanted to include that didn't make the cut?
Tons. The challenge is getting a game out with enough features to keep the user happy, while keeping the scope contained so that you can be first to market. Otherwise, we could have been in development for well over a year.

Any that might be added in a future update?
We’re already on our 3rd version of the game and plenty of features have been added thus far. We’re currently working on more features such as photo filters, new word options, creating your own words, sharing options, etc. We’re constantly improving the game so stay tuned for future updates!

I'd think that the ability to copy/paste photos would take some of the fun out of a game if all anyone ever does is Google image searches. Might there be a chance of including an option for custom rules when setting up a game that would disable certain things, such as said copy/paste?
We have considered different game options like copy paste, time restricted games, camera only, 1 vs 1 game modes, public vote games, etc. We made it so that users get more bonus points for taking pictures with their camera as opposed to copy/paste from the web which incentivizes users to submit original photos.

I know there must've been at least a few test rounds when Picsy was in development. Who's the reigning champ at Grab Games? Any chance you can share their best submission?
There were tons of great photos submitted during testing which is why we fell in love with the game. One photo that stands out in my mind was for the word “Outrageous”. Photo has been attached [see above]. As you can see, the UI is temp from one of our early versions.

Both Picsy and Amoebattle are available right now for free and $4.99, respectively.