Run!

In this article i want to lay the STARstruck focus .at @ArthurHamApps awesome game “Run!” (0,99$/0,79€) (iTunes Link).

Probably the App Store (I translated for the German App Store, yay ) /Arthurs Homepage description and a little YouTube video will do it for the first impression:

So this is what kept me for hours on my iPhone since I have earned all of the 33 achievements, which I’m damn proud of, because there are some insane ones as well

Since my annoying attitude I have been bombing Arthur Ham with messages on twitter and I pretty much fastly received some answeres. That’s the symphatical difference between major and independent programmers I asked Arthur for an interview for my blog which he immediately has been ready for, so I didn’t hesitate and wrote down some questions I’d love to share with you folks, here it goes:

STARstruck: What made you do that game?
Arthur Ham: I wanted to create a new game that would not require too much development time. I did not want to spend as much time developing as I did with my previous game (Pet Playpen), which took two people and five months to develop it. So instead of brainstorming overly-ambitious ideas, I decided to keep it simple and stick with an idea that I played around with previously in my spare time, which eventually would become Run!. I ended up spending about 2.5 months developing the game, which is still pretty fast considering I did everything myself.

STARstruck: Did you make the lovely graphics yourself as well?
Arthur Ham: Yes, I made all the graphics myself. Creating the graphics was probably the most difficult part of creating the game because of all the animation frames I had to create from scratch. It was especially hard in the beginning because I had no idea what kind of style I wanted the graphics to be.

STARstruck: What is your highscore on that game?
Arthur Ham: I remember scoring at least 3000 points on Normal Mode playing with the latest update. I’m pretty sure I could have scored higher but I lost on purpose because I was testing something.

STARstruck: Are you aware of cheaters on OpenFeint?
Arthur Ham: Yes I’m aware. There’s nothing I can really do about it except report the cheaters to OpenFeint.

STARstruck: Why Open Feint not Plus+?
Arthur Ham: I chose OpenFeint over Plus+ because I wanted to add a social platform to Run! as soon as possible. Anyone can download the OpenFeint SDK and include it in their game quickly. As for Plus+, you have to apply and get approved before you can download the Plus+ SDK.

STARstruck: Why is Run! not compareable to Canabalt + xTimes hundred that fun and way cheaper?
Arthur Ham: Canabalt was popular on the web even before the iPhone version came out so I believe it has a much stronger following.

STARstruck: How are the sales?
Arthur Ham: Sales have been pretty steady recently and are pretty good for a game that has been in the App Store for almost 3 months now. Run! did very well in the beginning, especially during the week it was featured by Apple under “New and Noteworthy” and rose to the top 15 of all paid apps. That was a very exciting time for me and I felt proud that an independent developer like me could still do well in the App Store despite increased competition from big-name developers like EA.

STARstruck: What updates can we expect?
Arthur Ham: You can expect to see more obstacles, achievements and other game play modes, as long as there’s still a demand for it.

STARstruck: Can an achievement be named after me in some future version?
Arthur Ham: We’ll see about that. =)

STARstruck: Will there be a second game coming?
Arthur Ham: I’ve been brainstorming some ideas for a new game but I haven’t had the time to pursue any of them yet.

STARstruck: Are you aware of the fact that you made the most amazing and addictive game for the iDevices?
Arthur Ham: Thanks! I appreciate your comments and I hope that everyone who has played Run! feels the same way.

Thanks for that interview Arthur, I hope to see some updates coming to this awesome little game!

So far, -J aka aPish impatiently waiting for some updates

P.S.: I made a fan group on Facebook, anyone who is as addicted as I am is certainly invited to join: http://j.mp/runonfb