Our newest game in final stages of testing stop by and check it out. We look forward to everyone’s feedback.

Many independent developers say it is impossible to make money in today’s App Store environment without a publisher or a Brink’s truck full of cash. I tend to disagree I think it depends on what your overall goal is.

Yes, Angry Birds, Cut The Rope and other monster success’ are few and far between, but with a sound plan and a clear objective you can still make money.

If you do your research you will see that many of the top games are all what I would call subway games, what I mean is games that can be played in short spurts and do not require a ton of time involvement. I am not saying that making an “Epic” mobile game is not a path to success, but I think developers need to slow down and take a look at the average gamer on mobile devices.

The average gamer on mobile devices is a busy individual looking to pass time and receive a quick fix of enjoyment. Not the profile of a normal gamer. The normal gamer is all about sitting down and devoting hours of gameplay to accomplish a goal.

The world has more casual game players than hard core gamers, so for a young development studio it is imperative to start out building your portfolio on small enjoyable endless type games that allow the users to play in short spurts, and is enjoyable enough and challenging enough that they keep coming back. Not such an easy task.

Check out the new and improved character list for Battle For The Whitehouse coming soon to IOS! Let us know what you think at FB.com/ns804 

I can’t believe it Morads is really coming together. We got the performance issues fixed it runs very smooth now maintains frame rate very well even when taxing the platform.

Hopefully a fully testable iPad version in 2 weeks. We also have some cool mini games coming soon as well.

Check us out on Facebook at:
FB.com/ns804 for more updates.

Being new to mobile game development and thinking I had it all figured out I have learned several valuable lessons. First you need to be flexible when it comes to technology sometimes things do not work the way you want them to. In that case you better have back up plans and lots of patience.

Second is listen to people who have been where you are. Many I have met in the development world are
Very cool and down to earth and willing to talk and share ideas.

Lastly ask for help when needed contrary to what we all believe we cannot do it all..

The funny thing about this whole process is we went from 1 game in development to 2 now to 6. I think we have a solid working strategy that only took 8 months to figure out and we move
Forward with Morads, Naval Defense, Battle For The Whitehouse and 3 others to be named later.

Got to love this line of work!

Anyone else thought they would jump on the HTML5 wagon for mobile development? I did as well and here is our story:

We have been working on two titles to release to IOS for 7 months, both should have taken 3-5 months tops with the team we have employed. We got all the way to the packaging part and the performance was horrible. We first tried phone gap for a packager and were not successful at keeping the performance up of the app it slowed way down to a point it looked like it was full of bugs. So we tried Cocoon next to see if that fixed the issues, while that packaging moved faster, we still could not dial in the performance we needed and smooth game play that has become expected in today’s App Store.

I do not want to knock either product as I cannot say it is their packager versus our groups inability to work with the packager and correct the performance issues, but did want to share our experience with other developers.

We chose HTML5 mainly because I would like to release mini versions of our games on our website for marketing and teasers, much like the days of trial versions of software.

I think the concept can work and may be something that helps gets the indie developer a fighting chance in today’s App world.

If anyone else is attempting to use HTML5 for mobile apps let me know I would love to talk with you.

For anyone who thought making a mobile app was easy I have a story to tell you. We have been working on Morads as a tribute to one of my favorite games Lemmings for several months now, every time we think it is ready we find something to make it better, or something we need to fix..

With al that being said it has been the most enjoyable experience of my life and I look forward to making more games in the future. There is no other place in the world that allows you to be completely creative with no boundaries as you can be while making a game, and the constant evolution and change in mechanics and game play are so interesting and enjoyable to think through, I now know why some of the happiest people I have met are developers.

Now my tune may change if no one likes this game, but in all honesty I made it out of respect and as a tribute to one of the greatest games ever made LEMMINGS and i think there will be quite a few people who enjoy the game as much as I do.

Be on the lookout for Morads releasing soon, or feel free to stop by our web site ns804.com and you can play a ten level teaser.

Morads: a Tribute to Lemmings coming soon to iTunes and PC..  Check it out and play a ten level teaser at ns804.com/morads

Morads a lemmings style game coming soon to IOS. Play a mini version online at the link above. Also stop by and check out our youtube channel and subscribe for sneak peeks at new releases!!!

http://www.youtube.com/user/NorthSouth804appsLLC?feature=mhee

Morads a fun lemmings style game where you save the Morads using different skills to pass obstacles on various levels. The twist is you have a finite amount of Morads at the beginning of the game, each time a Morad does not make it through a level they are lost forever. As the elvels get increasingly difficult more Morads are needed to complete task to solve the puzzle and escape. Think you have what it takes to SAVE the Morads?