(click for larger!)

The game does not have a release date yet. Until then I’ll post updates as they come! For more info read the post over at Vetra Games here.

“They Need To Be Fed” was released over a year ago, but still gets the occasional article on the net. I remember it sold a few thousand copies on iOS after launch, and I thought that was it; from there it would go down.

Now, a year later, it’s still doing well on both iOS and Android. It has gotten on TV in Canada (“Review on the Run” gave it an 8.5), most recently got featured on Kotaku, and got a place in TIME’s top 50 iPhone apps of 2012!

Also, a glowing video review:

Still haven’t played it yet?

Android Market / Google Play
App Store / Apple Website

Update (March 10)

They Need To Be Fed is currently promoted by Google as one of their favorite apps, and thus on sale for half the price for a limited time! It’s on the home page of the store as one of the “best selling games”.

In slightly related news, Karoshi has won Android Game of the Year 2012 for the PocketGamer Awards!

Maybe time to make another one?

Recently I was interviewed about my work, inspirations and future. Click me to check it out:

In a surprising turn of events I’ve quit my job and moved to Sydney, Australia.

I’ve had a really great time at Q-Games, worked there for a year and will miss my co-workers as well as my awesome boss. I learned a lot of things, about company culture in general, Japanese, learned a lot of programming (Action Script 3), learned about games and working in teams and more.

I worked mostly on PixelJunk Monsters Online, which is a cute tower defense game on Facebook (play here).

I want to try some new things and also wanted to get back to independent development. I’m now in Australia on a working holiday visa, together with my girlfriend, whom I met in Japan and is studying here.

Not really sure what I’m gonna make (though I have some new ideas and ideas for sequels) and what else I’m gonna do (want to try some different kinds of work). Hopefully this year will be exciting!

I haven’t really updated the blog so here’s some stuff that happened:

Karoshi and They Need To Be Fed nominated

On PocketGamer.uk, one of the bigger mobile reviews sites, Mr Karoshi is nominated as Android Game of the Year and They Need To Be Fed as Xperia Play Game of the Year! Both received 9/10’s before.

Karoshi featured in book on iPhone games

Buttonless: Incredible iPhone and iPad Games and the Stories Behind Them, a book by Ryan Rigney features an interview about Mr Karoshi.

It also has interviews with many famous developers of games such as Angry Birds, Cut the Rope, Plants vs Zombies, etc. I haven’t received it yet but if you’re interested in iOS game development this must be very interesting.

Focus re-releases

Focus, a frantic missile avoiding time and place warping platformer I made in 2009, has been released through Vetra Games on the Mac App Store as a free game. Here’s a link.

Joseph Ivie, a Flash developer, has also incredibly built an exact copy for the browser, playable at Armor Games. It features new level packs too, so if you liked the original I recommend this for another play through!

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Thanks for reading as always and I promise to update more frequently this year!

Recently They Need To Be Fed has been updated with 4 new worlds (that’s 32 new levels!). The update is free and available on iOS and Android. Also, the game is one of the new titles for the Xperia PLAY by Sony Ericsson. That means you can play the game with buttons which is cool and slightly better than the touch screen.

They Need To Be Fed on a giant Xperia PLAY at GamesCom (photo from YoYo Games News).

A few screenshots of the new worlds:

You’ll have to play the game to figure out what each new world does.

New features include:

• 32 new levels
• over 100 new diamonds to collect
• 11 new achievements
• Now a universal app (iOS)

Let me know what you think of the new worlds!

HTML5

Don’t have the game yet? Want to try it out for free? You can now with the new HTML5 version! Check it out.

Next week Casual Connect is being held in Seattle, and I’ve been invited to talk about They Need To Be Fed!

What is Casual Connect?

It’s basically a big event with lots of talks from people in the games industry and opportunity for networking. Especially companies that make mobile and/or social network games are present. In their own words:

“Casual Connect brings together the most talented and knowledgeable experts in the casual gaming field to further the casual games industry with the best of networking and learning.”

What is the talk called?

“Creating addictive gameplay in They Need To Be Fed”

What is the talk about?

I will be talking about how I designed They Need To Be Fed, what kind of decisions I made (good, and bad ones) and what I learned from the process.

When?

July 21st (Thursday), 12:30 – 13:15

Where?

Triple Door.

Special surprise

After my talk I will showcase a new title by Q-Games, where I work since this year. Hopefully it will excite people!

If you are going to the event or happen to live in Seattle come and check it out! Otherwise, please wait for a new blog update or any other news sites that may cover the event.

A book by Mike Rose, editor for the IndieGames.com blog. I received my copy about a week ago and can really recommend it. Basically, each page shows another game with a little description, a screenshot and short url to play the game. It’s great to have so many great games together in 1 book, for inspiration, for just flipping through and for finding something new (and almost always interesting) to play.

I feel honored to say that 3 of my games have been included! Get the book to find out which 3

Here’s what they need to do next: Take all the 250 screenshots in the book and put them together into 1 poster. I would totally buy that!

Get it at Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/250-Indie-Games-Must-Play/dp/143987574X

Game Maker 8 Cook Book

Written by Uriel Griffin (who ports my games to Mac), this book is set to come out real soon (in June).

From the website:

Written in a cookbook style, this book offers solutions using a recipe based approach. Each recipe contains step-by-step instructions followed by an analysis of what was done in each task and other useful information. The cookbook approach means you can dive into whatever recipes you want in no particular order.

The cover features a scene from They Need To Be Fed (mobile version).

I haven’t seen the book yet so I’ll reserve my judgment, but hopefully this turns out to be a good new book specific for beginners using Game Maker 8.

Pre-order here: https://www.packtpub.com/game-maker-8-cookbook/book

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PLAYismで、「They Need To Be Fed」の日本語版(PC)が発売中！パッケージに「サモロスト1」っていうクリック操作で不思議な世界を探索するゲームも入ってる。興味あったら、是非！

URL:　http://www.playism.jp/project/detail.php?game=8

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PLAYism is a new website for selling and funding development of small, innovative, creative titles. Currently they are running the “PLAYism for Japan” campaign, where people can buy indie game packs for a small fee and support victims of the earth quake at the same time!

The link above leads to a package including an exclusive Japanese version of They Need To Be Fed and point and click adventure Samorost. If you’re interested feel free to take a look (and you can study some Japanese as well!)

(There are actually 6 Karoshi games now!).

Karoshi – Mac App Store (Apple website)

For anyone who has a Mac and would like to experience more Karoshi, or would like to see how the series started, I recommend it! It’s still one of the best in the series, only passed by the direct sequel Karoshi 2.0.

The other Karoshi titles are planned for release as well, though I can’t promise they will be free. If people enjoy this one, hopefully they’ll be happy to support us with a dollar here and there to enjoy the sequels.

Looking forward to the reviews. Will people think it’s a fun game? Will they mention how terrible the graphics are?

As always, curious to hear your ideas on all this.

You Probably Won’t Make It is doing well on the Mac App Store. The game is currently featured by Apple for the second time, this time in a temporary category called “The Best Games You’ve Never Played”. I believe the first time it was under “New & Noteworthy”. Reviews are fairly positive, though there are some complaints.

We’ve addressed some of the issues with a small update that is now available. New are the requested mute button and a level select screen. The level select screen leaves room for more levels to be added but I don’t know yet whether I will actually take the time to design them.

Sales

For those interested here are some sales numbers.

• YPWMI

You Probably Won’t Make It has made around $1400 so far, and will likely keep selling for a while, albeit I don’t expect it to do big daily numbers for much longer.

• Frozzd

Frozzd has some nice positive reviews but hasn’t received much attention. Up till now it made about $150.

Taking into account that Apple takes a 30% cut, I am still very pleased with these numbers and am happy people are enjoying the games. It won’t make me rich (and luckily it doesn’t have to) but it’s good experimenting with this market. It would be interesting to see what an entirely new (and bigger) game could do, but I am not in the position at the moment to try that. However, together with Vetra Games I am still working on bringing some of my other work to the Mac App Store.