New to Words With Friends? No problem! You’ve come to the right place. Words With Friends is a lot like Scrabble but way better, because you can play with your friends online, meaning you could even play from the comfort of your toilet seat, how’s that for a selling point, baazing!

But before you can play any game you need to know the rules, so let’s get to it.

Tile Placement

The first word of every game has to have at least one tile placed on the star square. Each new word formed must share at least one tile of a pre-existing word. Words can be formed horizontally (left to right) and vertically (top to bottom).

Scoring

Each letter has a set value, so for example D is worth two points, O is one point and G is three points. If you were to spell the word DOG you would earn a total of six points. There are also blank tiles, although they carry no point value they can become any letter you wish, making them very useful for completing words that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

There are also premium squares spread across the board — DL=Double Letter, TL=Triple Letter, DW=Double Word and TW=Triple Word.

Premium squares are highly sought after, they have the potential to multiply your score greatly. For example if you were to play the word AX, A is worth one point and X is 8 points, you’d only score a total of 9 points. But if the X was placed on the TL square, that would increase the value of X from 8 to 24 points, bringing you to the new total of 25 points.

If you use all 7 tiles in one turn you earn an extra 35 bonus points, this is called a bingo. Scoring bingos can adversely affect your opponent causing them to yell multiple CW=Cuss Words (not a premium square).

The game ends once a player has used up all their tiles, whatever tiles a player still possesses when the game ends will count against them and be awarded to the opposing player. For example, if your opponent beat you to the punch and played their last tiles before you could play your remaining tiles C, A and T — C being worth four points, A one point and T one point — you would subtract six points from your total score and add six points to your opponent’s score.

The game can also end if three turns have passed with no points scored.

Now that we have the basic rules out of the way, let’s dive into some basic strategies and tactics.

Strategy

There are many ways to play Words With Friends from a strategy stand point. Some players prefer a more aggressive approach, forming long words on each turn, to get rid of tiles as fast as possible. Keep in mind that 90 tiles are shared between both players, so the more tiles you use, the less there is for the opponent. Although it can be risky at times, branching out with long words gives your opponent ample opportunities to place tiles on premium squares.

The second approach I’d like to talk about is a more conservative style of play. It’s more defensive I’d say. With this approach you’ll form both short and long words, which of the two you’ll form on a given turn depends on a few factors, the biggest one being premium square proximity.

If you can form a long word to reach a premium square then go for it, otherwise, focus on forming short words. Make sure any word you form doesn’t extend so far that it allows your opponent to branch off your word to reach a premium square. Keep forming short words (especially parallel words, more on this later) until your opponent is forced to branch out putting you within striking distance of a premium square.

Obviously not all premium squares are of equal value, so you’ll have to use your best judgement on whether you want to avoid branching out to a certain premium square or if you’re willing to take the risk.

Tactics

Use Consonants to Minimize Risk – There are ways to minimize risk when forming long words. You’ll want to avoid placing vowels next to premium squares such as DL and TL. Placing vowels next to premium squares creates an easy setup for the opponent, since power tiles such as X naturally come before or after a vowel in many words. So just remember if possible form words with consonants next to the premium squares to minimize risk.

Avoid placing vowels next to premium squares.

Rack Management – Keeping a good balance of vowels and consonants on your rack is important. Having all vowels or consonants can make it difficult to form long words. If you do find yourself with too many of either kind, try using your opponent’s tiles to your advantage. Say for example you have all consonants, just look around the board for any vowels you can place two or more consonants next to. Or you could use the swap option to get rid of some consonants, this option forfeits your turn, use this option sparingly.

Be a Hooker – Hooking is when you add letters to the beginning or end of a word to form a new word. Hooks can be very potent, a well placed hook can really boost your score. Check out the screenshot below for example. I used the S to hook onto the word SINE to form the new word SINES, so far I’m at 6 points, then the new word I formed horizontally SLOGS is worth 36 points, since the L (2 points) was on the TL square and the S landed on the TW square, bringing me to the total of 42 points. In that example the word I hooked onto didn’t give that many extra points, but if you do see your opponent form a word containing lots of power tiles — such as K, J, Q, Z, and X — that would be the ideal time to become a hooker.

Counting Cards errr… Tiles – Now it may seem a bit extreme to keep track of what tiles have been played, but it’s actually very useful, I’ll give an example to illustrate why. If you were trying to reach the premium square TW by first spelling the word DOG vertically and then spelling the word SEA horizontally, where the S connects with DOG to form DOGS. In order for this tactic to work, you need to be sure that the opponent has no blank or S tiles to connect with the word DOG, making it impossible for them to use the TW tile against you. Letter distribution can be found at the end of the guide.

Bingo Stems – As the author of this guide, you may think I score bingos quite frequently, I assure you I do not. That actually makes me unqualified to write this next tip. But if you’re a big believer in the blind leading the blind, please by all means continue reading.

Bingo Stems are a group of six letters that give you the highest probability of forming a seven letter word. Try memorizing these bingo stems to improve your odds of scoring a bingo — TISANE, SATIRE and RETINA.

Parallel Words – I recommend memorizing as many two and three letter words as possible (word list at end of guide), this will allow you to form multiple words in a single turn. In the screenshot below we see the player form three words by placing them parallel to each other — PEE, PE and EL.

Have Fun

At the end of the day playing Words With Friends should be a fun experience, so don’t take the game too seriously. If you’re new, you’ll lose a lot, but don’t let it get to you, just hit the re-match button, form a word, then type in the chat box BRING IT! That’s usually how most of my games go, especially with my arch-rival Jenn K. Lee of Pocketables.net *Shakes Fist*. I hope you found this guide to be helpful, thank you for reading, and if you have any questions feel free to leave a comment.

Word List

Words With Friends uses the Enhanced North American Benchmark Lexicon (ENABLE) word list, containing over 173,000 words, Newtoy has made a few additions to the word list such as ZEN and QI, more will be added in the future.

To download a text file containing all the words, click here.

Letter Distribution

There are 104 tiles in Words With Friends, below is the distribution of letters.

3 Letter Words

I want to give a quick shout out to my Caps Lock and Tab keys, if it wasn’t for them this table wouldn’t be possible. And thanks to Newtoy for compiling the list!

2 Letter Words

Board Reference

Get The Latest Updates

So you’ve read my 4th grade writing and managed to reach the end without hitting the Back button on the browser, what now?

I know! You should drop by the Words With Friends Facebook page and become a fan, that way you’ll get all the latest updates about your favorite word game. And you’ll meet thousands of other people that are just as excited as you are about Words With Friends.

Don’t have a Facebook account? That’s ok too, Newtoy has you covered, they also have a Twitter page you can follow to get the latest updates on Words With Friends.

Beginner’s Guide to Words With Friends is a post from: OS X Reality

I’m glad Apple made this distinction between highest rated and top sellers. With such a strong focus on the top 10 listings, which tracks number of sells as opposed to rating, games like Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor would have gone relatively unnoticed despite the overwhelming number of positive user reviews, nearly three thousand.

Without further ado, I give you this year’s hottest App Store games of 2009.

Top 10 Rated

1. Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor

You are a spider. One afternoon, you discover an abandoned mansion. Where is the family who lived here? What happened, and why did they leave? Search for clues as you adventure from room to room on the hunt for your next meal. Build webs of your own design: in the corners, under the furniture, and in the forgotten places too small for humans. Are you a shrewd enough sleuth to decode the mystery and uncover the Bryce family secret?

App Store Link: Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor ($2.99)

2. Real Racing

Race the way you want to, with 5 different game modes. Challenge friends in local multiplayer and leave them in your dust! Work your way up from rookie to world champion in Career mode. Slice off another split second in Time Trial and upload your personal best. Join an online league and battle your way through ranks of players from all over the world to advance to the next division. Only got a minute? Get behind the wheel for a Quick Race. Firemint Real Racing provides authentic pack racing action like no other iPhone(TM) game. Take to the circuit in a six car grid and jostle your way to the lead.

App Store Link: Real Racing ($4.99)

3. ZENONIA

Extensive playing time of over 40 hours to conquer the main and side quests. Choose your hero from 3 different classes; warrior, paladin and assassin. Customize your attributes accordingly. Collect items from 5 different classes(normal, magic, rare, unique and epic) to enchant or combine them for upgrades. Anime style characters and graphics, along with various stylish skill effects. Day/night cycle, hunger/weight system and good/evil storyline path to choose from.

App Store Link: ZENONIA ($2.99)

4. Ravensword: The Fallen King

Enter the world of Ravensword: The Fallen King; a massive, sandbox-style adventure for the iPhone and iPod touch. Combining 3D action with RPG elements, Ravensword features rich and interactive environments that bring you a gaming experience unlike anything you’ve seen on the iPhone platform. Take on quests to earn money and experience. Wield powerful weapons and magical runes. Battle fearsome enemies such as Orcs, Trolls, Ogres and Demons. Test your skills with a variety of games and side quests.

App Store Link: Ravensword: The Fallen King ($6.99)

5. Earth Vs Moon Ep.2-Enter the Perk Shop

Earth finds itself confronted by a previously unknown and totally baffling enemy – the nefarious Moon Army. Equipped with advanced alien technology, the Moon Army hurls its deadly Moon weaponry at vulnerable Earth citizens. Its mission? To enslave Earth-kind, plunder our natural resources and make a mockery of humans! Who will protect Earth now?!

App Store Link: Earth Vs Moon Ep.2-Enter the Perk Shop ($0.99)

6. Sally’s Spa

Sally’s back and ready for a relaxing rush in luxury spa locations around the world. Refresh your customers with saunas, manicures, bath bombs, massages, hot stones and more. Enhance the experience of your clients with upgrades for your rapidly growing business. Melt away the stress from a wide variety of customers and personalities including blushing brides, demanding fashionistas, calm couples, and many others! As you build your Spas, earn money to shop for over 65 items including employees to help your Spa business grow!

App Store Link: Sally’s Spa ($2.99)

7. Ragdoll Blaster – A Physics Puzzler

Ragdoll Blaster combines the fun of firing ragdolls from cannons with the challenge of a puzzle game . . . while simulating real physics. It is fun, fast paced and addictive – requiring both agile fingers and an active mind. You simply touch the screen to aim and fire your ragdoll at increasingly more difficult targets. The object is to complete the levels using as few ragdolls as possible . . . easier said than done.

App Store Link: Ragdoll Blaster – A Physics Puzzler ($1.99)

8. Canabalt

The one-button parkour phenomenon can now be played while you’re on the crapper. A new update features global leaderboards, new epitaphs, new music, and (finally) a pause button.

App Store Link: Canabalt ($2.99)

9. Blades of Fury

Prove your bravery & establish your own fighting style through epic duels to cast your name among the greatest heroes, and be remembered in history. Alone against the computer or against your friends in multiplayer gaming sessions, experience an explosive and accessible fighting experience thanks to an arcade-style gameplay. Blades of Fury is the ultimate one-on-one fighting game, offering numerous game modes, and a wide array of playable fighters and fighting combinations.

App Store Link: Blades of Fury ($4.99)

10. DOOM Classic

Welcome to Hell! Prepare to relive the First Person Shooter that defined a generation with the legendary original DOOM – now on the iPhone. As a space marine stationed on the planet Mars, you are all that stands between the armies of Hell and their invasion of planet Earth! DOOM Classic includes the original three episodes as well as Episode Four, Thy Flesh Consumed, spread across 36 levels of non-stop carnage and action.

App Store Link: DOOM Classic ($6.99)

Top 10 Sellers

1. The Sims 3

The Sims are highly customizable in terms of looks and even personality. The controls are working better than I had imagined, single finger swipes to pan, multi touch to rotate the camera and tapping on objects to interact with them. This is actually the first Sims game I’ve ever played, so I didn’t know exactly what to expect, but I was delighted to see so much detail put into this game.

App Store Link: The Sims 3 ($6.99)

2. The Oregon Trail

Westward, Ho! Your favorite pioneering adventure game is back and takes you to an exciting, historical side-scrolling adventure entirely rethought to fit the Touch experience of your iPhone / iPod touch. All of the decision-making and problem-solving fun of the original game, plus additional parameters to take the Oregon Trail experience even further than you’ve played before.

App Store Link: The Oregon Trail ($4.99)

3. Need For Speed Undercover

Drive 20 of the world’s fastest, hottest cars like the Porsche Carrera GT. Each one boasts its own style & performance output. Power through Head-to-Head Action, Highway Battle, and Cop Takeout. Race undercover in 24 covert missions. Push your car to the limit as you burn through exhilarating cityscapes, snaking countrysides, and gritty seaside docks. Trick your ride with aftermarket spoilers, multiple wheel options, cool body kits & paint schemes.

App Store Link: Need For Speed Undercover ($4.99)

4. MADDEN NFL 10

Match up all 32 NFL teams on 32 unique fields around the league, from landmark Lambeau to the new Cowboys Stadium. Run nearly 300 plays as you dominate with your own dives, spins, jukes, and sprints. Use Action Control Time to slo-mo the play and choose your best move. Exclusive to MADDEN NFL 10, use intuitive touchscreen controls to draw up your very own passing routes on screen!

App Store Link: Madden NFL 10 ($6.99)

5. Tiger Woods PGA Tour

Play as or against Tiger Woods or a great line-up of other pro golfers like Annika Sorenstam, Vijay Singh, Natalie Gulbis & Retief Goosen! Golf over 120 holes across 7 of the most famous courses in the world including Pebble Beach & St. Andrews. Hear the crack of the club and the roar of the crowd as each fairway comes to life with realistic sounds, 3D graphics, and dynamic camera angles. Master the exclusive Swing Meter and get visual feedback on your moves. Manipulate the direction of your ball spin & watch it soar through the air!

App Store Link: Tiger Woods PGA Tour ($4.99)

6. Assassin’s Creed

Jerusalem, 1191 AD. The Third Crusade between the Crusaders and Saracens is tearing the Holy Land apart. You are Altaïr, a Master Assassin sent by the Order of the Assassins on a quest to find “The Chalice”, an object of such power that it can end the Crusades, depending on which camp owns it. Steal The Chalice from the Templars before someone offers them the right price for it. The fate of the Holy Land depends on you…

App Store Link: Assassin’s Creed ($4.99)

7. Flight Control

Flight Control is the incredibly simple, yet insanely addictive worldwide #1 game from Firemint that everyone is talking about. Air traffic control is the world’s most stressful job, but not for you. You don’t need heading angles, flight rules or meteorological reports, you’re a natural! A prodigy! A born controller! Just touch and drag the planes to their runway.

App Store Link: Flight Control ($0.99)

8. Cooking Mama

This edition features a generous helping of dishes from the home console series as well as plenty of never-before-seen cuisine! The “Cooking Mama” controls have also been optimized for use with the iPhone and iPod touch, ensuring a fresh play experience for even veterans of the home console releases! ”Cooking Mama” includes two fun game modes: “Let’s Cook,” where players make meals with Mama, and “Cooking Contest,” where players can freely practice a variety of recipes and techniques.

App Store Link: Cooking Mama ($6.99)

9. Civilization Revolution

Lead your civilization from the dawn of man to the modern age and beyond in Sid Meier’s Civilization Revolution. Go head to head with history’s greatest leaders as you wage war, conduct diplomacy, discover new technologies, inspire your nation and build the most powerful empire the world has ever known.

App Store Link: Civilization Revolution ($6.99)

10. Wheel of Fortune

Spin the Wheel, pick a letter or buy a vowel, and solve the puzzle! In the iPhone and iPod Touch version of America’s most popular game show, use the touch screen to spin the Wheel and choose letters!  If you are lucky, you may even land on the $1,000,000 wedge!  Includes over 1000 different puzzles written by the TV Show’s producers for hours of entertainment.  Go on, give Wheel Of Fortune a spin today!

App Store Link: Wheel of Fortune ($4.99)

iTunes Rewind 2009: Hottest App Store Games of the Year is a post from: OS X Reality

Gamers should be quite familar with Evony’s suggestive ads by now, they’ve been appearing on many gaming blogs over the past few months. With the ads becoming increasingly risque, it has caused some gaming blogs to complain about how inappropriate the ads were for their readers. The makers of Plants vs Zombies, PopCap Games, chimed in on Evony’s controversial ads with their own racy ads. Warning, PopCap’s ads will induce a strong desire for brains.

Plants vs Zombies vs Evony Parody Ads is a post from: OS X Reality

After reading through various comment threads I started to seriously doubt the validity of the video myself. So I contacted the creator of video to gather more information. He was kind enough to send me a copy of the game. I loaded it up on my iPhone 3GS and off I went. Even after launching the game and getting some hands on time with it apart of me still had trouble believing. I was simply amazed that Portal could actually run on the iPhone.

This Cake is Not a Lie: Portal on iPhone is Real is a post from: OS X Reality

Just earlier this month Darrell Rodriguez, CEO of LucasArts Entertainment, hinted that they had plans to bring their classic games to portable platforms, in which he named the iPhone specifically.

“On iPhone, you know Apple’s policy that we can’t talk about a release until it’s ready to release. But it would make sense that we would do something like that if we were to go in that direction … wink wink, nod nod.”

Ok so maybe not so much of a hint, but more like a confirmation that their classic games would eventually appear on the small screen. I figured it would take at least a few months before we’d see anything show up in the App Store, boy was I wrong. Only two weeks have passed since he made his comment and already we have our first LucasArts classic adventure game released for the iPhone, The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition.

This wasn’t just a simple port of the original 1990 release, but an enhanced remake. All the graphics have been updated, as well as musical score which was re-mastered using live instruments. Previously not all the lines in The Secret of Monkey Island were voiced over, this shortcoming was remedied by members of the original Monkey Island franchise cast.

The gameplay controls are all touch based, except for accessing the menu, which will only appear when the iPhone is held in portrait position. Like many other iPhone games, you’ll be able to zoom with pinch gestures and pan with finger swipes. You can also switch to classic mode by swiping two fingers across the screen.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition ($7.99 – iTunes Link)

The Secret of Monkey Island Released for the iPhone is a post from: OS X Reality

1. Battery Memory – When I first got my new cellphone, my friend recommended to fully drain the battery before recharging it. His reasoning was connected to the idea of battery memory. Allowing the battery to fully discharge then recharging to max, supposedly gives you the complete battery capacity. Otherwise, if you simply charged from the half way point to max battery capacity, the battery would treat the half way point as the empty point, thus cutting your battery capacity in half.

Problem is battery memory doesn’t apply to lithium batteries, this advice was meant for nickel based batteries. Fully discharging your lithium battery frequently can actually be quite harmful to your battery’s health, possibly rendering it completely unusable if energy levels go too low.

The good news is today’s lithium batteries have a safety circuit in place to insure the battery doesn’t reach the point of no return. The safety circuit isn’t fool proof though, if you leave your battery completely drained for a few days, even the circuit’s protective measures won’t save it.

2. Battery Calibration – There are some benefits to fully discharging your lithium battery periodically, for laptops this can be especially important. If you start to notice your battery meter becoming more and more inaccurate, it may be time for some battery calibration. Allow your lithium battery completely drain, then charge until the battery is full again. This will calibrate your battery  giving you more accurate readings. This should be done once every 30 charges or when you notice battery readings are off.

3. Consequences of Heat – Another enemy of lithium battery life is heat. If you were to leave your laptop plugged in and running for a year, you should expect the lithium battery capacity to be anywhere between 60% to 80% of it’s original max capacity. This is why people that use their laptops as desktop replacements will notice greatly reduced battery life performance after one year of use. This issue can be resolved by removing the battery while using a corded power source. Now you may want to check with your manufacturer ahead of time to check for safety concerns, some manufacturers have mentioned problems such as moisture and dust collecting in the battery casing.

4. Battery Storage – If you don’t plan on using your lithium battery for prolonged periods of time, then you’ll want to reduce the charge level to 40% and place the battery in the fridge (not freezer). Storing the battery at 100% charge level applies unnecessary stress and can cause internal corrosion. On the other hand, if the charge is too low, the battery can become permanently unusable, due to battery self discharge. This is why manufacturers recommend storing your lithium batteries at 40% charge, rather than either extreme.

Quick Overview

• Try to avoid frequent full battery discharges.
• For lithium battery calibration, periodically do a full battery discharge every 30 charges to increase meter accuracy.
• Avoid heat, heat is the lithium battery’s enemy, the temperature in a car can easily rise 50F in a single hour, in some cases reaching 140F.
• For proper lithium battery storage, be sure to have the battery charge level at 40% and place in the fridge (not freezer) for maximum battery longevity.

For additional information concerning batteries in general, I strongly recommend visiting Battery University.

4 Tips to Extend Your Lithium Battery Life is a post from: OS X Reality

The biggest feature of iPhone 3GS is the performance boost, touted by Apple as 2x the speed of the 3G model. Reducing load times by a few seconds for regular apps isn’t all that impressive, but when you apply the 2x performance boost to App Store games you start to understand why the S stands for speed.

In my testing I found the 3GS was able to reduce Peggle‘s load time by 16 seconds, definitely eye opening results. Bits of time saved here and there can really add up, especially when we consider the nature of mobile gaming, which is all about playing in short burst during down times throughout the day.

The second graph illustrates how much of a boost iPhone 3G owners stand to gain by upgrading to the 3GS, expressed as a percentage.

The graph reveals a 3x improvement in Peggle’s load time, of course this is the exception and not the rule. Not all games showed such promising gains, Rolando only improved its load time by a modest 26%. On average games improved load times by 85%, pretty close to the advertised 2x performance boost promised by Apple.

Improved game load times isn’t the only incentive for iPhone gamers to upgrade to the 3GS. iPhone developer, Daniel Pasco, ran some test on his latest build of Plasma and found the performance boost of the 3GS over the 2nd gen iPod touch to be 2x and 4x when pitted against the 3G. Previously the 2nd gen iPod touch was the king of graphics performance, but with those kinds of results it leaves no doubt who the new king is.

iPhone 3G vs 3GS: loading games up to 3x faster is a post from: OS X Reality

The furious pace of application development has produced over 13,000 apps as of this writing. Games are the largest category accounting for 23% of the total app count.

With over 3,000 games available in the App Store it can be challenging to sift through all of them, to save my fellow iPhone and iPod touch gamers some time I’ve compiled a list of the top 10 App Store games of 2008, feel free to share your top 10 games of 2008 in the comments section.

Top 10 App Store Games of 2008

1. Rolando ($9.99)

2. SimCity ($9.99)

3. Fieldrunners ($4.99)

4. Topple (Free)

5. Enigmo ($1.99)

6. Chess With Friends (Free)

7. Dropship ($0.99)

8. Guitar Rock Tour ($5.99)

9. Sally’s Salon ($0.99)

10. Real Soccer 2009 ($5.99)

Top 10 App Store Games of 2008 is a post from: OS X Reality

Aaron (right) and Adam Fothergill (left) are the developers behind the wildly popular iPhone game Flick Fishing (AppStore), currently the number one game in the App Store. Adam was responsible for the graphics and sound of Flick Fishing, while Aaron did the game design and coding.

Aaron was kind enough to take part in this interview, in the article Aaron discusses Flick Fishing, iPhone gaming and the potential of Mac gaming.

How did you get started in games development?

“Way back in my schooldays, I’d picked Computer Studies as an option because a friend of mine told me it was a really good skive, they always went on field trips to computer centres and never did any actual work. From that I learned 2 things. One is that friends can be a tad unreliable with their information sometimes (only one field trip!) and that you could have immense fun writing Star Wars Tie Fighter shooting games on the Commodore PET .

Since then, I’ve either been writing games for my own company or working on them at bigger companies. My younger brother Adam joined in the fun in the late 80s when he got fed up of my dodgy coder art and he’s been doing most of our art and sound since then.”

What were your biggest challenges in developing Plank and Flick Fishing?

“Initially, getting the information we needed on some of the iPhone’s gotchas. The memory one being the biggest fun of course. What doesn’t tend to pop up on the dev iPods and iPhones is that when an iPhone is left switched on and used for its normal daily business of being a phone, web browser, email client and general uber gadget for any length of time is that when you run an app on it you get a lot less memory available to you than you normally should. Annoyingly the app installer appears to be one of the biggest offenders here, so you get a lot of people complaining about apps that crash if you launch them straight after being installed.

Part of the problem is making sure your app responds to the OS telling you that it’s not got enough memory, so as we’ve gained more data on the issue we’ve tweaked our code with tricks to avoid grabbing memory we need until we’ve persuaded the OS to give up some of the memory it’s not using any more. Plank 1.1 and Flick Fishing both have the first iteration of this, and we’ve got a 1.2 update for Plank and 1.1 update for Flick Fishing in the works that improves things even more. As always though, switching your iPhone off and then back on again once in a while is always a good thing to do for gamers, as games are generally the heaviest apps to run on a system and the most needy of resources.

The other challenge was timescale. As we’re not porting games to the iPhone (Plank was a ground up re-write of our ToySight game) and we’re treating them as full on game projects where we need to have them complete with professional quality art, sound and production, it’s a tough job working all that into a project time that doesn’t price them out of the iPhone games market.”

I’ve been totally hooked (no pun intended) on Flick Fishing, the game has excellent graphics, intuitive controls and fun gameplay, what feature or aspect of Flick Fishing are you most proud of?

“Overall, the production quality. We wanted to make Flick Fishing a quality game for people to pick up, play and have fun with, but also be able to compare it to console fishing games and still be impressed. We’ve spent time on tuning the gameplay, animation, art and sound and not been tempted to simply bash something together in a month with graphics grabbed from wikipedia.

From the purely coder geek standpoint though, I’m quite chuffed I got network play working .”

Will there be any additional features or fishing locations added to Flick Fishing in future updates?

“Oh yes One nice thing about iPhone apps is that they’re a good balance between secure, certified apps you get on consoles and open distribution you get on the Mac and PC. You get a central distribution system with the App Store that makes sure the app isn’t doing anything nasty, but you also get the advantage of being able to constantly update and improve.

[Update: 1.1 Flick Fishing update has been released]

The 1.1 update to Flick Fishing is currently going through approval and that improves the memory handling and fixes the bugs that always show up when you go from tens of testers to tens of thousands, but 1.2 will be adding some new stuff (hoping to get 8 player network play in for that build ). Of course as with all Strange Flavour games, there is more in the game than you would think .”

Care to share any hints about easter eggs in Plank or Flick Fishing?

“Let’s just say that odd statements in the manual aren’t as disconnected from the game as they look, and you can get a lot more out of maps and menus by double tapping things once in a while. It’s also worth looking very closely in the margins on our hints page for Plank“

Besides Freeverse games, what games have you enjoyed most on the iPhone?

“I’m still an interactive fiction fan, so Frotz is probably my favourite there.”

Out of all the game platforms out there, why did you choose the iPhone?

“Since writing Bushfire, Airburst and ToySight for the Mac I’ve wanted an excuse to write another OS X game that wasn’t just in ‘hobby’ time while Strange Flavour makes its money from console games. We’ve got another Mac game planned, but it’s more of an experimental and arty project that we’re just working on in our somewhat limited spare time, so it was good to be able to put proper resources into writing a game for the iPhone, which gives Adam something to do while he waits for me to finish the code tuning on Airburst for the Xbox 360 and gives me a chance to get myself familiar with XCode again, having been a big Codewarrior fan in the past.

The iPhone is also ideal for small games devs like Strange Flavour, where it’s just 2 guys with a couple of Macs. With excellent backup from our publisher Freeverse‘s team of course!”

How do you feel about Google’s Android platform in contrast to the iPhone as a game developer?

“I think it’s Apple’s biggest competition potentially. I don’t think it’s an iPhone killer by a long shot, but it’s going to have enough interested developers to keep Apple honest .”

In an interview with Pocket Gamer, Will Wright stated that he believes mobile games will become less immersive, how do you feel about this? Do you think mobile games will become more or less immersive?

“What we’ve been finding from a lot of iPhone gamers is that they want to be able to pick up a game immediately when they’ve got a few minutes spare, compared to console and Mac/PC gaming’s main focus where you have hardcore gamers who want to sit down and play for a couple of hours. So it’s extremely casual gaming.

This generally means the best selling games are going to be ones you can learn instantly and either have simple and short gameplay that lets you complete a game in a few minutes, or lets you quit and carry on where you left off (both Plank and Flick Fishing auto-save your games when you quit). With Flick Fishing we tuned everything around being able to play a quick game but being able to carry on and fish as long as you want if you have time and want to relax. Plank’s a more relaxed and longer game with a slower build up, but you can simply quit and come back and carry on where you left off.

I don’t think this means all iPhone games will become less immersive. The only thing stopping something like a big MMO on the iPhone is working out a good way of doing the controls in a way that doesn’t detract from the game and working out how to fund a huge server farm on 99 cent game sales. Also, just because it’s not commercially viable for a big games company to do a huge immersive game, the iPhone is a perfect platform for a hobbyist or small dev to write something big and in-depth, just because they want to.”

What are your thoughts on game grip accessories for the iPhone/iPod touch that are designed to mimmic gamepad controls, with d-pad and buttons. Would an official gamepad attachment for the iPhone/iPod touch create any additional challenges for game developers?

“Assuming they added features that were easy to access (like a d-pad) and there was a straightforward and standard API so that you don’t have to tie a game to a particular branded one they could be an interesting addition. There might not be enough gamers buying them to make it worthwhile making them the default controls for a game, but if they just involve adding a standard and simple set of function calls (*not* a HID library with 8 pages of setup code!) then I can see games devs including them in designs. It’s potentially a nice little market for smaller devs like ourselves who can risk doing a custom game aimed at using add on controls, but all games should be playable on the default device.

If there were an official gamepad, it would probably increase the numbers using them, but it would still have to be an optional control input and not the primary. If Apple released one tomorrow and then released a iPod game version of the iPod touch, with one built in, they’d both have slightly different relatively positions to the screen (one being an add on and the other being built in) and they’d still be a subset of the main customer base, which is people with normal iPhones and iPod touches.”

With Apple pushing for better graphics on Macs across the board, do you believe Mac gaming could take off in the near future?

“I really hope so. It’s taken a bit of a dent with casual software theft and being able to play PC games in Boot Camp, so there’s less incentive to write a full on commercial Mac game when you’re also limited by the lack of a graphics card on the consumer Macs. Now the MacBooks (and hopefully Mac minis in future!) have proper graphics cards in them, that’s one less hurdle for the bigger devs.

Freeverse of course have always been publishing great Mac games and there’s a strong Mac games dev community. iDevGames.com for instance have just started the latest uDevGames competition for new Mac games. uDev’s been going since 2001 and there’s been some really good new Mac games come out of every one.”

Shelf space is often brought up in forum discussions as one of the key challenges facing Mac game developers, not many retail stores are willing to use valuable shelf space for Mac games. Do you believe Apple should take the App Store concept and expand it into Macintosh software, using iTunes to digitally distribute software and games (similar to Valve’s Steam for PC games)?

“Absolutely. The other factor that’s important there is the signing system & DRM. The usual journalists will complain about DRM, but having a system that lets us sell a game without it being casually stolen by customers who would probably have bought it had they not been able to just find a copy online and gives them a good degree of security in knowing it’s the actual game and not a dodgy copy with some sort of trojan app added to it is necessary. It would have to have iTunes other good features though, like being able to re-download any games you’ve bought at any time, and being able to play it on any of your Macs (or at least a decent number of them).

As with the current App Store though, I’d like to see Apple think about it as something different from a music and video store. We’re already seeing problems with the App Store’s layout as far as selling games (and other applications) are concerned, so if Apple was going to do an online Mac store I’d hope they would consider a bit of a re-think about how everything is displayed.”

Lastly, is there anything else you’d like to share with the readers?

“Enjoy your iPhone and iPod gaming! Preferably with Flick Fishing and Plank of course .

Switch your device off and on again once in a while to get the most out of all of your games and ignore the old guy in the lighthouse, he’s just making up stories .”

For more information about Aaron Fothergill please visit his website, Strange Flavour.

Aaron Fothergill Interview: Creator of Flick Fishing and Plank is a post from: OS X Reality

1. No more lugging around stacks of UMDs in a mini-suitcase, why choose which games to bring with you, when you can load them all onto your iPhone or iPod touch.

2. Because changing UMDs every time you want to play a different game sucks.

3. Sorry, Batman called and he wants his belt back. Why carry around an Audio Player, Video Player, Portable Console, PDA, Cell Phone and Netbook, when could could have all these features in one compact device.

4. Save yourself a trip with the App Store’s digital downloads, more convenient than driving to the store, it’s like the mobile version of Valve’s Steam.

5. Spinning an optical disc is great for prolonging load times, think of it as added anticipation built right into the game. And don’t worry about the additional battery drain, you can always buy the super sized battery pack, tumor like bulges on your PSP, awesome!

6. No storage space on the PSP, cost of PSP + Memory Stick = more than iPod Touch.

7. You can’t lose iPhone games, you can re-download them unlimited times, lose your UMD? good luck getting it back.

8. Updating games is painless, update through iTunes or even directly from your iPhone/iPod touch, no scouring the net to find updates.

9. New features and additional content through game updates. When was the last time you saw a PSP game updated with more content/features?

10. iPhone is always connected, multiplayer where it counts most, on the go. PSP only has WiFi multiplayer, AKA playing on your PSP while your PS3 sits idle in front of you.

11. Shelf space is not an issue, larger variety of games, more indie developed games, less cookie cutter released yearly franchise games.

12. News Flash: ACME now using PSPs to build houses due to brick shortages.

13. Innovative controls allow for new games instead of rehashes, geee and I was really looking forward to Street Fighter 23… It’s time for change.

14. Relatively cheap prices, App Store games are usually less than 10 dollars and some are even free. PSP games on the other hand cost on average 40 to 50 dollars.

15. Easily get Music (8.5M) / Podcast (125K) / Movies (2.6K) / TV Shows (30K) / Apps (3K) onto your iPhone and iPod touch through iTunes. You can keep adding bells and whistles to the PSP, but at the end of the day, there is no simple way to get media onto the PSP.

16. John Carmack knows best – “…more powerful than a Nintendo DS and PSP combined.”

16 Reasons Why the iPhone and iPod touch are better than a PSP is a post from: OS X Reality