A look back and a look forward

Last week marked the third anniversary of the release of Five-O on the App Store! The game has come a long way in three years. It started out as an iPad-only app, with no online multiplayer, and only one (way too difficult) computer opponent. With support and feedback from all the fans of Five-O, I’ve been able to develop the game into a what it is today, and I’m thrilled to see that the latest update has a solid 5 star rating with over 100 reviews.

Here are some more of my favorite metrics:

• Five-O has been downloaded over 110,000 times since its release
• Over 200,000 online matches have been completed
• Over 3.4 MILLION matches versus the computer have been completed

So… what’s next?

My next project is bringing Five-O to the Mac App Store. Since Game Center now supports cross-platform online matches between Mac OS X and iOS, I can finally bring all the features from the iOS version to the Mac with relative ease. What’s the advantage of playing on a Mac instead of your smartphone or tablet? None really, but I’m hoping to reach another audience, and maybe find some popularity in an App Store that has far less competition. I’ve already made a lot of progress on the Mac version of Five-O, and I hope to have it in the Mac App Store by Christmas.

While I’m happy to keep developing and supporting Five-O, three years is a long time to go without designing something entirely new. Realizing that, I decided to challenge myself to develop a new game too! My constraints were that it had to be a two-player, competitive, turn-based game. Staying within these constraints would allow me to leverage a lot of the code I’ve written for Five-O, using it as a solid foundation for things like online multiplayer. So far, I’m still in the early design stage, but I have one prototype that looks very promising. It’s an abstract strategy game that is similar to Pentago. I don’t have a release date for this one yet, but I will keep you posted!