Interview

Illusion Labs' Martensson on the 48 man-weeks for iPad launch games

Negotiating the labyrinth

Illusion Labs' Martensson on the 48 man-weeks for iPad launch games
With the iPad's launch moving from our short-term to our medium term memory, it's time to catch up with some of the developers who released the first wave of games, and find out what their reaction was to Apple's latest wonder device.

One of the most successful developers has been Swedish outfit Illusion Labs, which has seen Touchgrind HD, and especially Labyrinth 2 HD high in the charts.

We spoke to software engineer Anders Mårtensson.

Pocket Gamer: How long did you take developing your iPad games?

It took six people working full time for eight weeks to adapt and add features for both Labyrinth 2 HD and Touchgrind HD.

How have sales of your iPad games compared to your expectations?

Pretty good; I would say as expected. Nowhere near the iPod touch and Phone sales of course, but we didn't do it for the money.

Have you been surprised so many iPad games have been versions of existing iPhone games?

Not really since you had so little time to get something ready for launch.

Do you expect to make future games universal apps?

We'll have to wait and see. It would however be easier to do universal apps now that we can design for it from day one.

Do you think iPad will be a game device in the way iPod touch is?

I think most people will use it primarily for web browsing and the like, and secondarily for gaming.

What's your impression of using the iPad?

It's awesome. The screen is gorgeous and the form factor is perfect. Apart from our own games I really enjoy Scrabble and iBooks.

Thanks to Anders for his time

Contributing Editor

A Pocket Gamer co-founder, Jon is Contributing Editor at PG.biz which means he acts like a slightly confused uncle who's forgotten where he's left his glasses. As well as letters and cameras, he likes imaginary numbers and legumes.