"We like to make museums more interesting," explained Ben Templeton at the start of his ExPlay talk.
As the creative director of Thought Den a service agency that's focused on fun educational games Templeton pitches game designs to charitable organisations and museums, and it's a process that's produced some interesting concepts.
When Thought Den was pitching to the TATE, for instance, it produced a concept called TamigARTchi, which tasked players with looking after Tracey Emin in her studio, looking after the outspoken English artist and feeding her doses of gin.
Not just about Apple
Templeton reckons Emin would have been on-board with the idea, but in the end, Thought Den developed Magic Tate Ball instead an app that recognises a user's location and displays the most appropriate piece of art based on the lighting, weather, time and place.
Thought Den's other projects include Survival a wildlife quiz created for Bristol-based charity Wildscreen.
The charity was keen to launch the game on Android as well as iOS, and the project taught Templeton that "it's not just about Apple anymore."
Survival garnered a total of 35,000 downloads across both Android and iOS.
The other main lesson Thought Den took away from Survival is that "HTML5 and JavaScript works a treat, if you don't mind outputting 14 versions of each graphic."
Featured all over
Templeton also explained the value of a featured spot from Apple.
One of the studio's apps was picking up 50 downloads a day around launch. After being featured on the homepage, downloads soared to 4,000 per day.
And it's not just Apple that can feature your game. Thought Den has seen significant download spikes after being featured in national newspapers. Even a tweet from UK performer Derren Brown produced a noticeable download spike.
"Marketing is essential," Templeton said. "Annoying and essential."
News
Related Articles
Top Stories
News
38 minutes ago
A third of developers implementing new payment options in face of Digital Markets Act’s $18 billion opportunity
News
2 hours, 38 minutes ago
Chinese publisher iDreamSky opens office in Riyadh for first international expansion
News
38 minutes ago
A third of developers implementing new payment options in face of Digital Markets Act’s $18 billion opportunity
Feature
May 7th, 2024
Mobile Mavens: The industry has its say on Squad Busters ability to draw in “untapped audiences” with its “influence from a range of genres”
Feature
May 7th, 2024
Hot Five: Supercell’s Squad Busters supremacy, Brawl Stars bounces back, and a games industry journey at King
Events
Valencia Indie Summit 2024 | Europe | May 16th |
Digital Dragons | Europe | May 19th |
Mobidictum Meetup Tallinn May 2024 | Europe | May 21st |
Israel Mobile Summit 2024 | Middle East | Jun 6th |
Future Games Show 2024 | Jun 8th | |
PC Gaming Show 2024 | Jun 9th | |
WN Conference Istanbul 2024 | Jun 11th | |
DevGAMM Vilnius 2024 | Europe | Jun 14th |