Continuing our series of interviewing one-man band iPhone developers, we're catching up with Ben Paget, who used to work as a programmer at Rockstar's San Diego office on games such as the Midnight Club driving series before venturing out on his own.

Setlling up Low Five Games, which is based in San Francisco, he's so far released one title - the Missile Command-inspired Earth Vs Moon.

Pocket Gamer: Can you give a brief overview of Low Five Games and why you decided to move from console development to iPhone?

Ben Paget: Low Five Games is a small indie developer, so small that I'm the only full time employee. I handle the boring day-to-day stuff and do most of the programming for our games. I contract people I know from my time in the games industry to handle things I can't do, such as art.

Before Low Five, I had been working at Rockstar San Diego for about eight years. When I left there I knew that I would like to work on my own games, so I set aside some time and money to give it a try.

After weighing my options, the iPhone seemed like the best way to get my products into the hands of as many people as possible.

What do you think is the biggest difference?

The biggest difference for me is that it's easy to have full creative control over a project.

The way most console game projects work is that a publisher already knows what games they want to make and when they want them to be released. They then contract these projects out to independent developers or their own in-house teams. So nobody below the publisher's level has a lot of say about what games get made.

On the iPhone, anyone with a bit of money can more or less act as their own publisher. Of course, to paraphrase Spiderman, with greater creative control comes greater responsibility.

Also, in the console game industry people tend to be fairly specialised in their roles; I programmed and nothing else. At Low Five, I've had to do sound design, build websites, edit trailers, and, of course, program the game.

Where did the idea for your first game Earth Vs Moon come from?

I've always enjoyed Missile Command. I actually programmed my own version of it when I was first learning to write code. A touchscreen interface suits the game perfectly, even better than the original trackball. Plus, as far as I know, there haven't been any professionally done versions of the game that added anything new.

A big factor in choosing this design was that it had to be something I could realistically finish. It seems like one of the most common problems with indie developers is they design projects with a scope they have no chance of ever completing.

With Earth Vs Moon, the basic premise is extremely simple. Also, it's a proven concept, and it can be done with a low number of art assets. I wasn't sure what kind of art support I would be able to get at the start of the project, although I did end up getting a lot of time from an excellent artist.

The simplicity of the basic design paid off because we were able to get the core of the game finished quickly and then move on to upping the production values, adding bosses, and putting in the game's storyline.

How was the development process?

We stayed pretty close to our initial design on this project; 20 levels including 5 bosses, survival mode, boss attack mode, and a storyline told through newspapers.

We got the game to where the team thought it was shippable and then did a round of playtesting with some game designer friends. They produced a lot of good feedback was incorporated into a new build.

After that we added one more enemy type, playtested a little more, and sent it off.

How much of a learning experience has the user feedback and the update process been?

I think it's been great. In any kind of entertainment medium, getting your work out there and finding which parts people like and which parts people hate is very important. With smaller projects like these everything moves quickly so you have a fast cycle of feedback.

How do you find the rough, tumble and competition of the App Store?

The hardest thing is getting your game noticed when there are literally thousands of other games coming out each month.

What have you learnt about pricing iPhone games?

Probably the same thing as everyone else. The App Store rankings are slanted heavily in favour of 99 cent apps.

What can you say about your future plans/games?

We've recruited some very talented people and are working on a couple of different projects at the moment.

The first one should be out in six to eight weeks. It's a brand new intellectual property and I think people will really get a kick out of it.

And sometime down the line, I would like to make a sequel to Earth Vs Moon. That moon needs to get blown up.

Thanks to Ben for his time.

You can check out what Low Five Games gets up to via its website and Twitter.