Having racked up more than three million downloads of its free Tap Tap Revenge game for iPhone, developer Tapulous has announced two new premium versions today.
Tap Tap Dance takes a beats'n'bleeps approach, with licensed tracks from the likes of Daft Punk, Moby and The Chemical Brothers. Meanwhile, Christmas With Weezer offers a selection of festive covers from the alt-pop band.

They follow an earlier release of Nine Inch Nails Revenge, a premium version of the game based on NIN songs. We talked to Tapulous boss Bart Decrem to find out more about the company's strategy.

"We've been approached by a number of bands and labels about themed versions of the game," he says. Weezer were so keen, they went into the studio days after signing the deal with Tapulous and banged out the covers.

Tapulous is offering a revenue-share split to labels and artists (after Apple has taken its 30 per cent cut, of course). Decrem says games like Tap Tap Revenge are offering a new way for bands to connect with their fans other than just selling music to them.

"iPhone is very suitable, because it's always connected and always with the user," he says. "We can get a game onto the App Store in 30 days, too, so it's much faster and less expensive than the console business."

Both new games use the v2.0 Tap Tap Revenge engine, which has been rewritten from scratch, including OpenGL support for more whizzy graphical effects.

This isn't just for show though - Decrem says it's an important step forward in making Tap Tap Revenge more than just a Dance Dance Revolution / Guitar Hero clone.

"It's now a richer experience," he says. "Every song can have its own look and feel, with much richer visual effects. For Daft Punk, Moby and Justice we created a custom experience that almost feels like an interactive music video."

Tapulous is even getting visual artists involved in designing the backgrounds for individual tracks on Tap Tap Dance. "People say that Tap Tap Revenge is a Guitar Hero clone, but with this new stuff, we're defining our own experience," says Decrem.

Tapulous is doing well with its track downloads for the original Tap Tap Revenge game, too, attracting the likes of the Kaiser Chiefs and Katy Perry.

"The Katy Perry song was downloaded 200,000 times in one week," says Decrem. "It's an exciting new way for artists to get their music in front of new fans."

Since introducing an online multiplayer mode, Decrem says Tapulous is seeing thousands of simultaneous users on the company's servers, doubling engagement with the game on a per-user basis.

Meanwhile, he says the Nine Inch Nails version of the game has sold "tens of thousands" of downloads on the App Store so far.

However, it seems Tapulous isn't looking beyond the iPhone for Tap Tap Revenge right now, despite the fact that it would seem to be an obvious candidate to launch on other platforms like Android too.

"We're focused 100 per cent on iPhone right now, and the iPod Touch of course," he says.

"We look for four things in a platform for it to be exciting. First, a great device with a great user experience. Second, we need a development environment where we can build rich experiences. Third, we need a critical mass of users that are downloading and playing with software, and fourth, we need an effective distribution channel where we can get apps in front of users quickly and easily. Right now, the iPhone is the only phone that delivers on all four pieces."

Is there anything he'd change about the iPhone and App Store, though? Decrem says the platform itself is technically powerful enough to do pretty much everything Tapulous wants to.

"The thing we're most looking forward is more flexibility in terms of the business models," he says.

"The ability to buy a song in iTunes and play it in Tap Tap Revenge, for example. But having said that, Apple's done a fantastic job creating a platform and ecosystem that's working really well. It's hard to complain, given the huge success of the App Store compared to anything that went before."

For more on Tap Tap Dance and Christmas With Weezer, check out this story on Pocket Gamer.