Games such as Azkend, Boom Brigade, Joining Hands and Sparkle have seen Finnish development studio 10tons earn itself a reputation as a purveyor of highly polished puzzle games.

Not only that but, as its most recent title Swingworm demonstrates, 10tons has no qualms about porting its titles across many platforms, including the slowly dying webOS and the currently less-than-popular bada.

We managed to gain some of 10tons' Vice CEO Sampo Töyssy's time during a recent trip to its main office, based in Finland's fourth biggest city of Tampere, to chat about its upcoming projects and how it has found some of the various platforms to work on.

PocketGamer.biz: How did 10tons begin?

Sampo Töyssy: Back in 2003, my co-founder Tero created a game called Crimsonland and at the same time the digital download business was starting to grow. So, 10tons was founded to distribute and commercialise Crimsonland and any future games.

Around the same time the casual game portals were born and we decided to start making games targeted at that market. We were still studying at university so we had to make these games in our spare time.

We then proceeded to create and release several PC and Mac games. In 2006, 10tons became a full time job for me and Tero.

How have you found the Kindle Fire to develop for?

From the game developer's perspective it's like any other Android 2.3 device.

We're seeing some sales with Sparkle HD on Kindle Fire. However, as with all app stores, it's a huge challenge to get noticed.

How have sales faired on bada and webOS? Will you continue support for these platforms?

We initially started to support the platforms at a time when they were fresh and nobody knew what would happen. It was relatively easy to build support for them, so we did it even though the future for both platforms was uncertain.

Today bada and webOS remain minor players but we'll probably keep supporting them as long as it doesn't require a major effort to continue.

Even though webOS isn't the hottest platform at the moment, it has been really easy to develop for and we've also seen relatively good sales.

It seems that people who use TouchPads tend to buy games more often than on many other platforms. On bada we see some sales too, but from our perspective it's smaller than webOS.

What can we expect in the future from 10tons?

In the near future we're excited to see how Swingworm, Azkend 2, and Boom Brigade 2 are received.

The sequels both improve on their predecessors with new interesting content while still making sure that the core elements that makes them fun stay intact.

After that we have lots interesting things coming up but at this point those projects are under wraps. The plan definitely includes new games on multiple platforms.

What improvements have been made to Azkend 2?

There are loads of improvements, but one of the coolest things are the full screen animated environments.

They are hand-painted and then carefully animated. Also, in addition to classic levels, we now have bug levels, fog levels, and fire levels.

Another cool thing is the new dynamic gameboard that allows us to create boards of all sizes and fill up the whole screen with it. We've also introduced passive powerups that change the game rules, and the storyline is fantastic and offers a lot of memorable moments.

All-in-all, Azkend 2's adventure will be an awesome and entertaining ride full of variety and magnificent experiences.
Thanks to Sampo for his time. You can find out more about 10tons here.