VentureBeat has been talking to creators of the iPhone smash phenomenon Pocket God, Bolt Creative, about how this small viral game took the App Store by storm.

Lead designer Dave Castelnuevo put the game's success down to the careful (and immediate) attention he and artist Allan Dye paid to gamer feedback. By releasing weekly, episodic updates, Castelnuevo explains that the few players Pocket God first enticed grew to love the game the moment it became clear the developer was listening to them.

In turn, this led the players to talk about Pocket God as often and as loudly as they could - beginning a viral, organic promotion that would otherwise be almost impossible to achieve.

At its height, the game was soon making the two-man team as much as $18,000 per day, and enjoying prolonged periods at the top of the App Store charts thanks to the regular updates keeping the game at the forefront of the player's attention.

Of course, it's all very well relying on an application to go viral - and great if it does - but this is the type of promotion that's immensely difficult to achieve. The real lesson other indie developers could learn from Bolt Creative, it seems, is in finding new and interesting ways to endear their game the legions of iPhone and iPod touch users, and hoping they'll do much of the promotional legwork.