

#DOODLEJUMP GAME UPDATE#
To our surprise, when the update came out, some players started complaining that it made the game more difficult. It didn't take too long to come up with the solution and while we liked it - as we thought it felt very organic - we were a bit concerned it would make it too easy to shoot the monsters. We gave in and started thinking about the best way to implement this. While we felt that this was sufficient, we had repeated requests from players to make it so that you can shoot in different directions. How much discussion did you have about the shooting mechanic? Marko Pusenjak: In the first release of Doodle Jump, there was only one direction you could shoot in - straight up. While I was at Parsons School of Design working towards my MFA, one of my professors mentioned Antoine de Saint-Exupery's quote "Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away," in the context of design, and this has been the rule I have been trying to apply to every project I work on. How did you manage to keep it so clean and simple? Igor Pusenjak: I'm a big fan of clean and simple and Mies van der Rohe's 'less is more' approach, probably because I have a hard time achieving it in life. We started going in that direction and liked what we were coming up with, and since the art style had changed, we decided to create a whole new storyline for the game. When we came back to pick up where we had left off the Hop, Bunny, Hop! project, we realised we preferred the pencil-drawn sketches to the art we had, and then it hit us - we should just make this game using the hand-drawn style, similar to the style we used for our Classic Tic Tac Toe game. Frustrated, we decided to take a little break from it. Soon after its release, we started working on a sequel that was going to be called Hop, Bunny, Hop! The game engine was done fairly quickly, but we had trouble getting the graphics to look right. What was the inspiration for Doodle Jump? Igor Pusenjak: One of the first games we released for iPhone was Eat, Bunny, Eat! Your goal, as a bunny character, was to catch and eat carrots that fall from the sky. My focus is marketing and business development. On the business side, we both work on product management, with Marko taking the lead. Marko, who's a veteran mobile applications developer, does all the programming, while the graphics are my responsibility. Pocket Gamer: Before we start on Doodle Jump, can you give us some background to Lima Sky? Igor Pusenjak: Lima Sky was founded in July 2008, shortly after the iTunes App Store launch, with the release of our first iPhone app, iBubbleWrap! At its core, the company is my brother Marko and me.

We caught up with developer brothers Igor and Marko Pusenjak (photo credit: Jasna Pusenjak) to find out more. Add in its social networking features, regular updates, and mash-ups with other games, and it's no surprise Doodle Jump has been in the App Store charts for months. There aren't many examples, but one such is Lima Sky's Doodle Jump a game so simple and yet so enjoyable that playing it always makes you happy and you always want another go. At its best, the 99c game is a perfectly-formed slice of bite-sized fun in which everyone can partake.
