Exclusive Interview With David Chomard, CEO of Little Worlds Studio for Color Cross HD iPad App

Can you tell us how you came up with the colors and themes ideas, design David?

At the office, we are a bunch of paint-by-color/Sudoku fans. I played this game on paper magazines for years and we all love the Nintendo DS versions. But all the existing versions were based on black & white images. So, we brainstormed to find a new gameplay for an innovative paint-by-color game, and we came with this new idea: add color layers to make the gameplay more interesting, and the final image more appealing. It was all positive.
For the themes, we just thought about the most worldwide appealing themes for females, males, older and younger audience. ‘Animal’, ‘Candy’, ‘Magic’ are genres that fit in.

Who do you see as the main target market for this iPad app, in terms of genre, age?

Color Cross HD is a casual puzzle game, easy to understand, and without any dexterity skill needed. So it appeals to the whole family. As the in-game worldwide ranking is connected with Facebook accounts, all the players can see who is playing. So, we can see that most players are adults with a bit more women than men.

How long did it take from the original planning to the production process of your iPad app?

We already developed 13 iPhone apps, and it was our 2nd iPad app, so the production went pretty smoothly. It took about 2 months to develop the game.

How do you predict sales to be, is there a good solid market for this style of app?

The game has been released for a couple of weeks, and we are pleased with the sales so far. Apple likes the game because we were in the ‘New and Noteworthy’ selection in the US AppStore, and now we are in the ‘What’s hot’ selection. Also we have excellent user reviews: Average is 4.5 stars out of 5. So we will see how it goes, but so far so good.

What has been the hardest obstacle you have had to overcome regarding this iPad app development?

Honestly, the development went so smoothly that I don’t have any bad story to tell. Just that we forgot to activate the ‘spin’ function of the iPad, so the game would not ‘turn’ if you turned upside-down the iPad. So we failed the 1st submission to Apple, fixed the bug, resubmitted, and got it approved! We celebrated that moment with the teams!

Would you consider developing iPad apps for third parties?

Sure. We already developed several iPhone apps for 3rd parties, and it is part of our activity.

What have you learnt from the App Store?

The AppStore is an amazing opportunity for independent developers. As we come from the traditional ‘boxed-game’ development where the Publisher/distributor controls the access to the market, we really appreciate this direct access to the gamers. Now, what we learnt the hard way is that it is not because you have a good application that it sells. Even if you have good reviews from players, it doesn’t mean that it will convert to good sales. You need marketing, promotion, and Apple support to stand out. But still, this is really a great channel for us.

Have Apple supported you well with your iPad app development?

For development, we just use the standard SDK, without any special support from Apple.

What next, are you developing another iPad app? Would you go for the same genre again, if not which?

Splash Duel HD, our first iPad game is an arcade game, great for 2 players fights. Then, Color Cross HD is a puzzle game. Our next iPad game is in development and we will experiment a new game genre: strategy. We don’t focus on one game genre, but more on good gameplays, player’s experience and we believe our next game is going to be really exciting and fun for strategy fans.

What do you think of our site, have we helped you market your app well – do you like our design – would you recommend us?

I like the web site, especially the Daily App Digest. The news are clear and easy to read. I can’t say that you helped us market our games yet, as there was no news about our previous titles, but I am really looking forward to reading our first news about Color Cross HD ! Yes, I would recommend your site, and I will definitively when the article comes out ☺

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