An Apple employee was just telling me today of another developer -- I probably shouldn't say who -- whose worse-selling iPhone app sells 500-1000 units a day. A DAY. What the heck?! Granted, it's only 99 cents, but that's still around 375 dollars or more a day after Apple gets its cut. Holy cow.

Makes me wonder if I should look into porting Midnight Mansion to the iPhone. The iPhone has half the resolution of Midnight Mansion's current resolution, so it would probably look just great on the iPhone. And unlike my latest game Insectoid, which requires a 1.2 GHz computer or faster to run (and even then barely makes it), Midnight Mansion's system requirements are much lighter... the game would perform just fine on the iPhone.

I'm not sure what would be involved in porting it... how much work it would be... but I'm starting to wonder about it, having heard of those crazy sales figures. Of course, not all iPhone games are a success -- some have barely made the author $500 in return, but Midnight Mansion could really fill a niche in that market.

The only question is if it makes *sense*, given the controls.... up, down, left, right, jump, and action... how would that translate to the iPhone? I could superimpose a control pad over the screen, but I'm not sure if that would work well. Or have players tilt left/right/up/down to move Jack, and jolt the iPhone up real quick to make him Jump. Maybe tap the screen for action. OR maybe touch the screen to Jack's left or right to make him walk in that direction... he walks/climbs towards your touch. Maybe one of those would work... hard to know without trying it though.

Thoughts?

-Vern

Hey there Vern......

I'm so glad to see that you are looking at getting your MM out there.  I know you have been trying,  It looks like the business bug has finally bit you....lolololol   Long over due.  

I wish I was tekkie enough to help you, since I am not, all I can offer is moral support.  

Did you ever get MM on youtube for more exposure?

Wow Vern, I don't know were you come up with these ideas, but that idea is fantastic! I've played emulators of Gameboy Advanced with a little gameplay interface button on the touch screen, and oh man, MM on the go and stuff would be awesome. You should definitely look into this after the Expansion is out, unless you have another project in mind.

P.S. You're not considering iPod Nano/Class with just the wheel, right? You'd run out of buttonz =p

Hi Vern -
MM on iPhone - then the iPhone would be perfect (+ Google Voice!)!
Two iPhone games that might give you ideas are "Shift" and Rope 'n Fly.
Sherry

I want... an iPhone... (8) I just recently got my nano but thats ok, music videos and photos are just fine for me in my pocket.

What's google voice?

Google Voice (GV) is an application from Google where you get a phone number that you choose in your area code (if you wish). You can then list up to 6 phones that will ring when that one number is called - plus it does a lot of other really cool things. You can sign up for an invitation to join. At this time it is available in the US only. Anyway, there was an app on the iTunes app store for GV that AT&T made Apple pull because AT&T said it was in competition - even though there are plenty of other apps out there that do similar things. It is a big controversy and "Big Brother" is looking into it. Check it out on Safari. I have it, and it's great - especially in an emergency. It also makes it unnecessary to call forward - just add the new number to your list of numbers called by that central number.

VernJensen wrote on 13.08.2009 at 04:59:14:

An Apple employee was just telling me today of another developer The only question is if it makes *sense*, given the controls.... up, down, left, right, jump, and action... how would that translate to the iPhone? I could superimpose a control pad over the screen, but I'm not sure if that would work well. Or have players tilt left/right/up/down to move Jack, and jolt the iPhone up real quick to make him Jump. ... Thoughts? -Vern

If you want Tilt Controls as an option, I'm all for it.  But not as the only option for controlling Jack.  It's far too imprecise for me.

I've been mulling a control scheme, and think using touch regions (fully explained, with graphical buttons, of course) could work well.  To start, I made this super quick example of playing the game in portrait mode *attached*.  The advantage is that you get to see the whole playing field without covering it with controls, but the disadvantage is that the screen gets shrunk down probably too much.  The play field here is 1/2 MM's size, so it is 320x240.  And the iPhone's screen ha a high resolution so that makes the physical size very small.    I also haven't worked out how to distinguish between 'up' and 'jump' - you could use a gesture, but then things start to get VERY complicated.  The yellowish regions are the "easy mode" jump left and jump right.  I think you'll need those for the game to work on the iPhone.  The purple/pink regions move Jack left/right, the red region is duck/climb down, and the green region is for jump/climb up.  While at the base of a ladder or on a ladder or vine, the region moves Jack up.  To jump off a vine, you have to use the yellow regions.  

The area above the play field is for Jack Lives, Inventory, Score, and could all function as a large pause button which allows you to go to maps, or suspend game, or abort game.  The maps would be fantastic using iPhone native pinch to zoom techniques.  

Anyway, I think the winning solution involves playing MM in landscape mode, not portrait mode, so this is all moot -- but maybe it is interesting fodder for conversation or further development.

---

One further note... imagine you're running to the right, and the spider approaches.  Just flick your finger up and you'll enter the "jump right" region and Jack will jump over the spider.  You move your finger back down where it was and when Jack lands, he continues moving right.  This part seems very natural to me.  In fact, the most awkward part might be jumping straight up, or climbing.

Anyway, share your thoughts, please!!  ;)

Spider: Secret of Bryce Manor has controls sort of like Alan described- you "draw" with your finger where you want the spider to jump:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2MaK-shoqU

Maybe something like that with a combination of tap commands for levers, etc?

Alan - have you looked at "Shift"? Don't know if it could be applicable, but it does add another option, possibly from room to room or level to level. "Rope N Fly" has some interesting jump/touch moves. 'Tapping' would be easy for lever pulls - too bad the phone doesn't recognize one or two finger tapping.

josephine wrote on 06.11.2009 at 04:43:48:

Spider: Secret of Bryce Manor has controls sort of like Alan described- you "draw" with your finger where you want the spider to jump:

That's an awesome looking game, very creative!  I might have to pick that up sometime.

I was thinking of a control scheme more where you press buttons that outside of the play area.  My graphic above doesn't do that, and it isn't even really what I think would work best.  I've created a new concept on my iPhone of how the game could be played in horizontal mode -- and I think it would work very well!  My wife tried it out (well, it's only a picture, but she pretend-played MM by pressing the buttons on the picture) and she likes it very much and thinks I need to convince Vern to port MM to the iPhone now.  At first she wasn't sure how it would work, but now she wants to play it on her iPhone. :-)

sherryl199 wrote on 06.11.2009 at 07:14:27:

Alan - have you looked at "Shift"? Don't know if it could be applicable, but it does add another option, possibly from room to room or level to level. "Rope N Fly" has some interesting jump/touch moves. 'Tapping' would be easy for lever pulls - too bad the phone doesn't recognize one or two finger tapping.

I haven't tried Shift or Rope N Fly yet.  I'll add those to my to-try list!  Thanks!  I've seen Rope N Fly on the app store before, but the graphics seemed a little too MS Paint so I didn't get it.  Don't get me wrong - one of my favorite games* for the iPhone is Enviro-Bear 2010... and those graphics look like they were made with MS Paint too -- but the game has so much humor and charm that the graphics really fit it well.

http://www.enviro-bear.com/eb%20ss%201.gif
http://www.enviro-bear.com/

*Okay, not my FAVORITE, but well worth the 99 cents.  Where else can you enjoy all the excitement of a BEAR driving a CAR?!

It will be interesting to see what you think of "Shift". The graphics are - like "Rope N Fly" - pretty simplistic, but the concept of 'shifting' the screen is pretty cool. Grayson loves it and finished the game the second time through.

sherryl199 wrote on 07.11.2009 at 23:03:19:

It will be interesting to see what you think of "Shift". The graphics are - like "Rope N Fly" - pretty simplistic, but the concept of 'shifting' the screen is pretty cool. Grayson loves it and finished the game the second time through.

Thanks for the recommendation!  I completed the trial/free version of Shift this afternoon.  It was rather creative, and a good brain twister.  The control scheme mostly worked, with the left/right buttons on the left/right sides, and press both to jump.  It did lead to a couple of funny situations where I did unintentional things because I wasn't used to the unconventional nature of the controls.  For MM, I think a similar control scheme might shrink the play screen down too far, though!

To whomever is in charge of the MM software.  I have tried endless number of times to remove myself from future notices re: this tread, by clicking on the tab at the bottom "Notify of replies" and selecting NO.  
But for some reason, the instructions are not holding?  hmmmm

I think it's a great idea for MM to go on the iPhone/iPod Touch, I think you could maybe make it so you have to drag your finger to move Jack and there's a small button for reading signs and activating switches and when you want to jump a simple flick of your finger could do the trick. A good price could be $5 and in the light version you could only include 3 mansions and only selected custom ones. If people think it's overly priced then you could reduce it to $2. I hope these help ;)

I think that the announcement of the iPad can now allow you to fit more on the screen

Yeah, MM on iPad would be killer. :-)  And at 1024x768 resolution you could display the full-screen MM graphics and have room for a virtual contol system "off-screen".

it would also be great for the level designer