First concept pic for Kosmo Spin

Before starting the production of Kosmo Spin we had some ideas for a puzzle game in which you would spin your finger in circles to match up blocks. A match 3 puzzle game didn’t feel like the most hot thing ever, so we transformed the concept into a action/arcade game, which eventually became Kosmo Spin.

So the only idea we had was that you would use the touchscreen to rotate a planet or ball, to collect or deflect incoming stuff. That was basically it. We had some brainstorming sessions, and initially Nod was going to collect incoming space hats:

Hats are funny. But why oh why was there not a concept for Nod wearing a fez?

Hats became balls and we realized that to warn the players where incoming stuff would spawn, we needed some sort of character launching the stuff. Enter UFO:

Can you spot the ball that didn’t make it?

For a long time, the only objective was to head balls out to space. We came up with the breakfast pickups because the game really needed something fun to occupy the players with when not deflecting balls. There were stuff that did not work in the original design, and it was a very frustrating game, because the only thing you could do was to avoid the UFO beam and bounce balls. So almost everyone that tested the game, including ourselves, would just follow the UFO around. And then the UFO would beam you up. So it was sort of like we punished the players for a behaviour that we had created as designers. It just wasn’t very fun. So we had to come up with something to do when not bouncing. So that’s how the breakfast things came along.

Quests were added pretty late in production, to give the game some more personality and something that we could easily update with new stuff and ideas.

The first Quests!

Early version, with a softer background

Color tests, screen grabbed directly from the first version on iPhone. The first one looks really dull now! A big issue was that screens on different devices differ a lot, so lot’s of different tests were done to make it look good on all screens.

Being our first iOS game, a lot of lessons were learned. Keeping a lot of stuff on the same map for best performance is the way to go!

Random stuff that didn’t make it. Beware of evil watermelon-handgranade-creature!

This is so not cool.
Just found out the hard way that it’s possible to cheat on Game Center.
We want to clarify that the problem is NOT on our side, it’s a problem for every game that has leaderboards on Game Center. There are a lot of other developers experiencing the same thing.

How is this possible? People with jailbroken devices can access files they normally would not be able to access, and manually send whatever score they want to the leaderboards.

So, it’s pretty sad for us that like to compare our scores. Good thing we implemented Facebook scoring.

So, what can we do about this? Basically, nothing.
Then who should do something about this situation?
Hint:

This is pretty nice to wake up to:

Yes! It’s true. The Kosmo Spin update is now live!

Here’s some of the new stuff:

Here’s the goodies:
– 12 brand new Quests!
– 5 fresh out of the oven Game Center achievements!
– You can now post your high score and progress to Facebook!

We also made some small fixes that you’ll hopefully like:
– New icon!
– Choose your page browsing style: Swipe or tap – Arrow buttons added on the Quests menu.
– If you happen to be offline when you get an achievement, it will now be posted the next time you go online on Game Center.
– Swipe on Quest menu is now more responsive.
– Added a hourglass when multi tasking, so there is no confusion to whether the game is loading or not.

… And some stuff is hopefully forever gone:
– Bad spelling and grammar in some of the Quests.
– Evil bugs!

On top of that, the App Store description is now available in a lot of different languages, so everyone can understand what the game is about before buying.

We think this is a nice little package of stuff and we hope you think so too!

So, you’ve seen that blue and red creature riding a train in the background of Kosmo Spin?
Who are they? It’s ilo and milo of course, the stars of Southend’s XBLA game ilomilo!

Why are they in Kosmo Spin?
Before starting Simogo, we worked for Southend on a little game called ilomilo. And because we are the bestest of friends with Southend, we thought it was cool that ilo and milo made a little cameo in Kosmo Spin.

And guess what? Ilomilo is OUT NOW on XBLA!

Head over to the brilliant ilomilo blog to find out more about fantastic world of ilomilo!

We’re back in the office! Yay!

So what’s up?
– Waiting for the update of Kosmo Spin to get approved (c’moooon Apple!)

– The Next Game that we showed you some blurry concept pics of here will actually turn out to be The Game After the Next Game or maybe even the 4th game. So, the retro punk speed thing will just have to wait in the oven a bit more. What are we doing instead? ->

– We’re working on our next game codenamed: Bumpy Ride. It’s an arcade game about road trips, terrestrial morphing and true love. Hoping to show you something in January, but we won’t promise anything.

– We’re also working on a cool little Kosmo Spin related thing. It’s not an update and it’s not a game.

2011 is going to be smashing!