Teenage kicks
In this age of life-like, super-powered graphics, even on mobile phones, comes a reminder that usability should still be the paramount concern when designing a piece of software.
Bubble Ball is a simple physics game, not a million miles away from the popular Touch Physics, that requires you to use simple objects to ensure a ball - obeying the laws of gravity - gets to a designated point. It has recently got to the top of the Apple Apps store download chart, as reported by VentureBeat.
The hit mobile game of last year - Angry Birds - is also physics-based, so for such a game to knock it off its perch is not so remarkable by itself. What sets this achievement apart is that the game was written by a 14 year old boy - Robert Nay - with some help from his Mum.
His job was made easier by a product called Corona SDK from Ansca Mobile, which uses the Lua programming language. This is a free download that makes it easier to create apps and games for iOS and Android, and then you have to pay to unlock the ability to publish onto the app stores.
It's probably no coincidence that a game that puts a premium on the user experience over showy graphics has initially been a hit on the Apple platform. The justification many Apple users will have for paying its premium is its perceived superior user experience.
But the game is also available on Android and we had a play. It's a classic casual game, based around multiple levels much like Angry Birds. Each level takes seconds to complete, so it's perfect for just dipping into when you have a fallow few moments. It was fun, but we were able to drag ourselves away.
The success of such a simple game, written by a schoolboy, says some interesting things about how to succeed in the booming mobile app industry. Nay's website says the apps got 300,000 downloads in its first week, and it's not clear how it got so much attention among the thousands of other apps available on the App Store. But this seems to be a genuinely free market that should lend itself to unbridled innovation.
