Doodle Jump is so much fun to play that the Wireless Week editorial staff barely found time to put down their iPhones and award Lima Sky a Leadership Award for its blockbuster success in 2009.
Lima Sky’s Doodle Jump is the kind of goldrush success story that has grown Apple’s development community to more than 130,000 apps. The fact that Doodle Jump has been comfortably seated among the Top 5 iPhone apps for months now has made it an instant classic.
In a sea of apps for the iPhone and iPod touch, it’s an achievement just to get noticed, much less snag one of the top spots at the App Store for consecutive months. What’s great about Doodle Jump is that it’s actually an entertaining game and not just a two-bit hack job that allows your iPhone to simulate flatulance.
The idea behind Doodle Jump is simple: Your job is to jump a small alien-like character as high up a vertical scrolling board as you can possibly jump him. Along the way, you’ll need to avoid everything from menacing UFOs to vacuous black holes. It’s addictive, and Lima Sky knows it.
Igor Pusenjak, president, founder and developer at Lima Sky, says the impetus behind Doodle Jump was to create an experience that would appeal to as broad an audience as possible. Why does the game have such appeal? It’s a combination of things, he says.
“The main character is very charming and many people can immediately connect with it. Its constant jumping creates a sense of urgency, and when you miss a platform and fall, there is that disbelief that you failed and an urge to do better next time. So you hit ‘Play again’ again, and again and again...”
Sales of the 99-cent application are the best proof that Lima Sky has succeeded in its quest to create a game with mass appeal. The company recently reported that 1.85 million people have purchased Doodle Jump, making it the sixth highest grossing app in the App Store.
When asked how Doodle Jump achieved such notoriety in a store that is known for its massive shelves, Pusenjak says it’s all about spreading the word.
“The most important thing is to have a really great app. Sometimes that’s all it takes. More often, though, that’s only the beginning. The next step is to tell everyone about your app. And be persistent, but not annoying,” he says.
When asked about what effect HTML5 would have on proprietary app stores like Apple’s, Pusenjak says he thought Apple’s App Store is doing well enough that it probably wouldn’t see too many changes in the near future.
“My feeling is that not much will change. The entire iPhone experience is designed around the apps and unless Apple changes that, I don’t see browser-based apps gaining traction on the iPhone platform,” he says.
Pusenjak says Lima Sky has not had any problems with Apple’s approval process. His company will stick with iPhone development in favor of branching off onto other platforms. However, that doesn’t mean BlackBerry and Android users will have to do without Doodle Jump.
“We are actively exploring licensing opportunities and have signed an agreement with RealNetworks to bring Doodle Jump to other mobile platforms,” he says, adding that the company’s main objective now is to get the blockbuster game into as many hands as possible.