Suicidal sheep's rescuing operation is very simple, but it draws you in instantly. A pirate attaches a bomb to a sheep and lets it wander free in a field full of hay stacks. By moving the field, one must lead the sheep to a disarmer before the bomb explodes. As one progresses to higher levels, the field becomes fuller with stacks and other obstacles.
Sorting waste
Mantas Radvila, co-founder of “Edukacinės sistemos” that created the game, recounts that its first version was an educational game called “Eco-labyrinth.” The point of it was to teach and encourage people to sort waste. The strategy involved moving a terrain so that pieces of waste fall into appropriate bins.
“In order to raise our profile and gain more experience, we decided to upload our game to the Apple App Store. “Eco-labyrinth” was very easy to play, yet interesting. Besides, it was well adapted to iPads and iPhones. Later, we came up with a more interesting scenario, we changed the graphics and so the “Suicide Sheep” was born,” recalls Radvila.
Objections to terrorist
To get more attention from youngsters, the creators used the old cliché of Arab-terrorist. It is he initially who set explosives on the sheep that players had to rescue. Sheep was chosen because of its neutral character – according to the authors, a sheep has no emotional connotations or prior associations, unlike a wolf, a fox or a pig.
However, Apple objected to the Arab-terrorist cliché and the game was removed from the App Store. This character was thus replaced by a pirate.
The final version of “Suicide Sheep” hit the App Store late last year. This January an on-line version came out, making it possible to be rescuing the sheep on ordinary computers.
The on-line version of “Suicide Sheep” soon spread through Flash game sites and its popularity suddenly hit the roof: 200 thousand unique players tried the game in five days, the figure growing to half a million by the end of January.
Radvila credits the entire creative team with such incredible success: Arvydas Burdulis, Modestas Povilaitis, Miglė Šaulytė, and Mantas Kavaliauskas.
A product is not enough
The game's popularity is currently on a slow decline. It does not, however, upset its creators.
“We created the game for marketing and market research. To be honest, we merely wanted to see if it was possible to be successful without any marketing campaign, by just presenting the game. There are many who believe that all one has to do is to create a good product and success will come. We can confirm that this is not true. In order to make a game popular, one has to start thinking about it even before developing. You must know what ways and channels can help you reach your target audience and use them,” Radvila advices.
In theory, a game or an application could become an App Store hit on the day it is uploaded, when it appears in the New Apps section. But you should not bet on it as dozens or even hundred new apps are uploaded each day.
Going into television
The creators of “Suicide Sheep” are planning to develop a version for iPhone and update the one for iPad, adding new functions that some players currently miss. It is likely that they will charge for the upgraded version. Moreover, “Edukacinės sistemos” came into contact with a company in China that is developing a gaming platform for smart TVs and motion-controlled computers.
“They want “Suicide Sheep” on their platform and they plan to charge for it. According to their scheme, part of the revenue would go to platform developers and the rest – to us. At the moment, we are sorting out some technical issues,” Radvila hints.
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| 123rf nuotr., „15min“ montažas/Suicide Sheep |
