5 tips for iPhone game developers

[Image: iphone games]Since I got myself an iPhone about a month ago, I’ve been waiting anxiously to play games on it.

I take it with me almost everywhere, unlike my Nintendo DS (which I wish I took everywhere). The battery life is exceptional, the screen is gorgeous, and the touch-screen is responsive and accurate. If that doesn’t spell “b-e-s-t. m-o-b-i-l-e. g-a-m-i-n-g. d-e-v-i-c-e. e-v-e-r,” I don’t know what does.

Unfortunately, I’m too much of a ninny to jailbreak my iPhone and install any of the games that are currently on the market, so I’m waiting for the official SDK and “legal” 3rd party software.

Here are my tips for those developers when the time comes:

1. Don’t price yourself out of the market - legal or not, the free market will still exist (and thrive) for iPhone customers. Don’t overcharge for games that are basically available for free.

2. Remember that the iPhone abandons all traditional input methods, and you should too - stop yourself from making touchscreen recreations of d-pads and A-B-Y-Z buttons.

3. The best iPhone games will be ones that can be “insta-paused.” In other words, people will be playing games for minutes (or possibly seconds) at a time, so the most successful games will probably be like Myst, where you can keep going in small chunks, or like Snood, where quitting doesn’t really mean abandoning anything.

4. Don’t exceed the “system requirements.” One of the reasons the iPhone feels like such a great phone is that Apple has been very careful not to let the CPU feel underpowered. At most I have to wait a second or two for a screen to load. Laggy gameplay will make the iPhone and your game feel clunky.

5. Battery life is king - you could have the greatest game in the world, but if it kills my battery life, i’m not likely to play it. While I recognize that gaming is far more important than communicating with the outside world, the iPhone is still my phone. If it won’t last me a full day, what’s the use?