Orange Pixel are a developer and distributor of mobile games that runs a mobile gaming community, Rumble-X, works with small independent developers such as Plastic Cow Games (Arcade Pool) and Smallfry (Brik-Link) and offers its games in ad-supported versions on Gamejump.com. Games On Deck talked to CEO Pascal Bestebroer about the company and these choices.
Games On Deck: Tell us about Orange Pixel.
Pascal Bestebroer: I founded OrangePixel in 2004, and I have since been trying to keep the focus on original and fun game concepts for every type of player. Be it casual, hardcore, male, female, old, young: games just have to be fun. OrangePixel has been trying to stay away from the Tetris and Space Invaders clones, and we have been releasing a wide variation of games including our various attempts at designing good playable one thumb games. In short, OrangePixel is an indie developer with the balls to be creative and do our own thing.
GOD: Tell us about recent Orange Pixel titles that you consider particular successes.
PB: I'm pretty fond of our Rocket Boy trilogy of games. Each game shows an evolution of the one thumb game concept. The games are literally easy to pickup and go, since you only use one button and the game mechanics are simple. However we managed to create three distinctly different games (game play and challenge wise) with an increasing difficulty level. Also a game like Mechanics, although it did not receive the attention it deserved, is a very unique game concept that really works on a mobile phone.
Rocket Boy 3 (left) Mechanics (right)
GOD: What challenges does Orange Pixel face as a small developer in the mobile industry?
PB: Well the biggest challenge is of course making money. In this business most of the income is generated on the operator decks, and as everybody knows a small developer has a hard time getting the content on there. We luckily have some good deals with some operators as they have opened their eyes and noticed some of the quality in our titles. The second biggest problem is of course the many terrible distributors who in most cases still like to take your content for a ride and not pay you for it. So I guess the challenge is really finding the right people to work with.
GOD: Tell us about Rumble-X.
PB: Rumble-X is a little pet project that was started when we wanted to get online high scores in our games. I noticed many developers had some form of high scores in their games, but if you go and check the scores on the developers website it was usually containing 3 - 10 scores on a empty page. So for our high scores we had to do it a little bit better, and we came up with Rumble-X, where every developer can link their own games into a gaming community. It started with a few of our own games and it has been growing ever since. We now have daily, weekly, monthly and all-time high scores, game achievements, day leaders, awards, forums, and thousands of players competing in various games. With the development prices ranging from free to a one time fee of 50 euro per game, it's very accessible for every type of developer. And, of course, for players the services is 100% free to use.
