Sponsored developer feature: BeAMan Games on fragrant freemium social game Stinktopia

California-based developer BeAMan Games has come a very long way in a short time. Founded in 2010, its first proper title for the iPhone was BeEarthed, a well-presented but simple match-three puzzler.

Just a few months later the studio released the highly ambitious and quirky city-building/resource management title Stinktopia. Possessing a multitude of multiplayer options and location compatibility for wi-fi and 3G compatible devices, the game is a great example of the developer’s quickly growing confidence and talent. The game even made an appearance in Apple’s ‘new and noteworthy’ section for iPhone and iPad games when it became a global app a few days ago.

Stinktopia also demonstrates how keen BeAMan Games is to tap into the casual social gaming demographic, using quirky concepts to bring to life games designed around the mobile platform.

Pocket Gamer spoke with BeAMan Games about the multi-featured Stinktopia, the increasing importance of social gaming, and the company's plans for the future.

Pocket Gamer: What do you think makes Stinktopia stand out in the competitive App market?

BeAMan Games: Stinktopia obviously has a very quirky theme – this alone should help it stand out from the competing games in its category.

The gameplay mechanics blend much of the familiar social game DNA, some hardcore attributes, and uniquely mobile location-awareness. All of this wrapped up in a stylish art-style means that it is very different to any other game in the app store.

A large part of Stinktopia is geared towards the social online play. How important do you consider social play in games?

We believe that all modern games, especially the ones created for mobile devices, must have social attributes to them – explicit or implicit. We’re living in a hyper connected world, so creating games that don’t take advantage of this reality seems somewhat regressive to us.

What of the many features of Stinktopia do you like the best?

We earnestly feel that all of the features we worked hard to build out add up to a richer mobile social gaming experience than our competitors’.

But if we absolutely have to pick one, it would be the support for partial offline play. There’s nothing worse than being completely locked out of a game because you have an internet connection issue, so this feature really cuts
down on frustration for everyone.

Were you afraid that the ‘stink’ element of the game would limit its audience?

Initially, we were definitely afraid that this would limit our appeal to the social games core demographic. But regarding our company’s aim to offer up unique gaming experiences, we realised that we had to be willing to accept a risk like this. Either this attitude of ours will help us succeed or completely do us in. We are willing to find out.

We are happy to not be ‘mainstream’ if it means we can attract a set of gamers that are not afraid to be in touch with the inner-child in them, given how that’s manner in which we came up with 'stink' as the primary theme.

When we started our company, there was a lot of noise in the media around fart apps. Which led to a funny thought within the company - “What if we make the most elaborate and feature rich fart app ever? And a social fart app at that?”

We definitely had a lot of fun making this silly game that lets you interact with your friends. We only hope the same is true for our players and they can goof around some without inhibition.

What made you want to create a game with a real-life map element to it?

There were two reasons. One, we found ourselves often wondering where in the world these friends we’re making through online games really lived. Whenever we were clued in on this info, we found it to be a delightful moment of closer connection. So in some ways, we took the term 'social map' in the most literal manner possible.

Second, and more technically, we liked where the geo-driven mobile software sector is headed. We want to be a participant in this budding space and to become one of the first teams to create fun games around it.

The way we implemented location-awareness into Stinktopia is admittedly a very small baby step, but we fully expect to invest a significant portion of our efforts onto geo going forward.

Do you have any updates planned for the game? If so, what will they include?

Definitely. Aside from on-going content updates, we plan on implementing several big feature updates such as team-based play, scavenger hunt driven collection play, and improved social interaction tools.

Have you any plans to bring the game to other mobile platforms, such as Android or WP7?

Until freemium titles can be more seamlessly supported on Android and WP7, we will focus our limited resources on other projects. Both of these platforms are on our radar.

What are BeAManGames's future plans in terms of games and platforms?

We consider our IP and technology created through Stinktopia to be our foundation off of which we will create many more games in 2011 and beyond.

We will continue to create social titles, but we will also likely create some one-offs that might be seemingly random, like Alarm Clock Monsters (see below) for example.

Titles by BeAMan Games:

Stinktopia [itunes link]: A highly ambitious city building game where you must create your own city from scratch. Social multiplayer connectivity is a large part of the game, if you hadn’t twigged on from some of the answers above. It's also free, what more could you want?

BeEarthed [itunes link]: Well presented match-three puzzler with a wind, earth, fire and water theme. Openfeint connectivity and the ability to play multiple games simultaneously rounds off the package. A free version with product sponsorship is also available [itunes link].

Alarm Clock Monsters on iPhone [itunes link]: Alarm clock app with a difference. Little monsters inhabit the app and dance to your chosen music to help you rise from your slumber. Inspired during a lunch meeting, apparently.

Alarm Clock Monsters on iPad [itunes link]: The same as above, but on a much larger screen. A free ad driven version is also available [itunes link].