Skydiving Instructor Creates Parachute Game For iPhone

Online, April 6, 2010 (Newswire.com) - AirDrop Pro is the anticipated sequel to the original AirDrop developed by Christiaan Rendle and Mirko Kiric. AirDrop Pro is a game of skill and anticipation as you try and land parachutes on color-coordinated targets. The catch is, however, the wind speed is unpredictable, the planes increase their speed, the targets decrease in size; change position; and increase in number as the levels progress.

Background
"I got an iPhone the first day they were released, and ever since then I have wanted to produce a game for this cool new platform," said Christiaan, an Australian native now living in Los Angeles. The idea for the game came from his background as a skydiving instructor with over 12,000 jumps. "When it came time to really think up a good idea, a parachute game seemed like a winner."

Although Christiaan was an experienced graphic designer, he only had an entry level knowledge of computer programming. A mutual friend put him in touch with Mirko Kiric, an experienced developer living close by in Los Angeles. The two met in Hollywood for dinner and decided to form a partnership and produce the game. Mirko went to work learning the specifics of the new touch platform and producing the first AirDrop game in his spare time after work and on weekends.

"I was excited to work on the iPhone platform because it is relatively new and versatile, with a potential to reach a wide audience," Mirko said

After two months, the first AirDrop game was complete and ready for the world. "We submitted the game to Apple, and then waited, and waited," Christiaan recalls. "We had read that it took anywhere from a few days to over a month to get approved by Apple. There is nothing to do in that time, but just keep checking the status; "In Review" it would say every time we looked. Then one day, after about a month, it said "Approved". That was an exciting moment."

The original AirDrop was a great experience for the two entrepreneurs, but they soon realized that simply producing a game and getting it in the App Store didn't mean instant success. "When the App Store was brand new almost any app would do reasonably well and you really didn't need to market yourself," Christiaan said. "But that was when the App Store had only 10,000 titles, now there are about 200,000 - and standing out is hard to do.

As the reviews, ratings and comments started to filter in for AirDrop, while mostly positive, Christiaan and Mirko saw where they needed to improve the game-play. "We realized the game had a fundamental flaw: the skill level required for the game was one-dimensional. We decided to add multiple targets and planes to increase the difficulty of the levels -- the higher the level, the tougher it gets. We also wanted to take advantage of the iPhone's accelerometer, and the nature of the AirDrop game lent itself to a 'tilt' feature," Mirko said.

"We spent a few months reworking the entire game, pretty much rebuilding it from scratch. We plugged into the accelerometer allowing users to tilt the iPhone to effect the angle of each parachute descent, we increased the wind variables and physics of each drop, and we created 16 levels of game play," Christiaan said. "Each level gets increasingly more difficult, eventually challenging the player to manage three color coordinated drops at a time".

"We submitted the new app to Apple on a Tuesday, expecting it to take a similar amount of time as the first review process, and by Thursday it was 'Approved for Sale,'" said Mirko. "I am glad Apple is making improvements in the approval process because it lets developers publish and push out critical updates faster."

"We have been very pleased with the response to AirDrop Pro," Christiaan said. "The first day we released it, we only sold about 5 or 6 copies. It's only been a few weeks, and now we're selling hundreds and that number is increasing. We have been getting the word out on forums and blogs, and we have had some excellent reviews of the game on sites like appsafari.com and appmodo.com. We also had the application translated into 6 languages which has increased foreign sales."

Christiaan and Mirko are currently working on a new version of AirDrop Pro with online scoring and even more levels including up to five targets. They are also going to be releasing a light version of their game, AirDrop Free. You can download AirDrop Pro from iTunes at http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/id363670888#

For additional information contact: Christiaan Rendle
Email Address: [email protected]
Website: www.christiaanrendle.com