Rovio flies away from Angry Birds for all-new puzzler
No pigs or birds this time
With Rovio's Angry Birds hitting the billion-download mark recently, the Finnish developer has turned its attention to its next mobile game, revealed this week as Amazing Alex.
No birds. No pigs. No plush toy merchandise or movie tie-ins… just yet, anway.
Amazing Alex is an upgraded version of a 2011 iPad game Casey's Contraptions from Snappy Touch & Mystery Coconut, IP Rovio recently acquired. The original game is no longer on the market.
The concept is simple: a puzzle game in which users build a Heath Robinson-style path for their object to get to the end of the level.
“We are currently reworking the title to enhance it, and getting ready to re-introduce it in a true ‘expect the unexpected’ Rovio-style launch to an even larger audience,” said company chief Ville Heijari.
You can have a ganders at the trailer for Casey's Conceptions below. Oh, I take it back, there is a pig in there.
Amazing Alex is expected to touch down on mobile devices in a couple of months' time. Whether it ever comes close to matching the popularity of Angry Birds remains to be seen, but it certainly has the benefit of publicity behind it.
After all, this is the first game Rovio has taken under its wing that doesn't feature catapulted birds. A definite breath of fresh air. ®
COMMENTS
Re: Heath Robinson
"The world needs more Heath Robinson contraptions. There ought to be government grants for any new construction or product brought to market that can involves a demonstrable Heath-Robinson-ness."
Don't we give BAe Systems enough money as it is?
Heath Robinson
The world needs more Heath Robinson contraptions. There ought to be government grants for any new construction or product brought to market that can involves a demonstrable Heath-Robinson-ness.
In fact, most of the code I write could probably be classified as Heath-Robison-esque.... :)
Angry Birds was Rovio's first own app
Prior to that they quite succesfully made apps for other people with greater and lesser success, but they got paid. The paltry pay of making inferior apps to spec for others is probably what motivated them to make their own game. It's really frustrating knowing what wins and being prevented from delivering it by a phenomenally stupid client. To suffer such over and again must have driven Rovio's coders near insane. I'm glad they found a way out.
Re: Heath Robinson
@CarlC, are you agreeing with him, or are you the poor sod that got stuck maintaining his code?
