So you may have noticed there's a lot of buzz around the RocketHQ about our next game, SpaceCrash. 

SpaceCrash is going through the approval process over at Apple as we speak, and will be the first free RocketHands game available on the iPhone.  "Why SpaceCrash?" you may ask.  "Why not RocketFuse Lite?" you may also ask.  "Was that with anchovies?" is a question you certainly would not ask, if you know what's good for you.

So lets start from the beginning.

One of the original rocketeers, Jack "beetlefeet" Casey*, expressed a desire to spend a full week working on a free game.  The quickest route to this was using similar art assets to our recently released RocketFuse and go from there.  After some discussion as to what the game was going to be, we quickly decided that SpaceCrash could work well as an advert for RocketFuse - indeed, it could work better than any potential RocketFuse Lite app we may have released.  We broke the scenario down like this:

• Making a Lite version of your app, while some might have you believe is easy, still requires a predilection to foresight and hard work, traits of which I do not approve of lightly.

• A Lite version of a game provides end-users with the game, simple.  It might be limited graphically, or in the gameplay, or just in pure timelength terms, but it's not really generating interest in the product - the product is being given away with some aspect of its functionality withheld for ransom.

• Offering a completely new game does not seem to contradict Apple's clarifications on an application being able to stand up to consumption on it's own merits - in fact, it seems to uphold the convention quite nicely.

• A brand new game that is fun and satisfying in it's own right, with aesthetic consistency with our other products, and unobtrusive advertising, could potentially yield as high a conversion rate than other traditional methods of advertising, if not higher.

The reasoning for this stands that we will still be getting a significant number of people consuming what we have to offer, without actually partaking in what we have to sell.  They're having fun in a well-made setting that's visually catchy and unique, but they haven't yet played RocketFuse.  We haven't yet given up our milkshake to the yard.

I like that about this model of advertising.  We're advertising the fun and quality of our products, and are proving it by offering brand new content for free.  As long as SpaceCrash communicates this well, I think both games will do smashingly.

So, was it more work in the end?  Probably.

Will it work better than other methods?  We'll see!

In the meantime, be sure to keep an eye out for some more RocketFuse and SpaceCrash news soon, as well as some brand new flavour with what some of the other RocketHands have been playing with lately.  dollarmAnthony out!

*Also known as Jack "immabakeacakewithyourfaceinnit" Casey.  Just... don't make him angry, it's safer that way.