Bubble Ball: The Best-Selling Free App Made By A 14-Year Old
January 17, 2011
Bubble Ball is a simple physics puzzler not unlike too many others in the iOS App Store. What's so special about it? This is one of those apps that surrounds its quick success with a catchy background story.
Bubble Ball, and the developing company Nay Games, are creations of 14-year old Robert Nay of Spanish Fork, Utah. Perhaps, that's not extremely interesting to some, but what could be is that Robert is being recognized by media outlets like ABC News for Bubble Ball's quick success.
According to the Nay Games blog, Bubble Ball reached the #1 free app, and was downloaded more than 1.5 million times, within the first two weeks. ABC News notes that there were 400,000 downloads on Thursday alone, and it has reached 2 million downloads since yesterday.
The game challenges a user to complete nearly two dozen puzzles, with the objective to get the ball from the starting point to the finish flag.
Once a level is chosen, drag the objects provided in the upper bin to the gameplay area below. It's important to remember, beige objects will fall and tumble until they rest on a solid platform, but gray (metal looking) pieces will stay put. Beige pieces will also automatically adjust. If you place a beige object where it overlaps a platform, it will be placed above the platform once play begins.
Three power-ups include: speed boost, lift or drop, and slowdown. The ball will be effected by these power-ups as it passes through them.
While I find this to be a neat tale, and even a more than worthy free download, I feel ABC News made it seem a bit too astonishing. "The company that has just dethroned the biggest boys in technology," is quite the stretch. That's ignoring the fact that ABC News didn't even care to do the App Store profit equation properly, as they made this kid sound like the next multi-millionaire.
As the saying goes, "never say never," but does anyone think Robert is truly ready to take on some other successful $.99 iPhone and iPod touch game developers like Rovio Mobile (Angry Birds), ZeptoLab (Cut the Rope), and Halfbrick Studios (Fruit Ninja and Monster Dash)?
Bubble Ball is designed for iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 3.0 or later, and is available in the App Store for free.
Bubble Ball, and the developing company Nay Games, are creations of 14-year old Robert Nay of Spanish Fork, Utah. Perhaps, that's not extremely interesting to some, but what could be is that Robert is being recognized by media outlets like ABC News for Bubble Ball's quick success.
According to the Nay Games blog, Bubble Ball reached the #1 free app, and was downloaded more than 1.5 million times, within the first two weeks. ABC News notes that there were 400,000 downloads on Thursday alone, and it has reached 2 million downloads since yesterday.
The game challenges a user to complete nearly two dozen puzzles, with the objective to get the ball from the starting point to the finish flag.
Once a level is chosen, drag the objects provided in the upper bin to the gameplay area below. It's important to remember, beige objects will fall and tumble until they rest on a solid platform, but gray (metal looking) pieces will stay put. Beige pieces will also automatically adjust. If you place a beige object where it overlaps a platform, it will be placed above the platform once play begins.
Three power-ups include: speed boost, lift or drop, and slowdown. The ball will be effected by these power-ups as it passes through them.
While I find this to be a neat tale, and even a more than worthy free download, I feel ABC News made it seem a bit too astonishing. "The company that has just dethroned the biggest boys in technology," is quite the stretch. That's ignoring the fact that ABC News didn't even care to do the App Store profit equation properly, as they made this kid sound like the next multi-millionaire.
As the saying goes, "never say never," but does anyone think Robert is truly ready to take on some other successful $.99 iPhone and iPod touch game developers like Rovio Mobile (Angry Birds), ZeptoLab (Cut the Rope), and Halfbrick Studios (Fruit Ninja and Monster Dash)?
Bubble Ball is designed for iPhone and iPod touch running iOS 3.0 or later, and is available in the App Store for free.
