Screen shots from Universal Everything's first iPhone app, "Chase The Dot".

Addicted to gaming? Addicted to your iPhone? You might need Universal Everything's first iPhone app, a mobile game called Chase The Dot that reached number two on Apple's free app chart with more than a million downloads. Earlier this month, the British design collective released an updated version - Chase The Dot Insane - to the iTunes store at a cost of $0.99.

Based on a suggestion from UE founder Matt Pyke's eight-year-old son and developed by Microlemon, Chase The Dot challenges users to tap a certain number of randomly-appearing white dots within 30 seconds. When a user increases the level of difficulty, the dots appear faster and smaller. Key to the game's addictiveness is its bold design aesthetic and online ranking system.

The Insane edition took three weeks to develop and maintains the simple and bold graphic interface of the original but boasts added elements such as Evil Dot and Double Dot. Universal Everything will also add new levels for free to increase the game's "replay value".

"Developing the app is the easy part," says Pyke. "Making it stand out from the crowd and get noticed is extremely difficult. We aim to continue to innovate and make the best games we possibly can whilst adhering to our principles of simplicity and aesthetic appeal."

Boards recently caught up with UE's Matt Pyke to find out how he developed this addictive dot dash.

What was it like working with the iPhone's application programming interface (API)?
Brilliant. The iPhone API is a model of clarity and it is easy to develop applications very rapidly as the building blocks are all in place. To give an example, animating the random movement of a dot would normally take lines and lines of code and some math. Using Core Animation, this animation is handled for you: all you have to do is specify the start and end points. Also, with the iPhone SDK [operating system], you have lots of great-looking, pre-built user interface elements to choose from.

Can you talk us through the building of the app?
We started from a sketch of a finger touching a dot on a Post-It note. We then decided upon the look for the user interface - big, bold and simple - and sketched out a storyboard showing all the screens within the game. It was then a question of moving over to XCode [part of the operating system] and creating our views, view controllers and model objects to store any data, like the user's best times. This was very much a design-led project so it was important that we made sure we got the look and feel we wanted before writing much code.

Once we had the views set-up and looking good, we began to think about the game play elements. In the new version of Chase The Dot, we introduced new ideas like the Evil Dot and the Double Dot. If you accidentally touch the Evil Dot, it adds one dot onto the number you have to clear. Double Dots are two dots which have to be touched simultaneously. Logically, these remove two dots from the number of dots you have to clear - so they are definitely a good thing.

Finally, we thought about the sound effects. In keeping with the simplicity of the game, we decided to go for a retro feel - very much an early ‘80s video game theme. We gave Simon Pyke of Freefarm a brief and he created the sounds for us and did an excellent job. We feel that sound within games is often overlooked and we aim to make a feature of it in our games.

Universal Everything designed their own online ranking system for Chase The Dot Insane.

What were the biggest hurdles in creating the game?
Creating the online ranking system was perhaps the trickiest part of development. We wanted something lightweight that fitted seamlessly into the look of the game, so we decided to create our own system. Not having any great knowledge of server-side technologies, we had to learn pretty fast.

What were the design cues you used for the game?
Ergonomically speaking, we wanted oversized buttons, using large fonts to add to the super-simplicity of it all. This was inspired by the usability of kids toys and mobile phones for elderly people. Aesthetically we have gone for a bold, graphic direction in reaction to the majority of games/apps, which are polished, shiny and perhaps over-embellished.

How successful is the paid iteration?
It is too early to say how well the paid version will do, but we are very optimistic. We hope that people will recognize that we are trying to create something a little different from most developers - and with the regular addition of new, free levels we are offering great replay value.

How are you compensated and how much does Apple get?
We keep 70% of the profits. Apple receives 30%.

Do you see yourself getting into this field more?
Certainly. It's another context to design for - offering a great deal of scope beyond conventional screen formats. We are developing more games/toys/and art projects for iPhone.

Download Chase The Dot here.

www.universaleverything.com
www.microlemon.com