Ian Marsh is an indie iPhone developer who sent me a redemption code to his latest game, Textropolis. He probably found me after my somewhat embarrassing nerdgasm over Wurdle, another iPhone word puzzle game that i discovered last week. i’m growing to appreciate the economy of design in many of these iPhone games: they’re lean, succinct, and – dare i say it? – pithy.

There. i said it. i said “Pithy.”

Compared to Wurdle, Textropolis is a much more zen-like game. It has no time limit, nothing exploding, and there’s no real pressure to muscle through it. Instead, you’re pleasantly trying to form as many words as possible from the letters that comprise various city names. The more points you score, the closer you get to unlocking star ratings for each city. Five stars are more stars than no stars, and that’s better, so you want more stars. Because … well, stars. You know how it goes. The “tropolis” part of the fiction has buildings springing up as you earn more stars, but i wasn’t paying close attention, because stars.

Probably the best feature to recommend Textropolis is the little plane that flies by with a banner announcing the definition of the word you just made. i’m a little tired of entering words like “AIT”, “TED”, and “STURMPUMFLUMPER” (95000 points!) in Wurdle without knowing what they actually mean. Textropolis makes you smart AND relaxes you AT THE SAME TIME. Also, there are stars. You can have five of them.

An obvious drawback to any major word game geek is that Textropolis uses a limited dictionary compared to the likes of Wurdle and others, which employ the official Scrabble/Boggle dictionary. i was a little annoyed that Textropolis refused to admit “TOWINGS” (as in, “i would park my car there, but for all the recent towings”), and “GITS” (as in, “i’d give you a ride home, but those gits towed my car again). The Textropolis dictionary is just limited enough to be frustrating.

Marsh vs. the Third Degree

Ian was kind enough to answer a few questions about iPhone development. And since his previous games have topped the charts, best take heed, y’hear? The redemption code for a free copy of Textropolis that Ian sent me isn’t valid for Canadian LOSERS like me, so if you watch closely, i’ll be burying it in the copy of this post so that ONE LUCKY READER can have a free copy of the game.

For the rest of you who try to redeem the code after it’s been used up, the game is only 99 cents. Suck it up and buy it already. i live in one of the richest countries in the world. i burn dollar bills to light all my new toys on fire. Give the man your 99 cents.

Untold Entertainment: Ian, thank you for joining us in our cool pirate lair shaped like a giant skull that looks totally awesome.

Ian Marsh: Glad to be here.

Untold Entertainment: Tell us about the origins of Textropolis.

Ian Marsh: Textropolis began its life as a small side project I worked on at a small failing Mobile Game Studio that was my first job out of college. It was J2ME, all of 63k and not too pretty. But it was all we would play in the office, and ever since I heard about the iPhone SDK I’ve been dreaming of making it for the iPhone.

Untold Entertainment: Did you hit any snags while developing the game?

Ian Marsh: Maybe the biggest challenge in the game was how to save the state of each level for 5 separate players. I ended up using a bit mask so each word in the city had a designated bit. This means that each city’s state can be saved by a string no longer than 20 characters or so.

Untold Entertainment: (smoking a rad-looking pipe) I see, I see. As an indie developer, how do you fund your projects?

Ian Marsh: Well the first game or two I put out were made in my spare time while still working at a full time job. Luckily those ended up selling well enough for me to quit my job and make games full time.

Untold Entertainment prez Ryan Henson Creighton and developer Ian Marsh (both obscured by foliage) stroll around Untold’s island interview getaway.

Untold Entertainment: Have your iPhone games done well enough to cover costs and to turn a profit?

Ian Marsh: Yes. (that’s good news! -ed.)

Untold Entertainment: Are you considering porting your games to other platforms, or are your iPhone controls too technology-specific to do that?

Ian Marsh: No, this would be a lot of work for a single developer. I’m just concentrating on the iPhone for now!

Untold Entertainment: What lessons have you learned from your first three games? Are you going to do anything differently for your fourth, or have you pretty much mastered the development process with your third game?

Ian Marsh: Start with solid gameplay and keep it simple. In my opinion the best type of mobile games are still simple pick up and play games even with the iPhone’s advanced hardware.

Untold Entertainment: What are you working on now?

Ian Marsh: Right now I’m promoting Textropolis. On the iPhone making the game is only half the battle unless you get terribly lucky. When you put out a game you have to try and keep it afloat long enough to get noticed, reviewed, and blogged about.

Untold Entertainment: Well, fat chance of that happening. Would you like to play Jell-O Twister?

Ian Marsh: Would i!

(debauchery ensues)

As promised, here’s the single-use redemption code for a FREE copy of Textropolis, courtesy of the developer (for amazing US citizens only! Code not for use by worthless, and often stupid Canadians):

TP73HFKLAJE9

Let me know if you were the lucky reader who successfully redeemed the code! If two or more people respond, i’ll know y’all know how to spell “LIAR”.

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