Squiggle Racer is a down to the core racing game for mobile, developed by the Comb Over Charlie creator Charlie Schulze.
The game has been already featured on DailyAppShow (video in this post), and Today’s iPhone, and shows that fun gameplay can be achieved with simple concepts.
Here is my interview with Charlie.
Squiggle Racer is quite a different game than Comb Over Charlie, where did you get the idea from?
I’ve always loved those old school racing games. I remember playing the Super Sprint as a kid at our local Roller Skating rink / arcade.
Why “Squiggle”?
Squiggle goes back to funny nicknames my wife and I used to come up with for our dog RIley. I used to call him Professor Squigglebottoms when he would come to me while teaching at a Portfolio design school in Atlanta, GA.
What technologies did you use for each platform, and why?
For the iOS version I decided to just go native. I would normally have used Cocos2D & box2d, but instead this time used SpriteKit and its built in physics for detecting contact. I wanted to see all what SpriteKit had to offer, and it’s impressively easy to use, but hopefully there are a few features they will add sensors / motors for the physics. 😀
For the android version I ended up using Adobe AIR with some native extensions for Google Play. I have not done a lot with lua or unity in recent years and it was quick for me to pick up the flash / flex workflow.
How long did porting take to Android?
The port to Android ended up taking about 2 days. I already had the graphics and concept complete on iOS so the workflow was extremely fast.
How was the first week after launch?
This week has been pretty crazy. So far the game is well received. I normally get two types of feedback “I hate you for making this game, it’s so addictive” or “It’s too hard, I couldn’t get a single lap”. Hopefully they will keep trying.
What is next for Squiggle Racer?
Coming up in the immediate future are small bug fixes. After that I have a long list of v1.5 / 2.0 features including easier cars, more tracks, some pretty cool new animations and maybe some enhanced leaderboards & achievements.
