Dumpling Dimension Launches iPhone Spelling Bee Game, With a Fighting Twist

The iPhone app store is blessed with all sorts of innovative apps. TechCrunch recently reported an app that allows you to turn your phone into a WWII fighter, something I can see grown men playing with gleefully. Innovative apps like these definitely make the iPhone platform a whole lot richer than other similar platforms out there. Apart from fun and games, startups like 2359media, Foyage and BuUuk have wholeheartedly embraced the platform and in some cases, built their entire business on it. While geo services have been popular for such things, the dominant vertical has been games, and it looks like gaming is going to hold that position for a while. No surprise that iPhone developers, The Dumpling Dimension, launched their first app Bee Spelled, a spelling game with a unique twist. I got a chance to catch up with them just before the launch.

The Dumpling Dimension and Spelling Bee
The story revolves around helping a mildly overweight Spelling Bee to defend himself with word-powered attacks and abilities against a slew of other weird looking animal and robots. Think Boggle and Street Fighter combined, with the cartoony violence of Worms blended in. The game is very similar to Boggle where players form words and get points based on the combination of letters used as well as the length of the words. Longer words naturally equate to more powerful attacks and if you check out the video on The Dumpling Dimension website, you will see that you can pack some mean punches in there. While the concept of the game itself is nothing new, its mixed bag of elements and its unique approach to an old game may add some new appeal. I don’t see the game being massively popular to everyone, due to the simplicity and the fact that it is a word game, but I can definitely see the children’s demographic and the parents demographic getting excited about it. It’s interesting how these 2 demographic of users blend; mums and dads have been known to be big spenders on entertainment for their kids and what better game to buy their children than Bee Spelled, since it combines both entertainment and learning.

Free vs Paid Apps
I had an interesting discussion with the team on pricing for their app. At the discussion, I disagreed with the team’s decision that having a fixed price for the app (USD$0.99 introductory price) would be the way to go. In most cases, I strongly believe in the virtual goods model whereby apps are released free and scaled in a massive manner, and then monetization is done via the micro-transaction and virtual goods model. Interestingly, they shared with me a report on how paid apps are used much more than free apps, something they feel is important since they want their apps to be widely used, not just downloaded and deleted within a short while. The team values how much time users spend on the app, and not just how many apps get downloaded (quality vs quantity game here), so it was interesting to hear their view and insights on this.

In certain cases, it seems like paid apps, with unlimited free updates (or as long as the developer is willing to update the app) is the way to go. Classic example is Pocket God, one of the top iPhone apps around. They started out as a paid app and the developers constantly updated the app as frequently as they could. Those who bought the app got free updates forever. Total downloads figures as of July 09 put the number  at a staggering 1.2 million downloads. It’s interesting to see how Pocket God’s app ranking in the app store fluctuated and their downloads per day overtime. They shifted into the micro transaction model later on, while still maintaining a USD$0.99 price for the app. The Dumpling Dimension team have not looked at the micro-transaction model yet, but that would be something interesting for them long term. The beauty of the iPhone platform is that it provides enough options for developers to test out and try various models for their app. No one particular model that works for everyone.

The Dumpling Dimension team is definitely upbeat about the iPhone platform and games. While they have not further developed any new games yet, they already have some ideas in the pipeline and this is one iPhone app studio you want to keep your eyes on.