Please welcome a new development studio to your friendly, futuristic Scottish Games Network. Ladies and gentlemen, we give you Binary Pumpkin.
Alongside the appropriately awesome name, the company was founded by two veterans of the games business. Lol Scragg and Bruce McNeish were two of the founders of Cohort Studios and have worked on a wide variety of original titles, as well as franchises including Formula One, Harry Potter and Call of Duty in their 30+ years of experience.
Binary Pumpkin is already living up to its name, by releasing its first game, mere weeks after the company sprang into existence. Rather than focus on the FPS genre, or spend months tweaking and fiddling with a complex concept, Binary Pumpkin’s first title is something which focuses on a game which already has an enormous potential audience and which has already proven business model.
Yeah, yeah, say what you will. The potential of a mass market bingo game, which allows players to compete remotely and makes it simple and convenient to play a couple of quick games, is huge. It moves beyond the existing audience of ‘gamers’ and reaches out to the far broader group of players, the majority of whom are used to paying micro-payments for each individual game.
It’s a smart move.
Pumpkin Bingo is now LIVE and unleashed for Android devices. Android may sound like an unusual choice for a lead platform. However, while Android users are typically less likely to pay for content than their iOS using counterparts, the number of active Android devices and the huge range of devices means that the overall market is far more diverse and encompasses players that may not be found as often on iOS.
But Binary Pumpkin has pushed things even further than that. Pumpkin Bingo features a unique monetisation system, which allows players to pay what they want, based on what they think the game is worth.
Since it launched, shortly before Christmas, Pumpkin Bingo official figures show that the game has been downloaded 2,500 times and attracted over 160 reviews, averaging around 4.4 out of 5 stars.
We spoke to Lol and Bruce about the company and the game. Bruce told us:
“We have taken a simple game mechanic and added some social competition as we feel that competing against your friends for a weekly high score is just fun. Our aim is to create games that the current market wants to play, and we think we have done that with Pumpkin Bingo!”
Lol agreed:
“It is always a nervous time when you release your product into the marketplace, however the amount of positive comments we have received make it all worthwhile. When you get an average rating of 4.4, you know you have created something that people enjoy playing! Now we are pushing to get the iOS version out as soon as possible.”
The company is now working furiously to bring Pumpkin Bingo to a who’s who of other devices and platforms, including iOS (your Apples), Nook, Kindle, Google TV, PlayStation Mobile and the Amazon App Store.
It’s not often we can bring you news about a game which brings together the generations and enables family togetherness. Pumkin Bingo however, is one of those all to rare games. Binary Pumpkin’s tag line for the title says it all – and we strongly encourage you to take it to heart…
Pumpkin Bingo; the game you can play against your Mum!
What are you waiting for? You can find Binary Pumpkin online, on Facebook and Twitter.
