Stoke-on-Trent, United Kingdom – Lightwood Games has finally decided that it’s time to stop messing about and actually deliver their next game: Splat the Difference. The developer, we discovered, was having just too much fun during the testing phase to actually do the work needed to take it to market.
But why? It’s just a spot the difference game. There’s dozens of them already. What makes this one so amusing?
“Some of the sound effects sound like farts”, giggled Lightwood’s Chris Newman. For some people, it seems that never gets old. The intention of the sound effects, we’re told, was to sound like “custard being thrown at a window”. Indeed, this game sees players finding the difference between two pictures by marking them with “splats”.
Custard has to be really thick to make this work. The kind you had if you were in last sitting for school dinners and it had been standing there an hour, because nobody else wanted it on their chocolate cornflake cakes. Even then, it slides off more quickly than the in-game simulation would have you believe.
So let’s re-think. Something that makes a splat, and stays in place. Oh, paint! It’s like throwing paint at a window. Or at an iPad. But paint makes much more sense. If only we’d thought of that sooner.
When Newman interviewed himself for this article, he also started throwing out phrases like “world’s first”, “award winning” and “one million downloads”. But they’re nothing to do with this game. He’d just gone off on a tangent about Lightwood’s back catalogue.
He suspiciously failed to mention that the game was the offspring of a failed crowdfunding project. You know, the way everyone tries to get free money for something they’ve already made, or would still make anyway.
After sleeping rough with a sign that says “need money for premium content” for five weeks, Lightwood’s so-called leader had to reach for a credit card. However, as Newman points out, spending money you can’t afford does earn you all sorts of loyalty points. Anyone willing to do menial work in exchange for frequent flyer miles can contact Lightwood Games, where they will be warmly welcomed to the team.
Device Requirements:
* iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad
* Requires iOS 4.1 or later
* 13.5 MB
Pricing and Availability:
Splat the Difference 1.0 is Free and available worldwide exclusively through the App Store in the Games category.
Lightwood Games
Splat the Difference 1.0
Download from iTunes
Media Assets
Press Kit (zip)
Lightwood Games is a trading name of Lightwood Consultancy Ltd, a small company based on Stoke-on-Trent, UK. Established in 1999, Lightwood gained a reputation for producing high quality software for clients around the world. After a decade of delivering web-based projects for clients as diverse as motor traders, stock photography sites, roleplaying games and licensed real money poker operators, the developers found the lure of the new generation of mobile phones too strong to resist and extended their skills to provide consulting services in this sector. Since then, the company has continued to focus on producing high quality applications in the puzzle game genre, and now concentrates exclusively on its mobile game output. In April 2012, Lightwood’s developers won two awards at the UK’s first GameHack event for their game Plasma Party. They won “Best Use of Mobile” and “Most Innovative App” for developing a unique multiple screen gaming platform in just 24 hours. Copyright (C) 1999-2012 Lightwood Consultancy Ltd. All Rights Reserved. Apple, the Apple logo, iPhone, iPod and iPad are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. in the U.S. and/or other countries.
