WGTC: It’s notoriously hard to make a dent in the mobile scene, so what advice would you give to other developers trying to make an impact on iOS and Android?
MJ: Seeing as you can’t compete with the big guys, don’t. Make something they can’t.
WGTC: rymdkapsel was previously available on Sony’s PlayStation Mobile platform, which closed down. Is there any desire to release that as a full-fledged PSN release, and what are your thoughts on Sony discontinuing the service?
MJ: PSM was an interesting experiment, though flawed in many ways. To be perfectly honest, it stayed around longer than I thought it would. Nevertheless, it’s sad that you can’t buy rymdkapsel on your Vita anymore.
In a perfect world, I’d do a re-release on PSN proper. But, and it’s a big but, this would require a completely new port. Ports are a lot of work and rymdkapsel is getting old.
WGTC: Both twofold inc. and rymdkapsel are priced at $3.99. We’re seeing more and more mobile games go free-to-play, and developers race to the bottom pricing-wise. Are you making a conscious effort to avoid devaluing your games, and do you feel like more developers should have more realistic pricing structures?
MJ: I much prefer the “premium-market” way of doing things, just for egotistical reasons. Having to make money is an unfortunate aside to my game making, so the further apart I can keep them, the better.
Free to play has some nice advantages, mainly in making the games accessible to a wider audience, I realize that $4 for a game can be a lot of money for some and it’s unfortunate that they’re simply locked out now.
WGTC: Do you have any interest in the console market at this time, or do you want to focus on mobile and PC?
MJ: I absolutely have an interest in consoles. If I ever make a game that would fit on console, I’m going to try my best to get it on one.
WGTC: Give us your best pitch on why gamers should pick up twofold inc. when it launches on January 28!
MJ: If you want a smooth, clever puzzler without time limits to entertain you when you have a couple of minutes to spare, then twofold inc. is the game for you!
That concludes our interview, but we’d like to give a big thank you to Martin Jonasson for taking the time to speak with us. Martin can be found on Twitter at @grapefrukt, and more information on all of his games can be found on grapefrukt’s official website.