Macera Technologies, KL gets into iPhone games

Kuala Lumpur based Macera Technology is developing its first iPhone game, 'Mithril Wars' which is set to release in April 2010.

'Mithril Wars' is a single player 2D turn-based strategy game. The player controls a group of mechs (robots) to complete mission objectives. Mission types include base assaults, base defence, escorts, rescues, etc. Mechs in the game can be upgraded with new unlockable weapons and body parts as the game progresses.

Speaking to AnimationXpress APAC Wai Yin from Macera Technologies shared, “The player is a commander of a group of mercenaries. In the far future, mankind has discovered a new energy resource called Mithril. You offer your services to several factions who are engaged in a war for control of Mithril. We haven't finalized the story yet, so it's still subject to change. The target audience for this game is from 6 to 30 years and more.”

With the total budget of RM 50,000 the game will be priced at just under USD$5. There are currently 5 developers working on this project amongst the 10 full time developers and a beta version of the game will be released soon to generate feedback and create a bit of hype amongst iPhone gamers. The game is expected to be completed and will hit the App Store around April 2010.

Macera Technologies is looking for all platforms to promote its game and they will do so using various blogs and the ever expanding facebook which is a good medium for online publicity and marketing these days as it has a global reach. Other than the usual apple App Store the company is also considering publishing the game via Ad-funded platforms such as Greystripe and AdMob.

This is the first iPhone game that Macera Technologies is making as previously the company has been operating over the J2ME platform. Wai elaborated this business move in detail by saying, “Given that this is our first iPhone game, we do not have very high expectations. We hope to learn from this experience and from the feedback from players of the game to develop even better iPhone games in the future.” He added saying, “The iPhone gives us more creative freedom not bounded by the technicalities of J2ME. Our single biggest challenge with J2ME was device fragmentation. With the iPhone, this is no longer an issue and the hardware of the iPhone allows us to develop more immersive games than previously possible on J2ME. The iPhone has also unexpectedly evolved into an alternative gaming platform since its introduction in 2007 and with the opening of the Apple App Store, it makes sense for us to develop iPhone games.”

Macera has about 40 J2ME games in its catalog till now and their Gempak Games have been the best selling series of games which include games like – Fatal Chaos, Kaoru’s Cake house and Gempak All Starz 2008. Macera specializes in making Action and Puzzle games as all the games are developed inhouse.

It has been developing J2ME-based mobile games since 2005. We have a fairly large market presence in the East Asian region - Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Hong Kong, China, Taiwan. In Malaysia they have tied up with major telecom operators like Maxis and DiGi.