The screenshot looks pretty similar to atomic tanks which is an awesome game.

Others are finding similarities with "Scorched Earth", "Worms" and some C64 games too.

The hardcore game thing has gone too far. Time to go play the 80s and 90s game and revive some oldies. The iPhone seems to be a better platform (financially) than web/flash.

Until Apple has a way to let users download a paid app but only charge after say 30 minutes, releasing a free lite version of an app must be the best way to market your paid game.

Is game design copyrightable? Everything I've heard about this game is that it's a clone of several others.

> it's a clone of several others.

Which indicated that it is not a copy of any single game. More like a remake of a genere of games. Fair enough.

Would you ever hire someone like him? Or recruit him as a co-founder?

I'd think twice.

The guy who create a successful app all by himself? You bet.

True, that's what it seemed to me at first.

However after some further thoughts, I changed my mind:

I've played Worms before. He pretty much copied the entire game design from Worms. So basically, he didn't even create the element that attracts the users in the first place.

He was smart to create a Lite version, so maybe he is intuitive about marketing. That's hard to say from one example.

He got lucky, but didn't realize that he did (apparently the app store environment is rather arbitrary). He thinks he has lots of talent at things he didn't design, so he went all-in by quitting his job. Now, he spends his afternoons watching Judge Judy (or as the article says.)

Yes, he knows how to write code. That's about all I can infer.

On top of that, he makes rash decision, lacks hindsight, spends his afternoons doing useless activities.

Now I don't know him. I'm sure he's a good guy. I just think the publicity he got was rather negative for his future.

But hey, any publicity is good publicity, right?

<gag></gag>