Regular readers will know that our first game, under development, has the codename of Vegemite, the Australian equivalent of Marmite. Obviously this name continues in the vein of our company being called Kwalee which is the Australian Aborigine for “wait for me”. Also the name Vegemite has an oblique reference to what is actually in the game.

For this first offering we wanted to build and run server based technology so that we could incorporate multiplayer and social elements. So Vegemite is a multiplayer game that many will already be familiar with in the real world. However we have, after extensive play testing, introduced new elements that completely alter the strategy of the game. We have put considerable effort into making sure that the core gameplay is compelling and is fun.

To play the game we have taken a long look at the user interface. The idea of a virtual joystick on the screen doesn’t work very well for us because once you have your fingers on it you lose half the playing area. We far prefer more innovative controls that make better use of the characteristics of smartphones, such as you can find in the various Flick games.

One thing you can be sure of is Easter Eggs. We are hiding some strange things in the game, perhaps some of them will never be found. Certainly there will be more to the game than initially meets the eye. We are also putting a lot of effort into making it look really, really good with Jay and Alexei being very creative with their Wacom tablets.

Vegemite doesn’t have a real name yet, but we have narrowed it down to a few candidates that follow a common theme. We want a name that is exceedingly distinctive and memorable yet which in some way also describes the game or some major elements of it. What we are working around will definitely do this!

We have all been playing Vegemite for a few weeks now, the development team uploading new builds into all our iPhones from time to time. So we all carry the game round with us 24/7 and play against each other on the server, having much fun.

Obviously Vegemite is our first game so we don’t expect it to reach half a billion downloads like Angry Birds has done. However we do expect to give players a great entertainment experience. And we expect to learn a huge amount about all sorts of things to do with developing and publishing apps. Most of all we will be listening to your input so we can provide you with better and better entertainment in future.