Education and Science, Internet, Lithuania, Technology, Telecomunications

The point of the game titled "Suicide Sheep" is simple – to save a mined sheep from blowing up. Even though the huge popularity of the mischievous game has not yet brought a fortune to its developers, they say they have no stress about it, adding that it is experience they value most, writes LETA.

Mantas Radvila, co-founder of an IT company Edukacines Sistemos that created the game, stated that the first version of the game was an educational one, called "Eco-labyrinth". The point of it was to teach and encourage people to sort waste. The strategy involved moving a terrain so that pieces of waste fall into appropriate bins.

"In order to raise our profile and gain more experience, we decided to upload our game to the Apple App Store. "Eco-labyrinth" was very easy to play, yet interesting. Besides, it was well adapted to iPads and iPhones. Later, we came up with a more interesting scenario, we changed the graphics and so the "Suicide Sheep" was developed," recalls Radvila.

The final version of "Suicide Sheep" hit the App Store late last year. This January, an on-line version came out, making it possible to be rescuing the sheep on ordinary computers. The on-line version of "Suicide Sheep" soon spread through Flash game sites and its popularity suddenly hit the roof: 200,000 unique players tried the game in five days, the figure growing to half a million by the end of January.

Radvila credits the entire creative team with such incredible success: Arvydas Burdulis, Modestas Povilaitis, Migle Saulyte, and Mantas Kavaliauskas.

The game's popularity is currently on a slow decline. It does not, however, upset its creators.

"We created the game for marketing and market research. To be honest, we merely wanted to see if it was possible to be successful without any marketing campaign, by just presenting the game. There are many who believe that all one has to do is to create a good product and success will come. We can confirm that this is not true. In order to make a game popular, one has to start thinking about it even before developing. You must know what ways and channels can help you reach your target audience and use them," Radvila advised.

In theory, a game or an application could become an App Store hit on the day it is uploaded, when it appears in the New Apps section. But you should not bet on it as dozens or even hundred new apps are uploaded each day.

The creators of the game are planning to develop a version for iPhone and update the one for iPad, adding new functions that some players currently miss.

It is likely that they will charge for the upgraded version.

Moreover, Edukacines Sistemos came into contact with a company in China that is developing a gaming platform for smart TVs and motion-controlled computers.