Astraware reaches another sales mark as Sudoku HD gets released 19
by Derek Kessler
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 9:18 pm EST
Wed, 11 Jan 2012 9:18 pm EST 
Astraware's TouchPad Totalizer keeps marching on towards getting more of their games onto the TouchPad. First was Mahjong HD, and after hitting the 1000 sales mark, they started work on kicking out Astraware Sudoku HD. In a testament to the power and simplicity of the webOS PDK, Astraware was able to finish Sudoku relatively quickly, but in the time that it took to do that, they also passed the 2000 sales mark. What happens there? Astraware Solitaire HD, that's what! So keep an eye on the App Catalog, folks, Astraware's excellent Solitaire app is on its way.
Source: Astraware, App Catalog
19 Comments
Astraware has made or sponsored many games I have enjoyed over the years on my Palm devices, so it's sweet to see them coming out with webOS versions of some of their great games.
Thanks Astraware. Hope developers take not that quality apps sell on webOS!
I would love to get to a point where Astraware would recreate Tradewinds 2 for the Touchpad. If I knew it was in the list of possible apps I would be sure to purchase every app they put out.
Dear Astraware,
Can Tradewinds 2 or a recreation be in the list please? I don't care if its 5 apps away, I will purchase all of them just to get to that one. :)
Thanks,
Toad
Hi Toad
We're not currently adding any more games to the Totalizer, BUT, if we reach the target for Astraware Casino and get that released, then yes, there is a possibility of more games, and Tradewinds 2 may be one of those.
Astraware
Any plan to get Astraware Casino for Pre3?
We're currently focussed on the Touchpad, as there are a lot more Touchpad users out there. Whilst we'd love to cover all devices with our games, there need to be enough users willing to buy in order to cover the additional development cost of adding extra resolutions.
Astraware
CES 2012 and we are talking a soduko game.
CES 2009 or bust, apparently.
If you are a webOS user, CES 2012 has absolutely no relevance to you. Derek is there combing the convention day and night looking for something webOS-related and he hasn't found anything.
If only other major apps would have done the same... 5 months ago.
I never understood sudoku. Is this supposed to be a numeral version of scrabble?
http://www.geekchoice.com
Sudoku is a kind of logic puzzle. You look at the number placements you've been given, and by a process of elimination, you work out where the numbers should go in each column, row and box. The numbers 1-9 can only appear once in each of them.
hi astraware, thanks for making an effort with webOS! :)
I do have 1 doubt though, why isn't it possible to play sudoku on landscape view? Are all your tablet sudokus like that?
thanks
At present the game plays in portrait only. We tend to select the orientation based on what the game requires. Astraware Mahjong and Astraware Solitaire were better suited to landscape play to optimise the play area. As Sudoku is a square grid and the design of the game is to have the number and pencil mark buttons under the grid, it made the most sense to have the game in portrait.
Hope this helps to explain the thinking behind it.
I also wonder, Why Sudoku? I already have ~5 versions on my TP, and more on my pre2. and my droid3... I don't get it. I would rather see a game that isn't so widely available. Also, almost without fail, those others work in landscape mode too. That alone would be a deal killer because I prefer that view. I am kinda hooked on Sudoku and play it all the time.
The choice of games was initially down to the games that we were able to bring to the Touchpad most quickly (as it had taken us so long to get a device) and cost-effectively. We really didn't know if the market would be large enough to support the development costs before we started, so that's why we started with one game to test the waters.
Each of the games that we've done for the Touchpad was chosen because we had the relevant graphics resources available to bring the games to the Touchpad easily. We had a few people ask for Astraware Sudoku and for various reasons they prefer our implementation. We completely understand that it won't be the same for everybody, and we're not trying to put anyone under any obligation to buy our games. We want to develop for the platform, but equally we also have to, at very least, cover the cost of the development.
I see a little how you got the idea of making it in portrait mode, but to my opinion giving us the option of choosing how we want to play it wasn't that hard to implement, and would probably had given you guys more sales. I honestly use my TP 99% of the time in landscape mode, and as somebody else said every other sudoku game has the option of both views so its a negative for yours when compared...
I'm just trying to let you know that there are a lot of users that would love to have the option of changing the view depending on the circumstances.
Thanks for the feedback. As we said in the forum, if the majority of users request landscape, then it's something we can look at again later, but at the moment, the main priority is getting more games out.
Go Astraware!