Earlier this month, Helsinki-based mobile developer Grand Cru released Supernauts on iOS devices. The game, which asks players to rebuild Earth in outer space, was a fast success, passing over one million downloads in its first six days on the market.
Combining Minecraft-esque material collection and world-building with puzzle solving, Supernauts has clearly struck a chord with mobile gamers around the world. We had a chance to chat with Grand Cru Co-Founder and CEO Markus Pasula about the game's early success, and what we can expect from the team, and Supernauts, going forward.
Markus Pasula: We did believe something like this is possible and because of that we were well prepared with our servers to take up the task. Supernauts is a very demanding game from server scalability perspective, as it's realtime multiplayer and all the players are creating incredible amounts of 3D data that gets shared with others. Last week we have been very busy working on the next 2 updates of Supernauts.
IMA: Plenty of mobile games are released each month, and even each week. What do you think made Supernauts the one that "clicked" with so many users so quickly?
MP: We believe the main viral thing in Supernauts is that it lets people express themselves and be creative, and after that they want to show their creations to their friends. Additionally we believe that it's a very fun and social game.
IMA: Has the growth of Supernauts been boosted by Grand Cru's marketing spending (where applicable), or did the game grow organically?
MP: We did not do user acquisition marketing before reaching 1 million because we wanted to be 100% sure that we have no server scalability issues at launch.
IMA: Given Supernauts' massive early success on iOS, can we expect to see the game released on Android, Kindle or Windows devices sometime soon?
MP: We are not working on versions for any of these platforms yet. We want to make sure that we do this one platform perfectly first.
IMA: What sort of content updates can we expect in Supernauts going forward?
MP: We will be listening to the wishes of the Supernauts community. High on the list are avatar customizations, more blocks, more missions and more contests. We see Supernauts as a platform with endless possibilities for future updates. The great thing with this kind of Sandbox game is that we can add new features that almost change the entire game. We will focus on making even more cool things possible in player creativity and an even deeper social experience.
