Hungry Shark
Highbury-based studio pleased with the appetite of iPhone gamers.
Who says smartphone games are the inferior cousins of the traditional console? One developer, Future Games of London, has produced some astonishingly long playing sessions on its latest title Hungry Shark, Part 1. The current top global score of 4,172,625 took an extraordinary 3 hours and 7 minutes.
Times in excess of one hour haven’t been unusual and sessions in excess of 45 minutes have been common since the arcade action game launched at the end of April. This week the game was No. 2 in the Action Games section of the App Store and the Highbury based studio is working on a new free level to give their psychopathic shark an even harder time in the ocean depths.
Lindsay Charlton, FGOL’s Executive Chairman said: “ My own background is television programme making but I’ve noticed huge similarities between the two disciplines. A depth of story or challenge are crucial when you are building a passive TV audience but they are also essential for games players. To achieve a high score requires a strategy that needs to be learned. It also provides entertaining engagement which is a hallmark of other successful smartphone games and all great content. We don’t claim that our top play time is a record but is has to be a lesson for us in future in such a competitive market.”
Future Games is also enhancing the game for a future launch on the Apple iPad.