One of my friends is not happy right now. http://www.grabup.com/uploads/7670d4cf3feb6e5f53a469e59935e8...

Switch the art and call it Earth 2025 or Utopia or Oilwar.

switching the art is easy (for us) making the thing in the first place is the hard part.

Is it sad that I've played two of those games and recognized the names?

I think you're much younger than me so it makes me sadder.

Oh, fuck me. Why didn't I think of this idea. This game is going to knock the ball out of the park.

Anybody who owned a modem in the 90s knows how dangerously addictive these games are.

"Anybody who owned a modem in the 90s knows how dangerously addictive these games are."

As embarrassing as this is to admit, I was actually addicted to Idle RPG at one point. This is the IRC game where you level up based on how long you can go without saying anything.

Or a TI83 during high school.

There's still plenty of room in the market for similar games -- pick your theme: sci-fi, fantasy, pirates, ninjas, vampires, etc.

Working on stuff that matters? http://radar.oreilly.com/2009/01/work-on-stuff-that-matters-...

Making something people want?

Good point. If people make money by selling games, that's awesome.

But personally, I don't respect this kind of game. There are a lot more interesting games to be made for the platform.

That's probably why I posted a dig. I like clean arcade games like iilwy, stories with depth (e.g. oblivion), and things that get me excited like zombies and FPS. For me, most social games on facebook are a whole world of "who gives a fuck?". No offense.

Let me stress that they are fine businesses, just not my kind of game.

yeah lets work on something that matters like mailing in twitter posts...

Ahahaha. Touche.

hahaha!

Interesting problems and apps that try to change the world rarely intersect with things that have a high profit-per-effort ratio... Projects like this have a much higher probability of making a tidy profit and probably not much of a chance of making enough money to fund space travel. Nothing wrong with that.

I personally don't like a lot of popular software (from FB apps to MySpace to Flash games), but engineering for the masses clearly works.

No offense taken at all. Different strokes for different folks.

When did it become so bad to just work on what you want?

imob 10 respect points: $0.99

imob 75 respect points: $4.99

imob 200 respect points: $9.99

imob 400 respect points: $19.99

How delicious.

The only gripe is not discounting those points.

Edit: Oh, yeah, join my mob! 100260987

Edit: 5 minutes in and I'm addicted.

Edit: Typos in the FAQs.

Edit: This burns the battery faster than the Energizer bunny in bed.

Typos=features

Are you guys updating things on the fly? The minimum bank balance seems to have just changed from 2,000 to 1,000. (And it still says 2,000 in the FAQ.)

Also, how does one gain mobsters? The FAQ seems to suggest it is by inviting friends, but I see some level five characters with dozens of mobsters. I don't even know that many people with iPhones. Are these just NPCs or what?

there are issues for sure. the bank seems like something we should look at. the forums are mentioning this too

Someone attacked me right as I was putting all my money into the bank, and now I have $-100,000.

Then I turned around and deposited my -$100,000 into the bank, so now my bank balance reads $-184,000.

update: I quit the app and opened it again and now my bank balance is positive. And somehow it has jumped to $171335824. Sweet.

update 2: The fact that you can gain XP by winning a fight on defense seemingly makes the game unbalanced. You can just put all your points into defense and none into attack, and then wait until other people attack you so you can win the fight.

I attacked someone and it said I got some $70k and some odd change. But then the connection died and when I logged in I had magically lost $10k of my original :(

Is there any way to get respect points other than by paying for them?

Don't seem to be. I just paid $9.99 and am wreaking havoc.

Wow, that looks very cool.

Most MMOs generate revenue through subscriptions. I see that the iMob game itself and the gameplay are free. Are you selling in-game ads or something?

You buy apps that unlock virtual currency so the entire game is open but you have to pay to get ahead quicker.

Most games like this (and all of the super proftiable ones) have monetized through virtual goods.

I recall hearing somewhere that YC doesn't fund games. I can see why they may have made an exception here though.

I recall them saying explicitly that they also consider games. Isn't Draftmix a game, too?

Sure, we fund games. We don't understand them as well as other types of apps, but we'll consider them.

If you want to make a real killing make an iphone app that reads lpmud code.... There was a huge following of MUD's in the 90's and I am sure you could find a lot of worlds and items already created... just need an interface to read the code. SeaWolf add me 151020688

I think these text-based iPhone games could be a pretty good thing. I have a couple ideas bouncing around right now. I'll be following how much steam this app picks up...though I'm sure if this idea does become popular, the market will get flooded.

I don't get why you need an iPhone app for this. Wouldn't an iPhone-optimized site be enough? You'll also draw in more players, and it'd be easy to add a desktop frontend.

1. itunes store distribution 2. easy way to charge iphone users 3. it looks and plays way better than a iphone web app could

I haven't downloaded this, because I've got an iPod touch and my college has no wireless. Is there anything that I could do WITHOUT wireless, or would I pretty much be screwed when I go back in a few days?

the game continues while you are offline so if you go away you might have been beat up a few times but you will be all recharged and ready to go.

hi, i think i have found a way how to make alot of cash on imob by doing nothing, all you have to do is wait for it to lag this means all your stats go to - somthing, when it does quit the app then get it again but make sure you turn the ipod off before getting the app back, it has worked for me 3 times and i now have $9012657700 and im a level 8, i have told all my mates and they have done the same and got the extra bit of cash.

I found a way by getting a property then on settings go back in time and you will have a lot of negative money I put this in the bank and by some glitch I. Ould buy loads more property with negative money. So when I put the date back to normal I had loads more money from the income.

This app is going to explode (in a good way).

Seriously, Gabe and the addmired crew understand gameplay and virality in a way that absolutely blows my mind. They're a team to watch in 2009.

That's a lot of praise for a knockoff idea.

a) They were first to market with a great game of this type on the iPhone. b) The realtime mobile nature of this game transcends knockoff status. Try it.

Realtime meaning what? Meaning you can do stuff based on time? Because that's a concept that's been around for a little while, though never on a mobile.

Check out this list of mobsters for lots of invites:

http://ri.ms/mob

Imob is 1 of the most fun and adicting game I have ever played

JOIN MY MOB! 100000288

I don't think this worked? Maybe they have a bug or I entered it into the wrong spot.

you could have entered it wrong. we need to fix/simplify a lot of things. Whats your ID ill add you

I typed it a number of times here, not sure if that's the right screen: http://pics.posterous.com/untitled-17116

Let's team up (anyone who wants): 100239599

My mob code is 100119202. The more mob members you have, the more powerful your mob, of course... so lets team up. ;-)

Mine is 100652918. Aaaante up! Help me build my crew. Together we will rule the internets.

mine is 100826099

115437629 add it :)

"Invalid redemption code entered."

Try "Friend Code" instead of "Redeem". Btw, mine is 100448262.

Mines 100358785

I really suck at this game, I'm level 7 but I keep running out of money, and I loose most fights! Very addictive though, checking it every 5 mins now, hopefully I can break away else I'm not going to get anything done!!

My friend code: 100577628 =-)

This is fun.

My friend code is 100580351

Enter friend code 117908262 to get a MOB