Nitrome Touchy

Nitrome Touchy is a free Brass Monkey application for iOS and Android devices released on October 31 2012 for iPhone, and November 21 2012 for Android. The app allows for select Nitrome games to be played using devices running the application, using the player's mobile device as a controller. Nitrome Touchy supports motion detection and also local multiplayer, allowing for select games to be played with up to four people.

The multiplayer function of the Nitrome Touchy was first teased on September 18th, in the form of a mysterious trailer that showed four Spartans going throughout Double Edged levels. The next week, the app was revealed, and for subsequent weeks up until October 31st, new games and features of the app were revealed.

The app itself is free to download, and comes with Super Snot Put free to play, with Swindler also becoming free to play as of December 19th 2012. For full access to all Nitrome Touchy compatible games, extra payment is required. This fee gives app users access to all current Nitrome Touchy compatible games, as well as future releases.

Ten games were released for the Nitrome Touchy on its iPhone October 31st launch date and its Android November 21st launch date, with another 20 coming within six months of its release. The release of the iPhone version of the app was celebrated with the release of the Touchy skin, prior to the release, a mini site was released that would provide more information, links and resources about Nitrome Touchy.

Despite Nitrome's announcement of "20 games coming in 6 months", Nitrome has announced that Swindler 2 was Nitrome Touchy compatible with both iPhone and Android Nitrome Touchy's when the game was released - November 21st 2012. Although Bad Ice-Cream 2 was also meant to be Touchy compatible on release, due to the rush Nitrome had took to release the game, it was only until January 8th it became Touchy compatible. Nitrome has also stated that Swindler 2 will not be the only game to be touchy compatible on its release date, there will be other games that when released to become immediately Touchy compatible.

On January 29th 2012, Nitrome Touchy went on sale, the app available half price across both iPhone and Android versions, the sale ending one week after going up. Nitrome does not plan to enable Touchy for any other smartphones, such as Kindle Fire or the BlackBerry line of smartphones.

Development
Nitrome partnered with developers Brass Monkey to create the Nitrome Touchy app. The app would run on Brass Monkey's software. One reason for this partnership was for "local multiplayer opportunities that we could never achieve within the confines of a normal keyboard", this allowing Nitrome to somewhat expand the size of the controls used to operate their games, thus allowing more people to simultaneously play a game that the regular limit of two or four.

Nitrome was sent a software development kit by Brass Monkey, and it was through using this kit that Nitrome realized the potential with the Brass monkey technology. Super Snot Put was the first Nitrome game tried with the Brass Monkey software.

Nitrome decided to released the app on the iPhone first instead of Android, as Android would have required much more work, while iPhone would be more simpler. . Nitrome's large fanbase also contributed to the success of the Nitrome Touchy.

Features
The Nitrome Touchy app will allow any iOS device to behave like a Nintendo Wii Remote, as the technology Brass Monkey provides supports almost all the features of a Nintendo Wii Remote. Although Brass Monkey has access to a number of functions, only two functions have been confirmed for use on Nitrome Touchy. Excluding touch screen interface, these include motion control and local multiplayer.

Unlike previous play-flash-game-with-smartphone apps which had lag, Nitrome Touchy dos not suffer from lag as the player's own WiFi is used, as opposed to connecting to a server on the internet.

Touchy 2.0 added widescreen to the controller interface.

General controls
Although Nitrome Touchy wasn't the first app that allows one to play flash games with their smartphone, Nitrome Touchy allowed more inuitive controls and simpler design than previous than other "virtual pads". While other "virtual pads" were restricted to only d-pads and buttons, it was Nitrome Touchy that allowed motion sensitive controls.

Nitrome Touchy is also simpler than other virtual pads which involved having to download an EXE to the player's computer.

D-pad
Prior to Touchy 2.0, Nitrome Touchy contained a d-pad that moved in the direction of the player's finger (as any regular d-pad should). Touchy 2.0 introduced a d-pad that moves with the player's d-pad finger, this d-pad also simultaneously predicting what direction the player was pressing.

This allows the d-pad to cater to people of different hand sizes.

Buttons
Buttons simply react and perform their action when pressed, and do not move with the player's finger.

Motion control
Games which support this: Worm Food, Aquanaut, Thin Ice, Swindler, Flash Cat, Super Snot Put, B.C. Bow Contest Motion control refers to the physical movement of the iOS device itself to interact with the in-game environment. Confirmed motions compatible for the Nitrome Touchy are swinging, and tilting the smartphone left, right, and down.

The Wii Motion Plus style control method of Super Snot Put provides an example of how motion control works on Nitrome Touchy. Swinging the iOS around in a circular motion takes advantage of the gyroscopic motion control of the iOS device.

Local multiplayer
Games which support this: Double Edged, Bad Ice Cream 2, Twin Shot 2 , B.C. Bow Contest With local multiplayer, Nitrome Touchy supports the ability to allow multiple players to play in the same game module. A trailer released under the title "Double Edged????" first revealed the feature that would allow four people to simultaneously play the same game (Double Edged) on the same computer screen.

Touch screen
Games which support this: All

The touch screen of the smartphone allows for unique control methods to be used. Buttons, d-pads, and other control methods can be used via the touch screen of a smartphone (iPhone, Android).

Menu interface
Four options are listed on the menu interface: Games, Shop, Help and Options.


 * Games - The Games page lists the number of games Nitrome Touchy can connect to, and the number of players that can participate in the game at once.

Startup
When the player begins the Nitrome Touchy app, they will come to the games screen where the app will try to connect. When starting a game, the bronze Nitrome letters will appear before the game starts.

Demos
Nitrome put out a new feature on December 20th 2012 - titled Demos. This feature allows non-premium Touchy users to play a certain part of a Nitrome Touchy game, but not the entire game. Nitrome added this feature as an incentive to buy the full version of Touchy. It is currently unknown whether this feature is a new tab, or what part of a game can be played.

Controller interface

 * Main article: Nitrome Touchy/Controls

An iOS or Android device running Nitrome Touchy functions as a video game controller while playing a Nitrome Touchy compatible game. The touch screen, motion control and local multiplayer functions are used, depending on the game.

The linked list lists the layouts and use of the controller for each Nitrome Touchy game, both Android and iPhone versions of Nitrome Touchy using the same controls and layout. As first seen on the layout of the Double Edged controller, a gear image is placed at the top right side of the screen. As with the Music, Sound FX, and Pause button of Nitrome's other Flash games, this gear will serve as the options button of the controller, allowing the player to toggle these functions.

Each controller comes with exclusive art pertaining to the game. In the sections for each game in the linked list, it will be informed what buttons on the smartphone are used for the game and what each button does. In each game section will be a condensed section, which states the controls of the game by specifying the action on the smartphone and what is done in the game.

Game availability
Nine games were available for download upon the initial launch of Nitrome Touchy (both iPhone and Android versions), with twenty more games to be made available for the app within six months after its release.

Game experiments
Nitrome has experimented with several Nitrome games, whether to see if they are Touchy compatible.

Dirk Valentine was experimented with, a dual-stick controller set up to experiment with playing the game. This controller setup was deemed uncomfortable for gameplay.

Nitrome tested Roly Poly on the Nitrome Touchy, but said that it may need new levels, as the game became incredibly hard after the first few levels, using tilt controls.

Finally, Nitrome also tested Nitrome Must Die on Nitrome Touchy - a title that was requested by many fans to be added. Nitrome said that it would be difficult to control such a "frantic fast paced game with virtual buttons.". Nitrome has stated that they may look into porting Nitrome Must Die to Touchy at some point.

Game adjustments
Several of the originally Flash Nitrome games will have new features given to them. Some of the features range from only supporting 4-player multiplayer, to new game modes.

Nitrome later decided to focus on developing "games that play well on the controller and ideally where the controller brings something extra to the gameplay", after testing Dirk Valentine on Nitrome Touchy.

Nitrome revealed on October 26th 2012 that all game's playable with the Nitrome Touchy, the game will be able to played in full screen on the monitor the game is being played in.

Requirements
To use Nitrome Touchy, the player will be required to download the application from the App Store onto an iOS device. Upon being downloaded, the player will then be able to play the selected game on Nitrome.com on their computer.

iPhone requirements
The Nitrome Touchy app is compatible with iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad. All devices have to have iOS 4.2 or later.

Android requirements
The Android version of Nitrome Touchy requires Android 2.2 and up. Also, the app requires 532 kilobytes of space on the player's Android.

Android permissions
The Android version of Nitrome Touchy is allowed to create network sockets, read the player's Android phone state and identity, modify or delete USB and SD card storage & contents, and also write information to the aforementioned objects. The Nitrome Touchy app also prevents the player's Android tablet and the phone functionality of the tablet from falling asleep.

App download
Nitrome Touchy can either be downloaded from the game's iTunes page or Google Play store page for free. The App requires a certain amount of space on the download destination tablet, among other requirements (see the section Requirements).

Game purchase
Upon being downloaded, a few games are made available to play for free. However, to play the rest of the games, the player has to buy them. The player has two choices of how to buy games: through Brass Monkey coins or through a one-time price that allows access to all current and future Touchy games.

One-time price
The most well known method of unlocking all games, the player has to pay a one-time price that will allow them to play all Touchy games. This price also allows them to play all future Touchy games as soon as they come out, essentially making the buyer a Touchy subscriber. Below lists the prices for this method:

Brass Monkey coins
A less known method of purchasing games - spoken only of on the Brass Monkey blog - is purchasing games with Brass Monkey coins. On the Brass Monkey website, the player can individually buy (unlock as mentioned on the website) access to a Touchy game on through use of the coins.

In order to buy coins, the player has to download the Brass Monkey app for either iPhone or Android, then buy the coins through the app. The lowest amount of coins one can buy is 10,000 coins, 10,000 coins equal to US $0.99.

The player receives a discount by buying higher bundles of coins, as the higher bundles of coins actually cost less than if every 10,000 coins in the bundle cost US $0.99. Prices for coins are listed below (discount number is percentage calculated from the US prices ):

Unusually, the cost of Nitrome Touchy games actually changed. Upon Nitrome Touchy being released, Super Snot Put could be played for free while all nine (at the time, only nine other Nitrome Touchy games were available) other Nitrome Touchy games could be purchased for 10,000 coins (US $0.99), or all games for 5,000 brass coins (US $0.50) on the Brass Monkey website.

At a certain point, the 10,000/5,000 for nine games was later dropped, and a single game became 10,000 brass coins. Although each Nitrome Touchy game can be purchased for a low price after the increase, it is considerably cheaper to pay the one time price in the Nitrome Touchy app, as for the US/CDN price of unlocking Nitrome Touchy, the player can only buy five Nitrome Touchy games.

Brass monkey coins are only useful for buying Nitrome Touchy games if the player only wants to play less than five premium Nitrome Touchy games. Otherwise, the player should pay the one-time price for unlocking Nitrome Touchy.

Brass Monkey codes
The Brass Monkey website features a page that allows the player to input codes. Brass Monkey will give out codes on their blog, codes generally given out when a game is released. Brass Monkey does not only give out codes for Nitrome games, generally for other games as well.

Codes usually allow the player to get the game for free. Generally, these codes are not given out for free, rather, the player has to usually answer a question given in the blog post. If codes require a preamble, the winner of a code has it sent to them in a method that does not expose the code to the public.

Although non directly related to Nitrome, when Nitrome Touchy was released, Brass Monkey celebrated the release by giving out free Brass Coins on the Twitter and Facebook pages at 30 minute intervals.

Updates
Throughout the lifetime of the Nitrome Touchy, Nitrome will release updates for the app.

Update 1
This update - issued on December 19th 2012 - allowed the player to play Swindler for free, and also play a demo of Swindler 2. This update is titled Version 1.6.

Touchy 2.0
This update was announced by Nitrome in their blog on July 3rd 2013. With the update, five new games became Touchy compatible (Test Subject Blue, Test Subject Green, Test Subject Arena, Test Subject Complete, and Colour Blind), plus Double Edged became free to play with the app. Also, the d-pad was updated to cater to people with different size screens and different size hands. It did this by moving with the player's touch and simultaneously predicting which direction the player is trying to press. This update went live on August 16th 2013.

Usage
Nitrome Touchy compatible games work once a player runs the app and is connected to the same WiFi network as the computer running the game. When opening a game, the app will automatically connect to the game screen to display a list of games the app has currently connected to. Selecting a game from the menu will automatically start it up. From there, the player can select options from the device's menu screen as they would on the game screen. Touchy controls can only be viewed from the help screen on the Nitrome Touchy app.

Technical
In reality, once the player connects to the internet and to the game, the connected game loads the controller configuration and controller artwork to the player's smartphone.

TV connectivity
Despite the Brass Monkey technology shown to work on a TV, the Nitrome Touchy said and shown to work on a TV, the Nitrome Touchy nor the Brass Monkey technology allows for connecting to a TV. In fact, this connectivity is reliant on the player's computer. In order to connect one's computer to a TV, they have to have the necessary cables. Unusually, Nitrome did not speak of this until responding to a Facebook comment about the Nitrome Touchy on a TV.

Bulk use
If there are multiple iPhones linked to one iTunes account, then if one person pays the fee for premium access to all games, the all subsequent iPhones linked to the same account can obtain free access to premium content without having to pay for it.

This applies to the Android as well.

General game/site changes
The release of this app changed the front page of Nitrome.com slightly, and also changed some games compatible with Nitrome Touchy. The bottom-right box in the inner box of the front page had its far right button that reads "More games" replaced with "More touchy". This was to allow Nitrome Touchy users to easily find the Nitrome Touchy page.

Along with that, going to a game that can be played on the Nitrome Touchy will cause the word "Play with Touchy" to pop up, and a speech bubble next to that with a signal symbol. The symbol possibly changes when one connects the Nitrome Touchy to the game. Along with that, on the bar above the game is a button that reads "fullscreen". This button when pressed will cause the game to in full screen, but only when playing the game with the Nitrome Touchy.

If one clicks the fullscreen button without a Nitrome Touchy connected to the internet, they are prompted to buy the Nitrome Touchy. Along with these changes, Nitrome released a skin to commemorate the release of the app.

Universal game changes
Some Nitrome games had their gameplay slightly changed when they were made Nitrome Touchy compatible. For example, in Aquanaut, the submarine's health was changed from three blows to six blows, therefore doubling the health of the sub.

Beta elements
Nitrome Touchy, in fact, has beta elements. Planned for the game select screen of the iPhone app is a "heart" button and "share" button. Ultimately, these were eventually scrapped for unknown reasons. Also, Magic Touch and Super Snot Put were meant to support 4 players instead of one, as seen in pre-release images.

A possible reason for Magic Touch's cut multiplayer function is due to many lines of varying lengths across the screen would clutter the screen and potentially cover up balloons. Super Snot Put's cut multiplayer function possibly has a similar reason, as the computer screen would have to be divided into four equal parts, but due to common screen sizes, each individual screen would be rather small.

Even in one of the Android images on the Google Play store page for Nitrome Touchy, shows an Android device that shows that four people are playing the game. From this, it is seen that the 04 in the image is a placeholder, as it is shown that 4 people and playing Swindler, while another four people are playing Mega Mash.

September 18th 2012
Nitrome revealed an unusual trailer consisting of four spartans - two more than usual - going through levels of Double Edged. The trailer was titled Double Edged????, and ended with four different coloured ? in the colour of each of the crest of the spartans.

September 25th 2012
Nitrome reveals the Nitrome Touchy Controller, along with two images of the game's interface.

October 2nd 2012
Nitrome launches the Nitrome Touchy mini site.

October 19th 2012
Nitrome reveals more Nitrome Touchy games.

October 25th 2012
Nitrome reveals even more games for the Nitrome Touchy.

October 26th 2012
Nitrome releases a trailer for the Nitrome Touchy that shows how you can play Nitrome Touchy games in full screen.

October 31st 2012
Nitrome releases the Nitrome Touchy, and also releases a trailer of the game.

November 21st 2012
Nitrome releases Nitrome Touchy for Android.

July 3rd 2013
Nitrome announces an upcoming update, Touchy 2.0.

July 26th 2013
Nitrome releases more information about the Touchy 2.0 update. With the update, many more games will become Touchy compatible, plus there will be another free game to play with the app.

August 2nd 2013
Nitrome again releases more information about the Touchy 2.0 update. The d-pad will be updated to cater to people with different size screens and different size hands. It will do this by moving with the player's touch and simultaneously predicting which direction the player is trying to press.

August 16th 2013
Nitrome released a trailer about Touchy 2.0, added five new Touchy-compatible games and made Double Edged a free Touchy-compatible game. They also added widescreen support and modified the d-pad interface.



Nitrome Touchy advertisements

 * Main article: Advertisements

On October 31st, Nitrome released an ad advertising their newly released iOS program. There were four versions of the ad, one showed a scene from the Nitrome Touchy version of Flash Cat, one showed the Nitrome Touchy version of Off The Rails, one showing the Nitrome Touchy version of Magic Touch, and the fourth showing an iPhone with words in it. At the bottom of all the ads was the word "download". Upon clicking on the ad, the player would be linked to the iTunes page for the Nitrome Touchy download.

Also, another ad can be found when waiting for a distributable Nitrome game to load. After the sponsor ad, a randomly selected ad made by Nitrome will pop up - one of these being for Nitrome Touchy. The ad encourages fans to download or buy Nitrome Touchy from the App Store.

In the shop section of Nitrome.com, the MochiCoins ad was replaced with an ad for Nitrome Touchy. Also, on Nitrome's YouTube page, a large ad was placed at the top of the page, which informed visitors of the Nitrome Touchy.

On December 12, Nitrome updated their site, adding several larger ads to their website. These ads included ones for Off The Rails, Flash Cat and Swindler, all advertising the ability to use Nitrome Touchy to control the characters of those games.

Also with the 2.1 update, Nitrome added a section to their site labeled "Featured", which held small, square ads for new/upcoming events/games. One of these ads was for the Nitrome Touchy.

On the iTunes and Google Play pages for the Nitrome Touchy app, there are several advertisements for the app. These ads show some of the features of Nitrome Touchy, as well as some of the controller interfaces.

Game appearances
Nitrome Touchy makes a cameo in Super Stock Take, on level eight.

Release
Nitrome Touchy was released on October 31st 2012 for iPhone, which probably was incidental with coinciding with Halloween. Prior to the release, there had been strong support of an Android port, which Nitrome put out on November 21st 2012.

Reception
Nitrome Touchy has an average score of four stars on the iTunes app store and a score of 3.9 on the Google Play store. Nitrome Touchy has been described by many reviewers as "amazing", however, much of the criticism of the app was aimed at its high price.

Nitrome has stated that the high price was so that Nitrome could get some money from the purchase of the app, as "after Apple and Brassmonkey [sic] have taken there cut it really doesn't leave us with much."

Sales
On Friday November 9th 2012, Nitrome announced in their Friday update that the Nitrome Touchy had received close to 10,000 downloads for iPhone. Nitrome did not specify how many paid for access to all games, however. Nitrome's large fanbase likely contributed to the success of Nitrome Touchy.

As of January 29th 2013, Nitrome Touchy for Android has been download over 10,000 times, as of April 27th 2013 having between 50,000 and 100,000 downloads

Price drop
On January 29th 2012, Nitrome announced that Nitrome Touchy would have its premium priced reduced considerably, stating that it would be reduced more than 50%. This special price was available only to the first 1,000 premium downloads. As of February 1st 2013, Nitrome announced in their Friday update that not even all 1,000 had been sold, and stating that there are only "a few left". It is quite likely that Nitrome sold close or over 95% of the reduced price units at this time.

On February 6th 2013, at around 10 am UTC/GMT, Nitrome reverted their cover photo back to the Nitrome Touchy "Try for free on iOS and Android" version a public act acknowledging the end of the sale. It is not know for how long the sale had ended for at this point.

Trivia

 * The music used in the Nitrome Touchy trailer is actually unused music for Super Feed Me.
 * The games and shop tabs are updated versions from the tabs on Nitrome's website.
 * The support page for Nitrome Touchy contains an error: it refers to socket internetwork communication instead of socket internet-work communication.