While iPhone owners have spent a large portion of their summer obsessing over Dots — a minimalist matching game that peaked at the top of iTunes’ free app charts in May and had 100 million plays in its first two weeks– Android and Kindle owners have been left without the puzzler. Today, a big update from Dots’ creator BetaWorks finally brings the game to those platforms, plus a major update for the iPhone app.
With the launch of the updated Dots, all players will have a new mode called “Moves,” an unlimited round that requires players to score points with only a limited number of lines to connect the Dots. The gameplay has similarities to one of Dots’ biggest blockbuster competitors, Candy Crush Saga, and capitalizes on gamers’ desire for perfectionism to feed the addiction. According to BetaWorks, more modes will be released concurrently on all platforms in the future.
Dots has made a big splash this year, and while it has fallen out of the top 100 free app downloads in the U.S., an appearance on Google Play will likely boost the longevity of the game. The life expectancy window of mobile games is short, but a few new modes and more accessibility will bring Betaworks’ addictive little game to a new audience that has yet to feel the burnout.
So it’s a good chance that people still won’t get enough of matching those little dots this fall, leaving the window wide open for the incubator to produce its next app hit.
Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.
- The evolution of consumer-media cloud storage
- Monetizing music in the post-scarcity age
- Research In Motion: future scenarios for its fate