Blue Ocean Network (BON) featuring Happylatte’s Partner and Creator Michael Welch and Senior Software Developer Favo Yang on the topic of iPhones in China.

Michael and Favo provided us great insights and useful recommendations on iPhone apps and usages. They are also here to share with you some of their own experiences with Happylatte and help you understand our company at a deeper level. Here, they tell you some behind-the-scenes stories on how our games came about. Watch the video to find out:

http://www.bonlive.com/11/60/1889-living-with-an-iphone-part-1.shtml

http://www.bonlive.com/11/60/1888-living-with-an-iphone-part-2.shtml

In the second video, Roseann Lake discussed the topic of “Playing Pee Monkey in the bathroom” and how many users play in the loo. It definitely adds to the atmosphere of the game: could be a great motivation to wake you up in the morning or a short entertainment to relief your stress from work! Enjoy

Touching a single box on one of Light It Up’s numerous maps either lights it up or turns it off. However, it also toggles its neighbors on or off. Can you find the right combination to light up the entire map and advance to the next map? Three levels of difficulty (Easy, Medium, and Hard) provide plenty of challenge, and you can choose between Relaxed and Action modes to suit your mood.

If you manage to solve all of the included maps, you can also purchase map packs of 100 and 500 new maps from within the game itself.

Check out the snapshots below and download the game here!

Light It Up! – menu

Light It Up! – how to play

Light It Up! – Level 4 screenshot

Light It Up! – action mode screenshot

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Pee Monkey Toilet Trainer is now available on the Symbian platform through the Ovi store

December 15, 2009 — Beijing, China — Beijing-based game design studios Happylatte and Beiz have released the world’s first peeing action game, Pee Monkey Toilet Trainer, for Nokia phones, bringing Chinese pop culture and outrageous Internet memes to Nokia S60 5.0 Touch owners around the world.

Pee Monkey Toilet Trainer was the most downloaded game on the Apple AppStore in May 2009 with a massive 1,5 million unique users, and over 14 years of accumulated “peeing time” so far. Now, through a partnership between Happylatte and Beiz, the game is available on Nokia S60 touch phones.

In the game you control Pee Monkey as he slides back-and-forth on a bar of soap, while trying to pee inside the toilet. The game is aimed at kids and grownups with a sense of humor.

“A 30 second demo of the game never fails to draw a laugh, but even after 30 minutes the game is still surprisingly challenging,” says Minna Heikinheimo, head of Beiz Studio who was in charge of the Symbian game project. “Some players take it very far and have logged scores on the game’s global scoreboard that are so astronomical we had problems believing our eyes,” adds Bjørn Stabell, Happylatte CEO.

The game is available for 3€ in all countries where Nokia OVI store is available, and can also be downloaded from other popular sites that sell Nokia applications. The game is compatible with the following Nokia phones: 97, 97 mini, 5800 & 5230 Xpress Music and in X6.

Pee Monkey Toilet Trainer information can be found at:

Symbian version download: http://peemonkey.com/symbian

iPhone version download: http://peemonkey.com/tt

Media press resources: http://peemonkey.com/media

(Screenshots, press releases, game play videos, etc.)

Happylatte creates original “newfangled” games” and released the first of it’s games, Pee Monkey Jungle Fire, earlier in March. Happylatte, the brainchild of 9-year-old Beijing-based agile software development outsourcing house Exoweb, is focusing on the world-wide market for now, but is closely eying release at home in China – the world’s biggest mobile phone market. www.happylatte.com for futher details.

Beiz Ltd is a Happylatte partner, and provides enjoyable edutainment solutions for kids and for adults. Beiz also helps its partners publish games or mobile content. Beiz has headquarters in Hong Kong and operations in China and in Finland. www.beiz.com for further details

]]> http://happylatte.com/2009/12/press-release-pee-monkey-slides-into-nokia-s60-touch-phones/feed/ 0 http://happylatte.com/2009/10/pee-monkey-jungle-fire-scoreloop/ http://happylatte.com/2009/10/pee-monkey-jungle-fire-scoreloop/#comments Thu, 29 Oct 2009 03:16:47 +0000 admin http://happylatte.com/?p=709 Happylatte is proud to announce that Pee Monkey Jungle Fire joins Parachute Panic and Astroboy as the first games to use Scoreloop Core Social (enabling social features in games) and Premium Integration Services (enabling customized look-and-feel of said features).

See press mentions in DMN Newswire, PocketGamer.biz, Sys-Con Media, and VentureBeat’s GamesBeat:

“We already had online high scores, but Scoreloop comes with more social features, new monetization and promotional channels, and takes the trouble of running servers off our hands. We look forward to seeing the platform grow,” said Michael Welch of Beijing-based Happylatte, creators of Pee Monkey Jungle Fire and Toilet Trainer.

The new version of Jungle Fire will be available on the appstore in a few weeks, and will be a free upgrade to existing customers.

Toilet Trainer:

appstorereviewers

omarr111

crazymikesapps

Kipkod555

ihaveipods

Toilet Trainer 2:

itouchmyapps

applereviewer7

Jungle Fire:

itouchmyapps

itouchmelodie

Toilet Trainer 1 & 2, Jungle Fire

CrImSoNsHaDoW1961

touchmyipod12

Test your eye for detail with these two sense-tickling pictures in a classic game of spot the difference, pee monkey style.

Rules: Download these 2 high resolution desktop pictures, spot all 20 differences and place all answers as comments on the picture named “ANSWER BOX” which you can find here. From there, we will gather the info at the end of the week (that’s on the 17th), tally it up and announce the winner. Game on!

Warning: Trying to find all easy and hard differences might lead to increased excitement and double vision.

We’re looking for people that:

• have an iPhone or iPod Touch with OS 3.0 installed
• are competitive and enjoy shooting and/or social games
• have 2-5 hours per week for 2 weeks to play it and write up thoughts and issues
• are not affiliated with another company making a multi-player game
• have a Facebook account

In return:

• the first 100 applicants will get a promo code for this game when it is released
• everyone reaching level 3 (of 20) will get promo codes to all of our existing games
• the winner each testing round will get a special prize

If you’re interested please email vip-test@happylatte.com and include:

• your real name and email address (if different from your mail account)
• your location (& time zone)
• when you can start testing
• which app store you have an account with (depends on the country of your credit card)
• the OS version you are running (only 3.0 is applicable)
• your device type (iPhone/iPod Touch, version)
• your device id (how do I find my device id?)

We’ll contact you with more instructions when we’re ready to start the tests. You will be asked to accept a Non Disclosure Agreement before downloading and running the game.

PS! Please understand that we select testers so that we have a representative group of people playing, but as mentioned above, even applying for the testing program will win you a promo code.

PPS! Anyone can participate in the tests, but the promo code prizes unfortunately only work on the US app store.

PPPS! Fee free to forward to friends that you think might be interested.

– The Happylatte Dev Team

Jules kindly also gave us the PDF version of the article, which has some extra pictures of us and much higher resolution artwork.

Pee Monkey Toilet Trainer 2 - Gold Edition: Bringing you multiple pee colors, 3 levels of difficulty and more!

In TT2 we have listened to the peeing going on around the world and are responding with the most in-demand features:

• Pee in all the colors of the rainbow (literally)
• Take it easy by relieving yourself into the tub
• Challenge yourself to the floating chamber pot
• All new luxurious pee graphics
• Multiple scoreboards for tub, pot, and toilet versions

This version features no ads and is available for an introductory 50%-off price of only $0.99 (or equivalent) on the appstore. Go get it quick

Unfortunately, Toilet Trainer is free so we’re not making any money off it, instead we hope people will also try out Pee Monkey Jungle Fire ($0.99) or buy some t-shirts from our store on CafePress.

HAPPYLATTE RELEASES THE WORLD’S FIRST PEE ACCURACY GAME FOR IPHONE

March 16, 2009 — Beijing, China — Beijing-based game design studio happylatte releases the world’s first pee accuracy game for mobile devices, PeeMonkey Toilet Trainer, bringing Chinese pop culture and outrageous Internet memes to iPhone and iPod Touch owners around the world.

The prequel to PeeMonkey Jungle Fire, Toilet Trainer takes advantage of unique iPhone and iPod Touch hardware such as OpenGL acceleration and accelerometer to create a unique gameplay that helps bridge the gap between male and female understanding of toilet accuracy. The game features real-world physics simulations that provide a natural peeing experience.

In the game, the player controls PeeMonkey as he tries to stay balanced on a bar of soap slipping and sliding all over the bathroom while trying to make sure he keeps his pee on target. One of his GeeMonkeys friends is on hand to help out if the toilet gets too high — and reprimands poor PeeMonkey if he misses the bowl. Increasing difficulty means you have to be quick with your hands to reach a state of Superflow! If you miss too many times, it’ll be lights out when the water hit the power lines!

The game is aimed at both kids and grownups with a sense of humor, and is available for free at all iTunes AppStores in 60 countries around the world.

Happylatte creates original “newfangled iphone games” and released the first of it’s iPhone games this past March with PeeMonkey Jungle Fire earlier in March. Happylatte, the brainchild of 9-year-old Beijing-based agile software development outsourcing house Exoweb, is focusing on the world-wide market for now, but is closely eying release at home in China – the world’s biggest mobile phone market. The iPhone has yet to be officially released in China.

• Happylatte is at www.happylatte.com.
• PeeMonkey can be found at www.peemonkey.com.
• iTunes AppStore (the iTunes Application Store), iPhone, and iPod Touch are trademarks of Apple.

# # #

If you would like more information about this topic, or schedule an interview with Michael Welch, please email vip-info@happylatte.com.

We figured with Jungle Fire, iFart, and iSperm on the app store, there was no chance our latest game PeeMonkey Toilet Trainer would be rejected, but to our surprise it was! Here’s what we got from Apple:

Hello Exoweb Labs,

Thank you for submitting Pee Monkey Toilet Trainer to the App Store. We’ve reviewed Pee Monkey Toilet Trainer and determined that we cannot post this version of your iPhone application to the App Store because it contains objectionable content and is in violation of Section 3.3.12 from the iPhone SDK Agreement which states:

“Applications must not contain any obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind (text, graphics, images, photographs, etc.), or other content or materials that in Apple’s reasonable judgement may be found objectionable by iPhone or iPod touch users.”

If you believe that you can make the necessary changes so that Pee Monkey Toilet Trainer does not violate the iPhone SDK Agreement we encourage you to do so and resubmit it for review.

Regards,
iPhone Developer Program

We’re following up with Apple to see what it was in particular they were upset about.  Toilet Trainer is set in the toilet and features yellow pee, whereas Jungle Fire is set in the jungle and features blue pee.  So far, our only guess is that it was the yellow pee that made the difference, so we’re resubmitting Toilet Trainer, this time with blue pee, and crossing our fingers!

HAPPYLATTE RELEASES THE WORLD’S FIRST PEEING ACTION GAME FOR IPHONE

March 16, 2009 — Beijing, China — Beijing-based game design studio happylatte releases the world’s first peeing action game for mobile devices, PeeMonkey Jungle Fire, bringing Chinese pop culture and outrageous Internet memes to iPhone and iPod Touch owners around the world.

PeeMonkey takes advantage of unique iPhone and iPod Touch hardware such as OpenGL acceleration, accelerometer, and multi-touch screen, to create smooth gameplay with intuitive controls. The game also features parallax backgrounds and real-world physics simulations for a more naturalistic peeing experience.

In the game, the player controls PeeMonkey as he dodges fireballs and surfs around on his magic cloud to put out fires with his super pee, saving his friends – the GeeMonkeys – through 10 levels of flaming jungle adventure, all the while keeping a close eye on the pee meter and drinking water before running dry.

The game has received top (4+) ratings on the iTunes AppStore, and was reviewed in the forums of TouchArcade, a leading iPhone app review site: “hilarious sound effects”, “cute graphics”, “challenging and intuitive controls”, “smooth gameplay”, and “great for amusing drinking buddies”. The only negative critique so far is by a blogger likened it to child porn.

The game is aimed at both kids and grownups with a sense of humor, and is available now for USD 0.99 (or local currency equivalent) at all iTunes AppStores in 60 countries around the world.

Happylatte creates original “newfangled iphone games” and will be will be launching a new game in the PeeMonkey saga – PeeMonkey Toilet Trainer – at the Game Developer Conference in San Francisco, March 25th, 2009. Happylatte, the brainchild of 9-year-old Beijing-based agile software development outsourcing house Exoweb, is focusing on the world-wide market for now, but is closely eying release at home in China, the world’s biggest mobile phone market. The iPhone is not yet legally available in China.

• Happylatte is at www.happylatte.com. PeeMonkey can be found at www.peemonkey.com.
• iTunes AppStore (the iTunes Application Store), iPhone, and iPod Touch are trademarks of Apple.
• Application price will vary slightly from country to country due to Apple’s tiered pricing model.

# # #

If you would like more information about this topic, or schedule an interview with Michael Welch, please email vip-info@happylatte.com.

During 10 years of doing online marketing we have helped numerous other companies come up with brands, and we found the best approach to coming up with names is Igor’s Naming Guide to Creating Product and Company Names: Building the Perfect Beast.  So with that starting point, we started creating requirements for the name.

WHAT ARE WE LOOKING FOR?

(1) FEELINGS — It  should be an evocative name, embodying as many of the below feelings as possible:

• fun/ entertaining — something that makes you smile and feel happy
• good/ tasty/ delicious — something you yearn for
• tiny/ small — since we’re creating mobile applications we wanted the name to feel small, and small is often also cute, which is another nice attribute to have for, especially, games.
• social/ humane — we think the opportunity is in creating social, multi-player games, so we wanted the name to also embody this
• creative/ smart/ quirky/ surprising/ interesting — something that tickles your imagination
• convenient/ easy — related to tiny/small, but this has to do with being easily approachable. Due to the casual usage patterns, applications on the iPhone have to be extremely easy to get into, and allow for short periods (< 5 minutes) of use.

(2) VISUAL — Furthermore, for the logo to create a powerful connection with the name, the name should ideally be very visual, ideally representing a physical thing.

(3) SOUND — The name should sound good, as if it is rolling off your tongue.

(4) UNDERSTANDABLE — We’re aiming to target the world so it should be understandable to people everywhere.

(5) AVAILABLE — The name must be available as a .com domain name and Twitter account.

(6) SHORT — The name should ideally be as short as it can be, given the above restrictions.

THE PROCESS & THE OPTIONS

Based on the feelings we wanted to evoke we came up with lots of keywords which we then tried to creatively combine.  The main difficulty was finding an available .com domain name — most obvious two-word combinations are already taken.

After about 3 brainstorming sessions spread over 4-5 days, we had a list of 115 names with available domain names.

We sorted these by how well we liked them.  The runner ups on the final list included:

• pocketgiraffe.com
• tangerinesubmarine.com
• tapsicle.com
• zoocolony.com
• tapsnack.com
• chocohigh.com
• jelloturtle.com
• smallslurp.com
• ultraspree.com
• gurkhaturtle.com
• fierynut.com

Some of the names were quite fun, but obviously not suitable

THE WINNER

In the end we homed in on one name: happylatte.com.  Why?

• Happy implies fun and is a very easy word to understand for people around the world.
• Latte implies tasty, creative (latte art), and is easily understandable to people that have been to coffee shops.  The coffee shop connotation also evokes feelings social interactions, humaneness, casual, and taking a break.
• Together happy+latte sounds good, is a bit surprising and quirky, and is relatively easy to visualize.

FUNCTIONALITY MATTERS

The biggest issue with happylatte is that it is not functional — it doesn’t say anything about what we do.  If just hearing the name you would probably think we are a coffee shop.

To remedy this we added a slogan, which at first was just “iphone games”, but later we tweaked it to make it more surpring and representative of the kind of games we want to make: “newfangled iphone games”.  Now, for a non-native English speaker, “newfangled” sounded cool but it had to be explained to me.  This is what Merriam-Webster says:

new·fan·gled
\nü-ˈfaŋ-gəld\
adjective

ETYMOLOGY Middle English, from newefangel, from new + Old English *-fangol, from fōn (past participle fangen) to take, seize

DATE 15th century

1. attracted to novelty
2. of the newest style or kind <had many newfangled gadgets in the kitchen>

Since we’re aiming at creating new types of applications and games ideally suited for the iphone, “newfangled” sounds all good and well.

So there you have it!