Review Fix Exclusive: John Bizzarro Talks ‘Armadillo Gold Rush’

Review Fix chats with AppAbove Games co-founder John Bizzarro, who discusses “Armadillo Gold Rush” on the iOS, breaking down the game from the development process and the goals for it once it’s released on May 7. Building off of tremendous success in Latin America, AppAbove to ready to take on the rest of the world.

Review Fix: What has the development process been like for this game?

John Bizzarro: A long, but rewarding one. In 2005, AppAbove Games’ co-founder Aaron Isaksen and I spent a year and a half developing Armadillo Gold Rush for feature phones. We put a lot of care into the development of the engine and the levels. In early 2014, after a lot of success in other countries, we decided to port the game to Unity so that we could launch on iOS. So, actually, the development process for the iOS version has been a year of learning the ins and outs of Unity development as well as adding some better graphics, sounds, achievements, leaderboards, and a very fun star system.

Review Fix: Any particular hurdles?

Bizzarro: A couple that come to mind are: 1) getting the game to run smoothly on slower devices like the iPhone 4S, and 2) figuring out how to properly store data in the cloud so that the user can play across multiple devices.

Review Fix: What did you learn about yourself as a developer through the development process?

Bizzarro: As an old-school programmer, I was a bit intimidated by all of these new graphical development tools out there, but I learned that once you dive in, it isn’t that bad and just about anything can be figured out with a quick Google search. :)

Review Fix: What do you think makes this series so special?

Bizzarro: I think the name of the game is quite good. Back in the feature phone days, a name and a short description were all you had to decide if you wanted to purchase that game. (Not even a screenshot!) So maybe it is the name that makes this game special.

Review Fix: Why do you think the series has endured for so long?

Bizzarro: I think that people appreciate the work we put into the levels. Each one has a unique challenge. And they definitely get more difficult as you progress, but somehow they still remain fun to play.

Review Fix: This game looks like it would be a perfect fit on the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo 3DS, any thoughts on an eventual port?

Bizzarro: It is very possible. Because it was developed in Unity, it might not be too difficult to make those ports happen.

Review Fix: What’s next for you guys?

Bizzarro: Perhaps an Android or PC version of Armadillo Gold Rush. Also, we have a couple of other feature phone games we would like to bring to modern platforms over the next year or so. They are quite different from Armadillo Gold Rush, but have the same amount of care put into them, so we hope people will appreciate them.

Review Fix: Bottom Line, Why should someone play this game?

Bizzarro: The levels. I believe people play games on their phones for maybe 5-15 minutes at a time. That is the perfect amount of time to take on an Armadillo Gold Rush level. And since you have 76 hand-crafted levels in this game, you are definitely going to get your money’s worth.

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About Patrick Hickey Jr. 14262 Articles
Patrick Hickey Jr. is a full-time Assistant Professor of Communication & Performing Arts and Director of the Journalism program at Kingsborough Community College and is the chairman of the City University of New York Journalism Council. He is the Founder and Editor-In-Chief of ReviewFix.com. He's also a former News Editor at NBC Local Integrated Media and National Video Games Writer at Examiner.com where his work was mentioned in National Ad campaigns by Disney, Nintendo and EA Sports. Hickey was also the Editor-In-Chief of two College Newspapers before he received his BA in Journalism from Brooklyn College. Hickey's work has been published in The New York Daily News, The New York Times, Complex, The Hockey Writers, Yahoo!, Broadway World, Examiner, NYSportScene Magazine, ProHockeyNews.com, GothamBaseball.com, The Syracuse Post-Standard, Scout.com and the official sites of the Brooklyn Aces and New York Islanders. His first book, The Minds Behind the Games: Interviews With Cult And Classic Video Game Developers was released in April 2018 and is chock full of interviews with legendary developers. His second book in the series, The Minds Behind Adventures Games, was released in December 2019. His third book, The Minds Behind Sports Games, was released in September 2020. His fourth book, The Minds Behind Shooter Games, was released in March 2021. The Minds Behind Sega Genesis Games and The Minds Behind PlayStation Games were released in 2022 and The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 was published in January 2023. Hickey is also a contracted comic book writer, currently penning his original series, "Condrey," as well as "The Job," "Brooklyn Bleeds" "Dem Gulls" and "KROOM" for Legacy Comix, where he serves as founder, owner and Editor-in-Chief. Hickey Jr. is also a voice actor, having starred in the 2018 indie hit and 2019 Switch, PS4 and Xbox One release, The Padre (also serving as English language Story Editor), from Shotgun With Glitters. The sequel, The Padre: One Shell Straight to Hell was released in February 2021- Hickey also served as a Story Editor and Lead Voiceover performer. He has also done narration and trailers for several other titles including The Kaiju Offensive, Relentless Rex and Roniu’s Tale. Hickey is also the lead voiceover performer on Mega Cat Studios’ upcoming title WrestleQuest, responsible for nearly 90 characters in the game, as well as Skybound's Renfield: Bring Your Own Blood, where he voices both Dracula and Renfield, as well as several other characters. He also stars in Ziggurat Interactive’s World Championship Boxing Manager 2, where he performs the VO of nearly every male character in the game. He also worked on the Atari VCS’s BPM Boy.

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