Well I still love the idea of the AppStore and the BIG market it represents so I am taking a stab at it with a product line I have been successful with before on other mobile platforms. POKER.

Metal Poker was just submitted to Apple like 10 minutes ago.

A little more background. I was a big Pocket PC and Palm guy. And in 2002 after having a euchre game out there I wrote a pretty good poker simulation game for Pocket PC called PokerHand. It did pretty good as it had a lot of customizations and like 11 game choices including Hold ‘Em. And then as Texas Hold ‘Em(THE) picked up in popularity I started to write a more THE specific game for Pocket PC with better graphics and a ton better AI and options and would actually play either cash games or real tournaments(PokerHand would let you keep playing with negative money, so no busting out). All-In Hold ‘Em was released right around when the “Moneymaker effect” hit poker and it was an instant success! So a ton more work went into making it even better(and porting it to Palm) including a cool career mode!

Im also a poker junkie and was even more so back then so did my “research” with books, playing online and at real casinos, holding tournaments, and even a poker league. So it showed in All-In and I’ve added a few other poker related products to my line up since then too.

Then the talks of the iPhone AppStore came around and my first thought was do All-In for it. But I had some other commitments at the time and obviously didnt realize the importance of being in at the beginning of the store would be… So I went out and had bought a development Mac and dabbled but didnt have anything in major development by the AppStore release. THANK GOODNESS!! Apple decided that they were going to write exactly one game for iPhone. Texas Hold ‘Em. And in a lot of ways it is an amazing game, with some neat concepts and a beautiful interface with a few overly gimmicky pieces thrown in that are more to get the buy than actual gameplay. And oh yeah, they rather unfairly overpromoted their own wares so it would have hurt us pretty good. Thankfully the one thing they dont have is a good AI. If you are even a slightly above average player you own it. Its Bad. And they appear to have no ideas about fixing it, since its over a year later and its still in the Top 100 so why bother.

And yes, there are tons of other Texas Hold ‘Em and Video Poker games on the AppStore. But I’m the Mobile Poker guy. So with my ‘big shot’ I figured I’d combine the 2 games that got me here! I’d revisit the multi-game format of PokerHand, and use a lot of the technology in the All-In game and make it into an even better “All-In Poker Engine”. And who would have thought I’d still be the first.  First on the AppStore with 5 Card Draw, Razz, Stud Games(5-6-7) and even basically Omaha. There is one Heads up Omaha game that looks more like Video Poker but nothing that feels like tournament or casino play.  

And do you know what I have going forward that helps a great deal? More pieces already written that I can work off of. I can and will add NL/PL Hold’Em and PL Omaha in a quick update. I will add a Career mode with multi-table tournaments very quickly. I have other customization options pretty much ready. And I have the powerful Hold ‘Em AI just sitting there waiting to be tweaked that blows the doors off Apples and pretty much all of the other THE games. And on the product page you can check out my list of some other ideas for improvements that will be coming. I am fully commited to passing everything out there for iPhone if I have the support.

First thing I realized when starting to make this game? Well re-visiting the multiple game format, its amazing how much more I know now about poker than I did in 2002. A TON MORE!! Not to say Im an expert in all of the games offered in Metal Poker, but I’ve played them all successfully and know what I should be doing in a lot of cases. So I spent an extra week bringing over more of the AI from my All-In Engine and tweaking the current stuff as I really want people to not have that be a big complaint about the first version. Of course I plan on aggressively making it even better, but the AI for most games is pretty darn good!

My thoughts on Wifi or Internet Multi-Player. I want it in my game and it will be important going forward. BUT… There are a bunch of Internet based games out there. And with the current iPhone battery life, its hard to play an awfully long session(an actual tournament) while connected. And a couple of things about the genre that Ive known for quite a while based on online play and the WM market. One is you don’t know if you’ll even have enough players in the game you want to play. These internet based games promise lots of players, but Ive checked and they don’t all deliver that. Two, the games can be painfully slow waiting for other human players on poor connections or with other distractions. And most importantly, playing players with play money just doesn’t make for a very good game. It will likely be an all-in fest or players want to play more hands as its not real money and the game gives you more when you bust. Now if you know the guys you’re playing with or setup a game with friends then that dynamic changes, but this is so blatantly true with randoms online using play money. Its just not that fun or good for learning after the novelty wears off. But it sells games, and I absolutely love the idea of having an iPhone party from different locations. If we are all in the same place we use a deck of cards…

So there you have it. Im totally excited to be entering the poker world of the iPhone and iPod Touch. I hope you join me…