Two students recently joined the latest fad: mobile app creation. Putting their ideas together, they created PixelTouch, a game slated to release in the Apple Store this week.

Tyler Brown, a sophomore electrical engineering major, is the one who did the coding for the game and Brook Tesema, a sophomore business major, is the one responsible for the game’s promotion and marketing.

“Tyler came up to me and said he was doing programming,” Tesema said. With the trendy way a mobile app can rise to popularity, Tesema saw opportunity in what his friend was doing. “We can push this to the next level,” he said.

After getting in touch with a friend of theirs, Tesema and Brown got original music for their game, something that can be uncommon with mobile app games today.

“A good buddy of ours named Omar Halta is a music producer. He produced a different genre for our game.” Tesema said.

With soundtracks to accompany their game, the two were ready to send their app to the public.

PixelTouch is an easy-to-play app focused on the dynamics of the most successful app games such as Candy Crush Saga, Fruit Ninja and Angry Birds. It allows the user to have experiences of quick and satisfying success while also having noncommittal aspects like limitless plays and immediate new games to keep a person coming back to play it.

“The game is pretty simple. It’s made to be fun and not let people put a lot of effort into it,” Brown said.

To play PixelTouch, the user needs to touch the advancing blocks that try to reach the designated “safe zone” across the length of the screen. By touching the blocks a certain number of times, the blocks will eventually disappear. The objective is to eliminate all the blocks before a user’s number of lives run out.

As Brown explained, the game has achievements and records to track a person’s playing behavior. With enough work, anyone can become “an official PixelTouch boss.”

The game design and user interface are a product of Brown’s creation. PixelTouch is a basic game meant for short periods of entertainment, like most app games today. When asked about the design of mobile app games, Brown explained how much of it is based on the capabilities of the designer.

“It all depends on what operating system you’re doing it for. And how complex you want your game/application to be,” Brown said.

Like Brown explained, if a designer is working for a company, the specifications are set to the company and what they want. That becomes part of the design process for both the creator and the user. The more, or less, complex the company wants it determines the creativity of the one designing it.

In terms of how successful their app will be, Tesema and Brown are not worried.

“We just try to stay positive,” Tesema said. “We’re not worried about downloads. If you like playing the game, you can tell someone else, and then they can tell someone else. It’s like a domino effect. Our goal is for the users to enjoy themselves.”

The nature of the game makes this point clear. Anyone can pick it up and see for themselves whether they like it or not.

 There are no future expectations for Tesema and Brown to make another app or begin another project at the moment. They are staying hopeful and optimistic to their app’s release. After that, they will decide how to move forward.

 PixelTouch is expected to be released this week on either Tuesday, Oct. 21 or Thursday, Oct. 23.