Newcastle-based developer Never Odd or Even is preparing for the release of Appysnap, its new "photosocial" game for iPhone that aims to wrap game mechanics around people's mobile photos – but in a way that appeals far beyond early adopters.
The app, which has been submitted to Apple for approval, sets challenges for its users to take and upload photographs with specific themes – such as snapping a place, item or theme. If they complete these missions successfully within a set time period, they can win points and/or physical prizes. Foursquare-style badges are also included, although here they're known as caps.
"The two white-hot spaces in apps are photos and gamification, and we think we've created an app that brings them both together," says co-founder Paul Smith. "We wanted to try to turn sharing photos socially into a game, but one with potential mainstream appeal. Something my wife would use."
The big question about something such as Appysnap is moderation: first, how does Never Odd or Even decide if photos have met the criteria for "success" in its missions, and second, how does it deal with photos that might be considered inappropriate?
"Cock shots?" replies Smith cheerily. "That's what we're calling them, although they may or may not be pictures of cocks. We looked at photo recognition technologies, but they're not practical for a startup that's bootstrapping. Also, they're not much help if the mission is to take a photo of a coffee shop, and someone uploads a shot of a hairdresser's."
Smith says the developer has focused instead on creating a back-end that lets its staff whisk through submissions quickly and eliminate those that fail the criteria for a mission. It's something that works for now, but may need to be reassessed if Appysnap takes off.
At launch, Appysnap players will be able to post their photos on Twitter and Facebook from within the app, but future updates will bring more social features, such as using Facebook Connect to enable players to challenge friends to games.
The business model? Never Odd or Even is looking at sponsorship and advertising around missions and caps, especially if the app is able to drive footfall into retailers and other specific real-world venues. In that sense, it will be competing with some big guns, including Facebook and Foursquare, as well as upcoming social location apps such as SCVNGR.
"We could drop a mission into the middle of a gig, so if people are seeing, say, Primal Scream at Brixton Academy, the mission would be to take a photo of yourself and other fans at the gig, with a meet 'n' greet with the band afterwards being the prize," says Smith.
The latter is one of the closer applications to Appysnap in its intended form, with challenges that can include photo elements. However, there is also a direct rival called Hopskoch, which launched on Apple's App Store earlier in March, with a similar idea of setting players missions to take specific photos, with a points system wrapped around it.
Smith says there is room for both. "They're very much focused on creating a platform that runs across all mobiles, with this photo element seeming to be a very small part of it" he says. "Besides, with Foursquare and Gowalla [in the social location space] the fact that there were two players helped to create that genre and the activity around it. The same could happen here."
At launch, Appysnap will be iPhone-only, but Smith says Android is next on the agenda. The key will be getting the viral effect so that people start playing the game and encouraging their friends to join in – something we criticised hotly tipped US app Color for when it launched recently.
