Three Huddersfield University students are hoping a mobile phone game could launch their hi-tech careers.
Luke Avery, Nathan Williams and Liam Bower have created an arcade-style game which has had 20,000 downloads in just two months.
The trio, who met on the university’s computer games course, came up with the idea after a brainstorming session.
With time to kill between lectures, the pals got to work.
The fast-paced game – called FlyBy – involves flying a plane for as long as possible, avoiding obstacles and challenges along the way.
Luke and Liam, both 21, and 24-year-old Nathan, got into games production when working on placement at the university’s research company Canalside Studios.
They spent five months developing the Android-only game and two months perfecting it.
It was released in September and is free to download on Google Play.
Fellow student Adam Brown provided the music and sounds.
Luke said: “We all like helicopter and flying games and created something that we all like to play.
“The hardest part was settling on an idea. The making of it was the easy part.
“We spent two months developing it and adding to it and eventually Liam just said we need to stop and get it out there.
“We could have gone on forever adding bits to it.”
The game proved a big success straightaway and – for some reason unknown to the friends – it took off in Iraq!
“Most of our downloads at first came from Iraq,” said Luke.
“But then Germany took over and now our biggest market is the United States.
“We have had 13,000 downloads from the States.”
The pals, who call themselves FireFree Games, now plan to launch a company and are taking business advice.
Despite the 20,000 downloads, the lads haven’t made a penny.
“That wasn’t the aim,” said Luke, who works part-time at McDonald’s in Brighouse. “Our strategy while still at university is to learn and showcase our skills.
“The game is free for anyone to download and we just want to learn and grow.”
The game has had great reviews on-line and on YouTube and Luke said: “It’s an amazing but weird feeling watching someone play one of your games.”
Luke, though, has a problem. FlyBy is only available on Android phones – and he has an iPhone.
“When I go to work I have to beg or borrow someone’s Android phone so I can play it,” he said.
To download go to Google Play or for more information see www.facebook.com/FireFreeGames .
