Cut the Rope series won over fans of physic-based puzzlers with its amusing concept of feeding candy to a little green monster named Om Nom while collecting stars. Who knew, right? Last month, Apple featured Cut the Rope as its Free App of the Week (it’s never been free on the App Store before).
Today, Russia-based developer ZeptoLab confirmed that a sequel is coming this holiday season.
Cut the Rope 2 will bring new amusing characters, interactive backgrounds and physics-based challenges while retaining the familiar candy-dropping gameplay mechanics. I’ve include more information after the break…
According to a media release, Cut the Rope 2 is a “massive step forward for the game” as it sports “amazing graphics, gameplay, and characters drive a brand new experience that fans are going to love”.
Developers also shared some mind-boggling stats: the games have been downloaded more than 400 million times globally and reached 60 million active monthly users in the first half of 2013.
That’s quite an astonishing achievement given the original Cut the Rope launched three years ago, back in October 2010.
Following the initial success of the game, ZeptoLab released several Cut the Rope games, including Cut the Rope: Experiments, Cut the Rope: Time Travel and Pudding Monsters, and has been updating these games with new levels on a regular basis.
More trivia: Cut the Rope players have cut more than 60 billion ropes at a whirlwind pace of 42,000 ropes per minute, feeding nearly 20 billion candies to the hungry Om Nom. Cut the Rope: Time Travel, released in April 2013, has already reached more than 20 million downloads.
All told, Cut the Rope games contain more than 875 level.
I’m a huge fan of physics puzzlers and have always liked Cut the Rope as a nice alternative to the now increasingly boring Angry Birds franchise by Rovio.
I’m also excited about the new Sprite Kit and Game Controllers frameworks in iOS 7 that allow programmers to easily write 2D games that incorporate physics and feature support for real game controllers with physical buttons.
Logitech is prepping to release one such controller, pictured above, and Apple is now approving games with iOS 7 controller support. Developers can leverage Sprite Kit to gain advanced features for free, like built-in physics support and particle systems for effects such as fire, snow, explosions and smoke.