Tapulous

Hey guys!  Nate True here.  Who’s ready for some Tap Tap Revenge 2 action?

It’s out now, and it’s free.  Get it now!

It was just over a year ago that I spent two solid days developing the first Tap Tap Revolution for the iPhone on a pre-SDK jailbroken iPhone.  I published it in September of 2007 (big thanks to Shaun Erickson for all the packagey-hostey-testey stuff) and it got rave reviews despite its humble simplicity and paltry music variety.  Soon after that release came a new theme (thanks to Doc) and the ability to play songs from your iTunes library and share tap tracks in the cloud.

It quickly succeeded and rose up the charts (though the charts were primitive, hand-drawn chalkboard affairs back then) and caught the eye of a nascent little stealth startup then-soon-to-be-called Tapulous.  Tap Tap Revolution was quickly snapped up and I was hired to continue development work on it.

Two-player same-phone gameplay mode? You got it.  An announcement platform? Sure thing.  A mode where you can shake the phone and get 8x multiplier? That’s just crazy enough to work! Tap Tap got a new name (”Tap Tap Revenge”) and kept getting new features.  All the way up to version 1.6, Tap Tap Revenge had been using the same codebase that I’d started way back in 2007 as I was just learning Objective C.

The whole engine was in a single source file and it was a nightmare for any engineer but myself to touch it.  Job security, right?  Tap Tap was getting more popular by the day and it was time to bring in more people on the project and that meant moving to a new engine, something extensible and beautiful.  The team expanded to include Mac development superstars, great artists, and game developers, and Tap Tap Revenge got a whole new engine, which we released in Tap Tap Dance.

Look how far Tap Tap Revenge has come! 3d effects, Online multiplayer, and great music from A-list artists like Stroke 9, Death Cab For Cutie, and The Crystal Method, Daft Punk, and Nine Inch Nails just to name a few.

A lot of work went into putting out this release, and I just know you’ll love it.  It’s got a bevy of new features with the same gameplay and great music that you’ve come to expect from Tap Tap Revenge.  The team here at Tapulous has done a whole lot of work and I think a few shout-outs are in order.

First off, big thanks to Bart Decrem and Andrew Lacy for starting the whole Tapulous thing and keeping things rolling.  It’s their vision and sense that kept all of us crazy engineers on track.

And what’s a music game without good music? Tim O’Brien has spent countless hours talking business with all the record companies to make sure Tap Tap Revenge 2 was filled with premium beats that keep you coming back for more.  Thanks, Tim, for your dedication!

Jessica Kahn pulled double duty, both managing the engineers and being one herself.  It’s her tireless attention to detail and scheduling that got Tap Tap out the door on time and made sure we were super-organized during the whole process.

Guy English and Mark Johns are the ones to thank for Tap Tap Revenge 2’s great new engine.  Premiering in Tap Tap Dance, the new engine enables us to use way more effects in-game, giving you a more responsive, more beautiful, and fuller play experience.  In Tap Tap Revenge 2, the engine has been vastly improved and features much more flexibility for the future.

Bryan Bell is our artistic visionary, the one who designs the look of every aspect of Tap Tap Revenge 2.  You’ll notice that the menu system in the new Tap Tap is super-intuitive to navigate and very pleasing to the eye. That’s all Bryan’s planning there.

Kyle Kinkade put together the menu system for Tap Tap Dance and overhauled it for Tap Tap Revenge 2.  He also put together the sweet ads system that keeps Tap Tap Revenge free for everyone!

Sean Fannan is our server magician, managing all of the crazy online resources that we need for Tap Tap Revenge 2, such as the Tapulous profiles, announcements, achievements, and quite importantly the Online Play feature.

Dan Grover implemented the new Challenge Mode, where you can send challenges via e-mail and your friends can compete against your score.  Think Mario Kart Wii online ghosts.  You get to see your progress in the game with Dan’s sweet new Challenge Meter.

I (Nate True) did some stuff too, like reimplementing the Online Play client side entirely and putting Bryan’s vision for the in-game graphics into code.

Thanks to Ed Williams and Zach Allia for keeping our online community going too.

I’m pretty sure I forgot a bunch of people, so you know who you are.

I’m sure you’re excited for Tap Tap Revenge 2 and I know I am too.  Stay tuned for more awesomeness coming down the pipe from Tapulous.  And believe me, there’s plenty of additional awesomeness where this came from.

Also check out this sweet video: