Puppy Wars is the latest title from
Cleaversoft, an app developer that grew out of an unlikely source: food delivery in the suburbs of Philadelphia. Nipping at the heels of Cleaversoft's previous title,
Beard Wars, Puppy Wars has just been submitted to the iOS App Store, and will be available for download shortly.
Rich Siegel, founder of
Main Line Delivery and co-founder of Cleaversoft, says Puppy Wars users upload pictures of their dogs to enter a battle that determines the cutest dog. Players can wager virtual bones, and canines are submitted to a worldwide vote.
As in its predecessor Beard Wars, users start out with a cache of virtual payment (in BeardWars the currency is chips), receiving more bones for voting and uploading. If the bones get all used up, more are available for purchase at a reasonable price: "10,000 for a dollar, 35,000 for $2, 100,000 for $3 and 250,000 for $5," explains Siegel, who notes that the most popular purchase in Beard Wars is the five dollar pack. Five percent of all bones purchases go the the ASPCA, says Siegel, who makes virtually no profit from Cleaversoft, relying on the success of MLD to fund the fun.
It took Siegel and partners about three and a half months to develop Puppy Wars, and Siegel credits artwork by Paul Davey, who goes by the online moniker
Mattahan, as inspiration. Davey painted 27 different breeds of puppies for PuppyWars, and has worked with the Cleaversoft team from its original title,
iBubbe, which was developed in Siegel's first apartment after he graduated from Washington University in St. Louis in 2008. "Spencer Miller and I teamed up with our kooky across-the-hallway neighbor Marcus Goldman," recalls Siegel. Main Line Delivery and Cleaversoft partner Dan Ritterman is now in law school at Temple University. Both Ritterman and Siegel grew up in Lower Merion, and Siegel has returned to live on the Main Line.
No rest for the guys at Cleaversoft. They are already working on a new game called Dragon Runner. Check back here for updates on availability of Cleaversoft's upcoming titles.
Source: Rich Siegel
Writer: Sue Spolan