Design This Home, (http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/design-this-home/id417272785?mt=8) the latest game title from iOS game development studio App Minis (http://www.appminis.com/), is debuting as a new way to add gaming elements to designing your dream house, keeping your residents happy, and completing tasks. As App Minis founder Alex Ahlund explains, "Think The Sims with a greater emphasis on home decor and design."
Design This Home, which is currently available for download in the App Store, allows you choose from a number of architectural styles of homes including modern, traditional, country, Southwestern, European, Asian, and Victorian. You then have nine different rooms to decorate and can customize every element of your home such as arranging furniture, putting up cabinets, painting the walls, renovating the floors and more. As you complete more tasks, you increase your home's value and collect more income from your residents.
At launch, the game includes 500 items of customization. Ahlund says the studio places a heavy focus on visual design in crafting the graphic rich and animated 2D iOS title.
You may remember Ahlund from his former company, mobile app directory AppVee, which was sold to Appolicious (http://techcrunch.com/2010/02/02/mobile-app-directories-consolidate-appolicious-acquires-appvee/) in 2010. A former video game designer, Ahlund decided to go back to his roots to launch an iOS game development studio. The studio's current offering of games have 7 million downloads in total. The startup itself is composed of former employees from Electronic Arts, Atari, PlayFirst, Floodgate and Google.
TechCrunch