TwoDots: Addicting game by Riverhead native goes viral

It’s simple, it’s addicting, it’s currently number one on the iOS App Store – and it’s created by a man from Wading River.

That’s right: Riverhead native David Hohusen, 31, is the lead designer of the small, five-person team that produced both TwoDots and its wildly successful predecessor, Dots.

When reached by telephone Friday – a day after TwoDots took the App Store by storm, claiming the number one spot in less than 24 hours – Hohusen sounded breathless with excitement.

“I’m in a state of shock,” he said. “I’m on cloud nine.”

The concept of the game is deceptively simple: Players must connect dots of the same color within a grid of colorful dots. But while the original kept players on the same board as they tried to beat their score within the allotted time or number of moves, TwoDots introduces challenge-based levels with objectives.

“You have to keep in mind that this is something people are playing while they’re waiting in line for coffee, or when they’re about to go to bed,” Hohusen said. “It has to be quick, clean and fun.”

When Hohusen joined the Dots team, it was about two months after the original game had been released in May 2013. (It has since racked up more than 20 million downloads and snagged a Webby award for best handheld game of 2013). Hohusen had previously been working in advertising, designing and producing animations for Bank of America. He was introduced to Patrick Moberg, co-creator of the original Dots, through some mutual friends, and the two quickly hit it off.

“We were hanging out one day and he was like, ‘This game is doing really well – come work with me on it!'”

Hohusen spent the next several months in the Meatpacking District of Manhattan, creating new ways to play Dots in the Chelsea offices of Betaworks, which produces the app. He was one of the first members of the team hired outside of the game’s founders, Moberg and Paul Murphy.

The design process for new features of the game, Hohusen says, is “very organic.”

“Me and Patrick will just sit around and come up with these sort of random ideas about fun ways we could improve the game,” Hohusen said. “And then we play around with it, see what sticks – and some of it doesn’t. We have tons of things stored away that never make it into the game.”

TwoDots was one of those ideas.

The first iteration of Dots included only one time-based mode: Players had to rack up as many points on the same board as quickly as they could. Over time, the team introduced three additional modes – one as an in-app purchase for $1.99 – that gave players even more creative ways to connect the colorful circles that are the game’s namesake.

Last December, Hohusen started experimenting with the idea of a new mode made up of levels. Instead of constraining the player to a single board, each level would introduce a new puzzle with objectives to complete. This kind of level-based, challenge-centric gameplay has seen a surge in popularity recently. Think Candy Crush or Angry Birds.

But the idea quickly snowballed into something much bigger.

“It was too big to live within the old app,” Hohusen said. “I realized I wanted to add a story with characters. We gave it this 1950s vibe, and reached out to an illustrator – and then we basically realized it was a much, much better experience as its own game.”

Hohusen and his team worked five and a half months designing and testing the game. With his advertising background, Hohusen was already accustomed to 80 hour work weeks, but developing an app, he said, took over his life in a different way.

“We worked on it constantly,” he said, “but I didn’t want us to burn ourselves out. We had to remind ourselves that it was only a game – that it’s something people will play for a few minute every day when they’re standing in line or sitting at home.

“If you’re not having fun making it, people won’t have fun playing it.”

And people have been having a lot of fun.

Everyone download TwoDots immediately. It’s like Dots and Candy Crush had an awesome baby https://t.co/opMCHk13xO #iTunes #TwoDots @playdots

— Justin Luk (@JLuk) May 30, 2014

The game #TwoDots has successfully gotten me use SO MANY in app purchases. #fivemoremoves

— Adam Attarian (@arattari) May 30, 2014

Just realized that I haven’t eaten in two days. Two. TwoDots. I can’t stop playing TwoDots. Why are you distracting me! I HAVE TO PLAY!

— Paul Armstrong (@wiseacre) May 30, 2014

“Even now, I’m just completely flabbergasted about how many people are enjoying the game,” Hohusen said. “There’s been so much positive feedback. And that’s my favorite part about the whole experience – watching the fans get really into it.”

So what makes the Dots games so successful?

The answer, Hohusen says, is accessibility. “We tried really, really hard to make a game that everyone liked. The original really appealed to all different kinds of people. Everyone from my hardcore gamer friends to my grandmother plays it.”

This was also their biggest challenge, Hohusen said. “It’s tough to live up to that standard of making a game that’s engaging without alienating people. We had to set a decent pace and teach people how to play, even though the game itself is very challenging.”

Design was another big factor. Part of the game’s appeal is its clean, flat interface, described by the New York Times as “truly wonderful.”

“We attacked it very much from a design standpoint,” Hohusen said. “None of us really came from a traditional gaming background. We’re really all artists and designers and illustrators first, and game-makers second.

“It’s simple, and it doesn’t rely on a lot of fancy graphics or flashy effects. We wanted to make it stay true to the core of the gameplay itself.”

The game’s clean aesthetic is one of the reasons TwoDots and Dots don’t have any ads – and they probably won’t any time soon. “We tried ads for a little while, but it really gets in the way of the gameplay,” Hohusen said. “If you’re standing in line and you want to play a quick game, you don’t want to be bombarded by ads. You just want to play the game.”

Instead, the game’s developers have primarily been earning money through in-app purchases, including additional lives, power-ups and new modes.

So what’s next, now that TwoDots is in the bag?

“We’re becoming a full-fledged game studio,” Hohusen said. “We’ve got lots of ideas beyond puzzle games. We’ve been growing like crazy very quickly.”

As of this afternoon, more than half a million people had already downloaded TwoDots from the App Store.

“And it’s only been a day!” Hohusen said, laughing. “It’s crazy. I’m shocked. Very shocked and very humbled.”