Before Moon Dragon: Heroes hit iTunes at http://bit.ly/moondragon-heroes on January 21, 2016, game creator Gil De Palma, Founder of game company Palmagick, apologized to the Apple review team because his app "might prove Steve jobs wrong."
De Palma's concern stemmed from a New York Times article quoting Steve Jobs' view on products like Amazon's Kindle going nowhere because "people don't read anymore."
Unconvinced by his tech hero's outlook, De Palma, a writer, artist and filmmaker, built a game-novel app based on his screenplay "Moon Dragon," Finalist in 2003 Moondance International Film Festival.
"The tricky part was not being a real programmer," De Palma said. "I just learned how to build apps by watching YouTube videos. By God's grace, I developed Moon Dragon: Heroes with a little help from my sisters, my ex-girlfriend and a few friends."
Play a novel. Read a game. Have fun. De Palma's depiction of his work.
Moon Dragon: Heroes is a game and novel in one. It takes players on a fairy tale quest for the pages of a dragon's book of life to save the world.
"You must battle assassins and swarms of monsters then conquer a dragon puzzle to unlock the pages," De Palma said. "You'll discover bite-size bits of the wonderful story of a moon, a dragon and a boy—and lots of robots that will dwell in your heart forever."
The game makes it hard for players to look away—or even scratch their nose—to stay alive. They read short story pages succinct as Twitter posts that De Palma described as "a magical story that will make people ache for a movie."
The app's simple play-and-read gameplay…and probably, its charm.
"I believe that contrary to Steve Jobs' observation, people still read," De Palma said. "The world is redefining reading; a birthing process increasingly merging technology, interactivity and multimedia elements with it. The gaming industry has a tremendous potential to show the world how it's done. So I created this experimental game-novel."
What if De Palma got it right?
"I'll make Moon Dragon: Heroes available on Amazon's Kindle," he said. "But I'll always be Steve Jobs' big fan."
When De Palma submitted the app, he wrote this to the Apple app review team:
"Moon Dragon: Heroes might prove Steve Jobs wrong. If that happens, please accept my sincere apologies."
