Meet George Weiss, the oldest app inventor in the world. The 84-year-old man helped create Dabble – The Fast Thinking Word Game, which was recently released for iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. The $0.99 app charges users with spelling five words as quickly as possible using 20 letters stacked in the shape of a pyramid. But there are a few catches; those five words must include a two, three, four, five and six letter word. The game is described by VentureBeat as the kind of old fashioned puzzler you might play with your grandparents - which is interesting because the guy that invented it is old enough to be someone's grandpa.
"A lot has changed since 1958, but people still love a good game," said Weiss in a press release announcing the game's release today.
The game started out as a parlor game and was picked up by Ideas Never Implemented (INI) in 2011 and distributed by Barnes & Noble. Later Weiss worked with developers at Flashy Substance and Itch (who used the Corona SDK from Ansca Mobile) to create the Dabble app.
While Weiss didn’t code the app himself, everyone who has been involved in the game give the credit to Weiss, from the developers at Flashy Substance to the founder of INI. Weiss gets full credit for the game.
The Dabble app was developed by Joseph Flowers of Flashy Substance, who says the board game provided a unique foundation to create an app.
“It was easy to see how this could become an app,” Flowers says. “We usually create games for competitive gamers ages 18 to 40, but this time we focused on keeping it simple since the board game is simple. The first time you play the app you may not win, but you will understand how to play. This is the first time we’ve been able to sit down with our friends and family and share a game we’ve built.”
INI says that it plans to expand Dabble further with new titles such as Dabble Jr., Super Dabble, and Android and Facebook versions. But ultimately it all goes back to Weiss taking a chance and not giving up on his idea:
“I never gave up,” said Weiss. “And now, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I didn’t waste all those years!”
Source: VentureBeat
