A 17-year-old St. Stithians learner has made history in the gaming realm by creating the first mobile game developed by a South African to be chosen as Game of the Day on the Apple App Store in 137 countries.
Brandon Kynoch is a self-taught gaming guru who has six years of experience in graphic design, programming and the development of indie games. Kynoch also runs Hard Graft Studios, a one-man company that he hopes to expand into a triple-A game development studio after he finishes school at St. Stithians College in Johannesburg.
Kynoch’s highly successful mobile game, Torus, was released after he developed another mobile game for the App Store. While the game, called Blast, showed moderate success, Torus was literally a game changer for Kynoch.
Torus was downloaded 100 000 times in the first 24 hours after its release, and also managed to get the top spot for Free Action Games, in addition to securing the number 2 spot in the category for Free Arcade Games, and number 5 in All Free Games. Torus was chosen as the Game of the Day in 137 App Stores worldwide, and received numerous five-star ratings from people who downloaded it.
What makes Kynoch’s achievement even more remarkable is the fact that he taught himself all the skills that were necessary for the game’s development by making use of free online learning resources and computer science books that he purchased online.
Kynoch plans to head to the US after school to study computer science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) or at Stanford University, and also has big plans to develop his studio headquarters abroad.
About Torus and Blast
Kynoch took roughly two years to develop the first mobile game he released. Blast is described as a top-down tank shooter with impressive 3D graphics and simple, smooth gameplay. Blast can be downloaded from the Apple App Store for free.
After Blast, Kynoch decided to take a simpler approach, and developed the first release of Torus in just six days. The game is described as “the ultimate time-killer” and is a 2D action game in which players must connect the dots and aim for the highest possible score. It’s addictiveness lies in its simplicity. Torus can be downloaded from the Apple App Store for free.
Check out a video of the gameplay involved in Torus below.