The startup with a plan to crush Candy Crush

“If we can make the creation of casual games as easy as it is to play them, I think fundamentally we can have a big, wide impact on gaming,” says Richard O’Connell excitedly.

He envisages avid mobile gamers spending “an hour a day creating something” rather than just playing, and thereby making “pocket money on the side.”

FunBlock, the startup where O’Connell works as chief marketing officer, is prepping the launch of its first-ever game, one where the likes of you and I will build all the levels. Called Funblock Factory, the Candy Crush-esque match-three puzzler comes with detailed yet finger-friendly building tools in which anyone can design levels of varying shapes and difficulty in just a few minutes.

This is the beta builder as you shape the walls and set the pieces:

Photo credit: FunBlock

And this is where you tweak other elements of your level:

Photo credit: FunBlock

O’Connell, who hails from the UK, sees it as a chance for ordinary people to make a bit of money from the US$138 billion mobile gaming industry, which is largely made up of big-name publishers such as Nintendo, King, EA, and Tencent.

“We’re excited to give the opportunity for anyone to get a slice, even a tiny slice, of that market,” he says.

Funding first

The China-based startup is now running a closed beta of FunBlock Factory on Android.

Even though there’s no set launch date for its first title, CEO Tyler Long tells Tech in Asia that he’s just pulled in US$800,000 in seed funding from Chinese game operator The9.

Originally from the US, Long is a former staffer at The9 who has spent eight years in the games industry.

That’s where the 32-year-old entrepreneur “saw the potential of user-generated content” in mobile games, as he observed the “great stuff” being made by modders in popular online games.

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Candy crushing