In Pictures: The first indie game on Kindle

Kindle, the famous ‘digital ink’ e-reader, is now hosting its first indie-developed game, in what owner Amazon is hoping will ignite interest in device as a games platform.

Weighing at 343.4kB, the black-and-white strategy title Triple Town has been built by indie outfit Spry Fox – a studio co-founded by former Xbox Live Arcade portfolio manager David Edery.

Essentially a match-three game, Triple Town currently has none of the discoverability issues that affects many App Store developers – with Apple’s platform having just recently published its 300,000th application.

However, the issue may become more complex if colour e-readers break into the market, and if the likes of tablet gaming (of which RIM and Android could follow Apple) takes off as well as mobile games.

Amazon recently launched its own Kindle Development Kit in the hope of encouraging further development. Spry Fox thinks the e-reader, as a platform, is set for great things.

Said Edery of Kindle: “I saw a platform with users who are inclined and encouraged to purchase large quantities of digital content at relatively healthy prices.

“And given Amazon’s merchandising expertise, I hoped that unlike on so many other platforms (Wiiware springs to mind as a sad example), Kindle games would get plenty of visibility and Kindle developers would have reasonable marketing tools made available to them.”

Edery adds: “We build teams around projects as opposed to hiring ever more full-time employees, and we treat the members of those teams as equals.”