Startups

5 Million Downloads And 1 Billion Games Later, Dots Drops On Android And Kindle Fire

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Dots is to the smartphone what Snake was to Nokia feature phones 10 years ago. The game is simple, addictive, and as of today, available on Android.

The betaworks-backed mobile game has made quite the splash in the past three and a half months, raking up over 5 million downloads and almost 1 billion games played since launch. The Dots game even climbed to the top of the App Store charts in over 15 countries.

According to Paul Murphy, SVP of product at betaworks and Dots co-founder, the team spent more time building this Android version so that, with future updates, both the iOS and Android versions could be on the same pace. Dots will be available to Android users as well as Kindle Fire users.

And if that weren’t enough, there’s a new game mode available within the app that takes the second clock out of the equation. Rather than fight for the highest possible score achievable in 60 seconds, “Moves” has no time limit and instead offers 30 moves. The idea is to make the best moves for the highest score, without worrying about rushing.

Sounds like a great way to practice for multiplayer Dots, which was made available in a recent iOS update. Dots also hopped on the iPad not too long ago, so it’s good news that Android fans are going to be able to get in on the action.

Past that, Dots has brought 10 new languages to the platform including German, Spanish, French, Chinese, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and Arabic.

The Dots team, which has grown a bit with the addition of some new game developers, are keeping their heads down and focusing on new game modes. They have set up a satellite office in the Maldives, and as Murphy vaguely notes, they’ve made “billions of dollars” so far.

[Disclosure: AOL Ventures invested in betaworks, the company that made Dots. AOL Ventures is owned by AOL, who also owns TechCrunch.]

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