During last Christmas, I went through kind of a puzzle mania, and reviewed a bunch of puzzle games, representing a small number of how many I actually played on my iPhone. But I gotta say, that amongst the better ones I put my hands on were Strimko and LetsTans. Both these puzzles games came from the personal hands of Peter Grabarchuk, the man with the puzzle. I’ve been talking with him for some time about his puzzles, what makes them tick and what goes through his mind when he comes up with them. I did my research, and it seems like he is dedicated heart and soul to puzzles, on paper, on the web or on a mobile device. He plans to release a few more, so I asked him a couple of questions and he courteously accepted to answer them.

1. Tell me a bit about you and Grabarchuk Puzzles, the values and team that hold it all [...]

We haven’t released a developer interview for some time now, and I must say I was feeling a bit nostalgic about having a chance to talk to some developers and get a feel of what’s out there right now. I continue to have a strong belief in publishing these small insights in the hopes that you might find it useful and get some tips and tricks into what’s at stake when that new awesome puzzle game got released, or that much needed business app is finally on your iPhone. And who knows, some of us may even go into developing at some point and our little spotlights will serve as a good starting point.

Onto this week’s spotlight, and I decided to do it with the development team behind a small fun game like Touch Attack. It’s been a pleasure reading their insights and might I add, really insightful. [...]

You might remember a couple of weeks ago we had the evil pleasure of reviewing one incredibly funny app that made it to our Top 2 and Top 10 Round-up. It was called IMEvil. Its developers from TechPad Productions have agreed to talk to us about how he started the app and how it will develop in the future.

1. Tell us a bit about TechPad Productions, the values and team that hold it all together. What drives and motivates you? How long have you been in the business?

Dan White: We’ve been in this business for over 5 years. Ben and I have have been friends and worked together in various industries for many more. One of our favorite shared experience is video gaming and entertainment. There’s a lot of Quake, Halo and Everquest hours logged between us! [...]

We’ve managed to get a hold of the developers behind 1 to 25 and they gracefully agreed to grant us a couple of minutes so we’re brought down the Spotlight on them. The developers behind Syndicated Puzzles are Jeff Widderich and Andrew Stuart. It seems they are really into developing some awesome games and they’ve really poked the other developers that are just in it for the money. Here them out!

1. Tell us a bit about Syndicated Puzzles, the values and team that hold it all together. What drives and motivates you?

Jeff: I am the mad scientist type that pulls creative stuff out of nowhere. Andrew Stuart is a legend in the puzzle industry he is the element that turns my creativity into a manageable product.[...]

We were so excited to test Numeri this past week that the game itself made it as a regular thing on our lunch break here at Appbite.com. We’ve got to the point of organizing tournaments of who can finish the puzzle faster, although we now know that the puzzles themselves vary in difficulty. And we know this because the developers of the game have been kind enough to grant us an interview.

1. Tell me a bit about yourselves, the values and team that hold it all together. What drives and motivates you? How long have you been in the business?

Lucio&Marta: We are both software engineers, and have full time jobs. We started with the idea of making small games for kids that would stand apart with design and usability. Marta would do the design and I would to the coding. We tried really hard but didn’t reach the design level we hoped for, eventually decided to try a simpler idea, a numeric puzzle, less focused on design.

You might remember a couple of weeks ago that awesome pipe-building game that had you starring at your iPhone hours on end. It was called Toobz, and his creator, Jason Haslup from Off Center Software has agreed to talk to us about how he started developing for the iPhone, what he did with Toobz and what other games he has planned for us.

Tell us a bit about Off Center Software, the values and team that hold it all together. What drives and motivates you? How long have you been in the business?

Jason: Currently, I’m all there is at Off Center Software. It’s my “at night and weekends” job. Initially my motivation for Toobz, or any iPhone application, was that I thought it’d be fun to get an App in iTunes and see if people liked it. I never really expected more than that, nor do I now even though Toobz has had a recent upswing in popularity. That’s driving me at the moment. The motivation is what all developers hope for: people using their software and enjoying it.

As we’re getting close to our two-month anniversary, we are ready to announce a few updates to our weblog. We’re constantly trying to improve our services and to develop a close communication with you. Throughout our short-lived existence thus far, we’ve been getting some feedback about including some sort of bits and pieces from the developers minds, how they work, what they do and why they do it. We thank you, our readers for the feedback you’ve been giving us, and, without further a due, let me give you a sneak preview on the new section of our weblog.

The Developer Spotlight is the place where our team at Appbite will provide you with inside information on developers that have made headlines in the App Store. How do they manage to create these awesome apps that really make our day feel complete? What’s really going through their minds when they lay it all on paper? And what does it take to become one of them? Stay with us as we’ll be picking their brains on some controversial issues regarding the App Store, their launched apps, and what their plans are for the future.