Writer / Ashley Dykton
Gamers have to wait just a little bit longer to download the highly anticipated Hamsters Don’t Swim mobile game from Pashco Gaming.
“Pashco Gaming is an AI-driven software development company that specializes in mobile gaming. It’s really a software development company first that’s happened to do mobile gaming, and it’s different from traditional mobile gaming,” says CEO Nick Metheny.
Paul Cole is the founder and creative genius behind Pashco Gaming, which he started with his original gaming idea, Cat Attack. Since then, he has created an entire library of 19 different, unique gaming concepts to entice gamers of every age, demographic and skill level. Pashco Gaming owns the intellectual property and creates the gaming concepts and has teamed up with Triple2 Digital as its technology development partner to build the technology. Triple2 Digital is a full-service digital agency concentrating on creating game-changing software, cutting-edge hardware and managing reliable service solutions. Triple2 Digital has built a reputation as an industry leader representing prestigious companies like Netflix, Intel, Toyota and Air France.
“Fifty percent of all the code in the United States is written by AI now. What AI is not good at is developing a story and then being able to kind of piece it together where it actually makes sense. So, the designers spend less time actually writing code and spend most of their time developing the story and making sure it works the way they wanted,” says Metheny.
Currently, Pashco Gaming has the game Hamsters Don’t Swim almost near completion, with the mobile game slated to be readily available in mobile app stores by the end of the year. Hamsters Don’t Swim is a mobile game designed for players to guide a hamster through mazes while water rises. The game was previously tested on the mainstream market, where it was live on the iOS and Android app stores, with the initial test having 500,000 downloads. Through the market test, Hamsters Don’t Swim received a five-star rating among users.
What makes Hamsters Don’t Swim a unique concept is the fact that it uses AI generation instead of the traditional cloning loop, where the same gameplay repeats. With artificial intelligence, the game is constantly adapting, giving users a different experience with every play.
“Where traditional games just keep doing the same levels over and over, Hamsters Don’t Swim was actually designed to adjust and adapt through the gameplay. Hamsters Don’t Swim is a game that is basically a hamster that is going through tunnels. He’s trying to avoid drowning, he’s trying to avoid the pitfalls as he collects — they’re called golden crackers, basically food — and as he clocks, he has to clear through the stages.
The game gets, because it’s AI-driven and machine-learning-driven, progressively harder and harder as the player goes through the different levels,” says Metheny.
Right now, Pashco Gaming is in its final capital campaign.
“Pashco Gaming actually owns the IP, intellectual property, so that means there’s three revenue streams for the company. One is because they own the IP, they can actually lease that IP out to other companies, which is very big in the gaming industry. Two, we have the library of games we can develop that we can sell off or develop either as a whole group or individually. And three, the game itself is a free game, but there will be in-game purchases. In Hamsters Don’t Swim, there will be in-game purchase options, and when it releases for real, players will have the option to buy accessories for the hamster, like a hat or sunglasses, or game-helping advancements, like a jet pack to go faster through the levels,” says Metheny.
According to Pashco Gaming, mobile gaming is the future of the gaming industry because it’s less expensive and more convenient for people to access.
“Gaming consoles like Xbox, sales are struggling because the price of chips is going up dramatically. People are looking at that, saying, ‘Well, do we spend hundreds of dollars on a game system?’ And then all games, at some point, it just becomes too expensive, and we’re starting to see that happen. People look at their phone as kind of a necessity, so people go out and buy them because they use them in daily life. And then what happens is mobile games are designed to play for short periods of time. These games aren’t something you sit down and play for hours at a time. Typically, it’s when you are sitting at lunch and you’re waiting on things or at an appointment. Mobile games are designed for you to jump on and play for 20-45 minutes,” says Metheny.
Gamers should keep an eye out for Pashco Gaming’s Hamsters Don’t Swim, which should be available to download from mobile app stores soon.
