ROLLA Rolla High School senior Nathan Joraanstad has spent hundreds of hours perfecting an application for the Android phone that just went on the market Saturday.
The app is a space shoot-'em-up game called Galactic Blast, which enables users to use one finger to control where the ship is on the screen and the other finger to shoot objects. It's one of the first apps to use multi-touch technology, where users use both fingers on the screen at the same time.
"We were planning on being done by now but we decided we wanted to do a few touch-up things," Joraanstad said.
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Submitted Photo - - Rolla senior Nathan Joraanstad’s “Galactic Blast” game application for the Android phone went on the market Saturday.
Joraanstad's older brother Jake, a junior at North Dakota State University in Fargo, and some of his professors launched Myriad Devices, a technology company. They've been creating apps to earn some money to earn some capital for the company.
Joraanstad's brother knew he had some experience in computer programming because Joraanstad took a class in computer programming last year over interactive television at Rolla. Jake Joraanstad suggested his brother create some apps too.
"I was actually the one who came up with the idea for the game," Nathan Joraanstad said, but has had some help in fine-tuning the application.
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He downloaded a program called Eclipse and starting coding and hooked up his cell phone to the computer.
"There's actually a beta on the market right now a really crusty one compared to the one we're doing right now," Joraanstad said.
The beta version of the game has had about 2,600 downloads so far. The paid version of the game launched on the Web site on Saturday. Joraanstad will earn about 40 cents of every dollar that the app earns, while the company will get the rest.
Joraanstad said the time he's spent working on the app has been a good experience. He plans to major in computer engineering next year at NDSU and some of the professors who co-own the company with his brother will also be his professors.
The app can be found at (www.myriaddevices.com).