Godzi Lab: Makers of iBlast Moki 2
Although Godzi Lab was founded in Los Angeles in the United States in 2009, it was actually quite an international developer. Initially describing themselves as a micro-studio, it was established by two French men, one of whom was living in the US and the other in France. The idea for the developer’s first game, iBlast Moki, came from one member’s desire to make a game based on physics and the other being a fan of puzzles.
They found inspiration in many different puzzle games, some new and some classic. Godzi Lab thought highly of the superb design of such titles as World of Goo, Bridge, Incredible Machines, and Crayon Physics. From a visual standpoint, Nintendo hits like Yoshi’s Island and Super Mario World were also influential. Ultimately, iBlast Moki would be quite different from all of those games, creating a rather unique experience that found considerable success in the still somewhat young iOS market of 2009. The game won numerous awards from publications like IGN, and review scores were nearly universal in their glowing praise.
For its next game, Godzi Lab created another unique title. The online space basketball game StarDunk proved to be a hard sell, though it at least enjoyed a decent debut. Reviews were positive all around, but the game’s concept was a little hard for people to understand at a glance and it eventually faded out. While the team had no shortage of original ideas that they wanted to try out, they also had some ideas to expand upon the concept of iBlast Moki. In the end, they opted to move ahead with a sequel to that game for their big 2011 project.
Keeping the core that functioned so well in the original game, Godzi Lab wanted to build on it with improved physics, more complex gimmicks, new items, and a more robust Create mode so that players could make the puzzles of their dreams. The game also added in more social features through its connection to the now-defunct Plus+ service which were unfortunately rendered non-functional when it was eventually shut down some years later.
iBlast Moki 2 launched on the App Store in August of 2011, and like its predecessor it enjoyed extremely positive reviews from critics and players alike. Many reviews noted the significant improvement in the quality of the level designs, and the advanced tools in the Create mode were also very popular. Apple honored it as the best of the iPhone Games category in its App Store Rewind 2011 feature. It received a couple of updates over the course of the following year. In 2019 it was updated once again and added to the GameClub library, allowing a whole new generation of players to discover this classic gem.
