What would you do if you had a million dollars? Joshua Buckley, a 19-year-old serial entrepreneur is betting a cool $1 million bucks of fresh funding on bringing his Pokemon inspired MinoMonsters to iPhone.
Buckley has created his own spin on Nintendo’s hit game Pokemon for iPhone and he intends to get a leg up on the gaming giant by focusing on mobile, an area where Pokemon games have not yet taken off.
“Nintendo has dropped the ball on these people,” Buckley told AllThingsD. “They’ve focused on their declining consoles, and the eyeballs are moving to other platforms. We are targeting people in their early to mid-20s, who have a nostalgic feeling for Pokemon.”
The iOS app that will sell for $.99, centers around users capturing and training MinoMonsters to participate in a series of one-on-one battles. The goal of the game is to protect the peace of the “legendary Kingdom of Zancardi”, but MinoMonsters faithful know that the real payoff is winning through the art of battle against friends. The game will offer both single player and multiplayer modes.
Buckley has set his sights on not only creating a mobile version of his creature feature, but on building a megabrand similar to the Angry Birds franchise. His end game is focused on turning MinoMonsters into an iconic brand and entertainment experience with ultimate plans to launch into comics, TV, and movies.
Josh told Forbes that he "Sees Angry Birds’ graphics as relatively limited compared to what he is doing and wants to do."
To accomplish the lofy task of taking on Angry Birds Josh Buckley recruited TJ Murphy, who will man the helm as president and co-founder of MinoMonsters. Murphy is well known for his role as product manager at Zynga, where he participated in the company's success on such hit titles as FarmVille, CityVille and Adventure World.
Investors participating in the MinoMonsers million dollar push include Andreessen Horowitz, SV Angel, Y Combinator, Yuri Milner, General Catalyst, Ignition Partners, Raymond Tonsing and Alexis Ohanian.
The real challenge ahead for Buckley and Murphy will be not only to capture an iPhone hit with MinoMonsters, but to rise up on the App Store leaderboard–and stay there. MinoMonsters battles its way into the iTunes App Store on December 6th. Let the games begin!
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