Philipp Stollenmayer, aka Kamibox, is one of my favorite developers on mobile. Not only does he create absolute masterpieces like Pancake – The Game (Free), but he’s also responsible for the brilliant platformer Sometimes You Die ($1.99) and several excellent puzzle games like Squaredance (Free), Okay? (Free), and Zip–Zap ($1.99). That last one is the subject of a Game Design Deep Dive, an awesome feature over at Gamasutra that has developers explaining some of the finer points behind the games that they’ve made. The whole thing is worth a read, and is not very long, but two of the most interesting aspects I got out of it were: 1) Zip–Zap was originally a platformer and 2) that Stollenmayer actually created a really cool paper prototype of the game during development that sadly turned out to be totally useless.

That last bit of info shouldn’t be too surprising, considering that “kami" is the Japanese word for paper and Kamibox came about as a creator of papercraft toys, which I was not previously aware of. You can make these sweet toys yourself using Kamibox’s Awesome Paper Toys or Tiny Paper Zoo Plus apps. Also, Zip-Zap is currently the Apple Free App of the Week and should continue to be free for the next few days, so if you haven’t picked up the game already now is a perfect time to do so. If you end up enjoying it and feel bad for getting it free, well I can easily recommend picking up any of the other Kamibox games on mobile. And if you do end up a fan of Zip–Zap, whether from enjoying it when it launched last year or through the current freebie promotion, be sure to check out the whole Game Design Deep Dive for an interesting glimpse into its creation.