A pair of Newham lads who bonded over their love of gaming have launched their very own mobile app they created at a Stratford coffee shop.
Imran Bepari, 27, of Plashnet Grove, Stratford, and Jonah Gew, 26, of Dalston, met at Newham Sixth Form College a decade ago and later went on to study together at Queen Mary University.
After investing more than £2,000 and numerous hours of work, the pair launched Find Molly six months ago, with an exclusive update released in March
The free app combines the popularity of Where’s Wally? with cute dogs, challenging users to find ‘Molly’, hidden among group of similar looking animals, as quickly as possible.
Currently working as a teaching assistant at Old Ford primary school in Bow, Imran has plenty more ideas for future games and wants to carve out a career from it in the future.
He said: “I love it and hopefully one day we’ll be able to make a living from this and do it full-time.
“Since the days of the Sega Megadrive and Nintendo64 we’ve always been into games, but phones are the perfect platform for us because they’re so accessible - whenever you go there are people are glued to them.”
With hundreds of levels and different characters, the game offers puzzle-lovers plenty of scope to while away the daily commute, and has gained plenty of praise.
The game has been downloaded 3,500 times so far, but the pair are targeting 10,000 before moving onto their next project.
“It’s a hell of a lot of fun,” said Jonah. “I’d love this to become a real success and be profitable enough to quit the day-job so we can give it more focus.
“It’s also very rewarding in a sense. When you’ve been working on something for a while that you’re very passionate about come to fruition, it’s a great feeling.”
With the pair both employed in separate full-time jobs, the majority of the work for the app is done in the evenings and weekends at their respective homes.
But whenever something needs sorting out, a board meeting at Costas in Westfield Stratford City is required.
The game can de downloaded for free from Apple’s App Store.
For more information follow @FindMollyApp on Twitter.
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